Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to contribute to this debate as I believe it is an important one. Like other speakers, I take on board the fact that many people put a lot of work into this. Much of it is very positive and it is a step forward. I will preface that by saying this is not happening because we wanted it to or because anybody in this room wanted it to. We know if that had been the case, it would have happened in the Thirtieth Dáil or in the Thirty-first Dáil. It is happening in the Thirty-second Dáil because the people have spoken. The people explicitly rejected the Fine Gael majority and the party was returned 50 seats.They also rejected the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil got the second worst vote in its history. The people have said to the major parties that they are not accepting what they have had before. They want change. That change has to be reflected in the Dáil and in the structures of the Dáil.

In some ways, we have come a good way on this. I thank everybody who was a part of the sub-committee, including Deputy Pringle, who played a role from our point of view. We have to move away from the idea that "might is right". The people spoke on 26 February and the result has reflected that view.

The good points in this document involving parliamentary questions, the pre-budgetary committee and the way in which expertise will be used to support Deputies in technical groups with tabling legislation are all very positive. There is an aspect at the end of the document about whether the prayer should be changed to a moment of reflection. I ask the sub-committee to take that on board and have a moment of reflection rather than a prayer. Everybody could do their own thing within that space, whatever their religion, creed or non-religion. I am tired of walking to the back of the Chamber every time we have prayers. I believe that would be good.

The important part of this, as my colleagues have said, is what has changed since two weeks ago. As Deputy Thomas Pringle pointed out, there was an acceptance of majority groupings of over 20 Members, middle groupings of between ten and 19 Members and smaller groupings. That was to be reflected in the Leaders' Questions and the parliamentary questions. Leaders' Questions are a very important aspect of the Dáil in calling the leader of the minority Government to account. Parliamentary questions are another important aspect of this Dáil. How has that mid-group of ten to 19 gone from having two questions down to one question during Leaders' Questions and from five parliamentary questions every two weeks down to two parliamentary questions every two weeks? Why have we reverted back to the precedent being given to the parties and not to the technical group majority?

This goes back to a point I made a couple of weeks ago with regard to the formation of the minority Government. In the famous book by Lampedusa, The Leopard, in Garibaldi's time the middle class realised they were on the back foot. The famous quote is, "For things to stay the same, everything must change". There is a lot of change here but the absolute kingpin of this is how we operate and how we respect the different voices and parties in the Dáil from that point of view. We will be looking for an amendment to reflect what we are putting forward here. We want that to be taken on board before we come to the Dáil next Tuesday. Otherwise, we will have difficulty supporting what is in general a step forward towards the new era that we are supposed to be facing into. The devil is in the detail and that detail must be addressed. I would welcome the point of view of the Chief Whip.

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