Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am very pleased to have taken part, along with the Chief Whip and the 13 other Members, in this sub-committee. I know it might be a little self-congratulatory and we must be careful about that, but it seems that there was universal agreement across all those who took part and that it was an excellent sub-committee. It worked very well and was an example of collaborative, non-adversarial politics. It was very ably led by the Ceann Comhairle, the Clerk of the Dáil, Mr. Peter Finnegan, and his officials who supported it in a way that worked.

I was very proud yesterday to see this draft report being published. It is not perfect. I am sure there will be suggested changes. One of the interesting and good things in this was that this was acknowledged. It sets the tone for the nature of the work in that we will try some of these things. If they do not work, we will come back and change them. That was the nature in which we started this process and that atmosphere and approach throughout our work has led to what I believe is a very good draft report. It is something I am glad to have made a small contribution towards.

I want to reflect on a couple of comments from those ten or so meetings that we had that stuck with me. One of the later comments was from a meeting in which we were making amendments the day before yesterday. If people read the recognition in the very first paragraph of the Ceann Comhairle's introduction, there was a suggested discussion around the nature of our Parliament. I believe the phrase "Parliament for the people" was a particularly welcome last-minute insertion. It was unanimously agreed across the board that, to a certain extent, we have to turn our focus outwards. We have to open up our Parliament and be as open as we can in terms of how we do our business. We have to be a citizen's assembly in every way.

Another change which came about in the latter stages of the report is the recognition in our Dáil procedures that we have to open ourselves up and be accountable and provide information about what goes on here in an accessible way. We have to work with any citizens' assemblies or constitutional assemblies that may be formed and be willing to share the democratic systems we have as widely as possible. In the end, a number of people said it during that discussion. I hope I am not inappropriately making people aware of that information, but there was a strong sense there that we are a citizens' assembly. That is appropriate and true. Anyone who has had the great fortune of being elected here cannot but have that sense as he or she walks through the gates. There is a certain sense of pride as well as a sense of responsibility that we are here as representatives of our democratic Republic and as ordinary citizens who have been lucky to get the honour of representing our electoral areas and the State.

I believe this will improve the people's Parliament. If we can implement the working mechanisms here, we will serve the rest of the citizens well.

I want to comment on some of the other elements, though by no means all. One of the interesting opportunities in this is how we manage our budgetary process. I am very keen that the proposed select committee can be established very quickly and can deliver what is being asked of it, namely, to give clear recommendations on how our budget scrutiny system will work and to set in place the establishment of the budget office.

One of the reasons that is so significant and important relates to one of the lessons I have taken from all the international reports on the economic crash that I have read, namely, one of the underlying difficulties was that we did not have enough different opinions or different people questioning the conventional wisdom. We all know how, in this Chamber, conventional wisdom can easily form, whereby everyone is chasing the latest story, sees one aspect of it and sees that aspect as the agreed, politically correct approach. It is very important, as we move towards a less adversarial, more consensual form of politics, that it actually delivers what might seem a contradiction, which is that it encourages different views and the unconventional outlook or the awkward question, and makes sure that awkward question gets answered. In regard to the budget process in particular, we need to share the responsibility for how we allocate resources and raise funding, so there is not just a response at the end of autumn to a document that is a fait accompli, and the hard questions are asked and answered by both sides of the House.

I believe this would be a very significant and healthy change. However, it would require the Opposition to step up and take a real responsibility. That is not an easy thing to do and it would put many demands on the Parliament but I believe it is something we are ready to do.

Another area where the Opposition will have to step up and take responsibility in a way that has not quite happened in the past is in regard to the provision of additional resources for our legal advisory system within the Parliament. There is also the four hours of speaking time we can now use for motions or to draft legislation that has a real prospect of being delivered. I believe this will require a major step up from this side of the House but it is one I believe we are ready and able to take. To point out the hidden aspect of this, it will also require a major transformation in the way the public service works. For all of us here, this is a significant change but, actually, the bigger change may well be how public servants relate to the Parliament because it will require that - I have to be careful here - rather than them having control of the legislative process from each Department, the legislation may be arriving in a way they have to respond to and interact with in order to make sure that whatever legislation is passed serves our people's needs. That is probably the hidden story here, namely, this is going to be as big a reform of the public service as it is of the political system.

The further empowerment of committees is very significant. The assessment of Deputy Brendan Howlin, who is a very seasoned parliamentarian - again, I have to be careful with my words - is that, in his time here, there has been a significant increase in productivity with the introduction of the committee system and the structures to support it. He said that when he was first here as a Deputy, almost all the business was done in the Chamber and very rarely was anything done in a committee room. Now, as we know, the vast majority of business is done in committees. I believe the further enhancement of committees and the attention to who is selected and how they are selected is a very important and positive step.

In the talks we have had over those ten meetings, the idea of creating parliamentarians who can be specialists in certain areas is an important development. In past debates about the public service, I remember there was always a commentary about the change from public servants being generalists to having specialist skills. While I would nod and agree, there would be a slight background sense in my own mind that it is politicians who are the pure generalists. I believe it would be appropriate for us, in the very complex policy world we live in, to develop those specialist skills, which is what is set out.

We will have to see how the formation of groups works. It may be difficult, given colleagues who have just spoken say they are unhappy with the nature of the speaking arrangements. We should heed that and listen, in order that, as the groups are formed in the next week, we can judge how they work. We can then look at this in three months or six months to see how it has developed.

To go back to my first days in the Dáil, my very first day was a desperately awkward and embarrassing one because we were engaged straight away in a row about speaking time. We took possession of the Government's front bench seats. I was mortified - my mother was in the Visitors Gallery and I was thinking, "What in God's name are we doing protesting on the first day?" However, my experience of the first Technical Group that was set up at the time with Sinn Féin and the Socialist Party was that this can actually work. We are good at collaboration in Irish politics and we know how to make this sort of consensus politics work. I believe the last seven weeks have shown this. We need to replicate this elsewhere and, if we do that, we may surprise people. As I said in a Dáil contribution a few weeks ago, this is not new politics because we have always done it. It is just better politics and, the more of it we can have, the better for the people of the country.

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