Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate on the final draft report of the sub-Committee on Dáil Reform. I congratulate the Members all sides of the House who contributed to this important report.

I was first elected to the House in 1981. Only three Members of the class of 1981 are still in the House, with the Taoiseach having been a Member of the class of 1975. We have come a long way since, but we have come further in the past few weeks than we did in the past few decades. Back then we had to walk through the lobbies for every vote, as we did not have the electronic voting system now in place. At the time there were no select committees, which meant all Stages of Bills, including Committee and Report Stages, were taken in plenary session in the House. That did not make much sense, but that is the way business was done and we possibly make some progress.

We would not be debating this draft report if one, two or three parties had received an overall majority in the general election. Some might say we would be doing this any way, but we would not. The electorate shaped the Thirty-second Dáil which is radically different from any previous Dáil. This is my ninth time to have been elected to the House. I was also elected three times to the European Parliament and a few times to my local authority. Therefore, I very much welcome these reforms. All members of the sub-committee devoted much of their time to working together and they came up with this important document.

The option of doing business in the usual way is a non-starter. We realised this when the votes were counted and we knew what the make-up of the new Dáil would be, but this is not new to me. I am accustomed to it having spent from 1994 to 2002 and from 2009 to 2014 in the European Parliament. It had 500 Members representing an area that stretched from the Atlantic to almost the Ural Mountains, from various backgrounds and who spoke various languages, but we succeeded. There are only two languages spoken in this country and I am delighted that in the future all Bills will be produced in Irish and English simultaneously. As Members of the European Parliament, we attended various committees. Legislation initiated by the European Commission was passed to the committees and sometimes the amended legislation was almost unrecognisable when returned to the Parliament. We ensured legislation was improved as a result of our consideration.

With many others, I was invited to make a submission to the sub-committee. Drawing on my experience in the European Parliament, I took the opportunity to do so. My proposals were twofold, namely, that we increase and strengthen the role and rights of individual Deputies and provide the services required by them. There is no point in strengthening the role of Deputies unless we provide the backup services required. We must also increase the powers of the Dáil and provide for its full and meaningful involvement at all Stages of the legislative cycle. I believe we will see this happen in the coming weeks and months.

What does strengthening the role of a Deputy involve? The electoral system in Ireland is very different from the systems in place throughout Europe. There were times when we might have wished we could be elected under a list system, but I am a great supporter of the system we have in place. Regardless of whether a party is popular, it is important that the people can vote for the individual they wish to represent them. That means citizens expect their Deputy to be accessible at all times. That is the reason we are in this House. Teachtaí Dála are the eyes and ears of the people. We are messengers of the people and come here to express their views. As such, we should be accessible to represent their views and concerns in the Dáil. The system that will be in place until the final draft report is adopted by the House does not allow that to happen.

I am very impressed by the way in which the draft report is presented. It is readable, simple and understandable. It is in a language anyone can read and understand. There will be a cost, but what is the cost of democracy? Resources will be required to implement the proposals made in the report. The Secretary General will produce detailed proposals for the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission in accordance with best practice, but whatever the cost, they will be as prudent as possible. I am also impressed that there will be an opportunity, whether in six or 12 months, to review their operation. We will await the outcome of that review, but I am sure the committee that will have responsibility for reviewing their operation will be happy to make whatever amendments are necessary to ensure they are workable.

I am delighted to see the number of committees, of which there will be 23. It is important from my perspective go bhfuil coiste ansin a bheas ag amharc i ndiaidh chúrsaí na Gaeilge agus chúrsaí na Gaeltachta. Ní bheidh an coiste seo fite fuaite leis an Roinn ina bhfuil Rannóg na Gaeltachta anois. Beidh sé neamhspléach ó sin. Nuair a bhí mé féin mar chathaoirleach ar an gcoiste, bhí sé measctha le spóirt, turasóireacht agus le Gaeilge. Ní raibh sé sin maith go leor. Molaim go mór iad siúd atá ar an gcoiste seo gur mhol siadsan go mbeidh coiste ag amharc i ndiaidh chúrsaí Gaeltachta.

As I am sure many have said, the budget and finance committee is all important as is the parliamentary budget office. This is all new although, of course, the sub-committee drew on the experience of other countries. It is important to remember in speaking about the Office of the Parliamentary Legal Advisor that we currently have a facility to advise Members which is provided by the Commission through the independent Office of the Parliamentary Legal Advisor. There is backup in the House but in the past, we perhaps did not avail of it as often as we should have.

The d'Hondt system is an ideal one whereby the parties with the most Deputies will have the first choice and so on and then Members will indicate to their Whips which committees they want to sit on. I am not opposed to committees being smaller because they can be just as effective if they are but that does not deprive, as is the case in the European Parliament, any Member of the opportunity go in and make a contribution or to vote as an alternate when the full committee member is not there. The Chief Whip might look at the following, which I have read in the printout we got. It is the split between plenary and committee time. It states they will not overlap but also that committees will meet from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesdays while there will be plenary sessions of the Dáil from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesdays. Perhaps there is a typographical error there. It is only a detail.

My constituency colleague, Deputy Pearse Doherty, made reference to the following which we discussed prior to today's debate. We have a very serious situation along the coast whereby on 10 March 2016, the former Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Simon Coveney, introduced a statutory instrument on fisheries in the Houses. There are 21 days to address that. Everyone in the House, including the incoming Minister, Deputy Michael Creed, wants to ensure that can be amended. It provides that immediately someone might appear to have broken a rule, penalty points will be imposed. If he or she goes to court, the court cannot throw out those penalty points. While the Minister knows this, we do not have an opportunity to discuss it. I note to the Chief Whip that there are six sitting days left in that regard. We do not want to find a decent Minister, Deputy Creed, in an embarrassing situation given that most Members will vote to rescind it. I ask the Chief Whip to take note of it and to speak with her Minister. We like to win votes but I am anxious that we move on.

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