Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Just to repeat the point, it is important to note that no evidence was produced, in five days of trawling, that we are addressing any matter which has had any impact on deciding the outcome of a Dáil vote. The main case involves a series of divisions where the average margin was more than 45 votes. The lowest margin involved was 31. The idea that there is any question over the result of those votes, as has been asserted, is manifestly nonsense. Of course, this does not diminish in any way what has happened. What happened was wrong but it is an important point to note in the context of the debate.

As has been extensively reported, as the Clerk of the Dáil pointed out in his report and as the former Clerk of the Dáil stated in his article, practices have developed here over the years whereby it is common for Members not to be in their place during a vote and for others to press their voting buttons for them. I have, as has the Taoiseach, much of the Cabinet and a large portion of the Dáil, acknowledged doing this. Clearly it is bad practice and as the Clerk of the Dáil recommends, it should stop. A Minister or Deputy spending 20 minutes on a phone during a division is only present in theory. He or she is clearly not listening when the issue is called or statements made on the vote. Many videos have been produced which show no interaction between Deputies apparently at the back of the Chamber and those voting for them. Equally, the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, was not correct when he gravely informed the nation on Monday morning that he might have voted for a colleague, but only if he saw him or her running into the Chamber and in danger of missing the vote by a couple of seconds. At the core of what has happened here is the fact that we, unlike other parliaments, do not require Members to use a card or other device during voting and we have a common practice of Members speaking and voting from different seats. A significant number of cases have been pointed to in recent days where there is little or no visual or audible evidence of Deputies being in the Chamber when a vote was recorded from them. We have ended up with a highly partisan approach whereby we are being told that we should accept the word of some Deputies but not of others. It also appears that we have to bend all known laws of physics to accept that the Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Ring, can be in a room for ten minutes without being noticed.

I have no difficulty accepting the explanations and good faith of Deputies but what I will not accept is an attempt to impose different standards on different people. In this context, I would like to acknowledge the fact that the Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Phelan, had the good grace to withdraw the allegation against Deputy Lisa Chambers, which he so lightly made on Virgin Media on Tuesday night. As the Clerk of the Dáil's report correctly proposes and as the Ceann Comhairle has insisted, we should immediately end the practice of being able to vote for a colleague and should aim to completely overhaul our mechanism for voting. Any fair review of the situation in relation to the vote that Deputy Lisa Chambers mistakenly cast will acknowledge the similarities with that of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, when he voted for the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, when she was not in the House. The core difference is that the Members present at that time informed Deputy Ross of his error and he was then in a position to correct it. I am fully satisfied with Deputy Lisa Chamber's good faith and the apology she has made.

A substantial amount of this report addresses a series of votes cast last week by Deputy Niall Collins in the place of Deputy Dooley. There is simply no question that those votes should not have been cast. While Deputy Dooley had been in the Chamber or was near the Chamber, he was not in it and those votes should not have been cast, irrespective of the fact that they did not affect the outcome of any division. When I was informed of this matter last week, unlike the practice in other parties here, I immediately took interim action and requested that full information be provided to the review established by the Ceann Comhairle. I am satisfied that co-operation was provided and the details of the incident are outlined in full in the Clerk of the Dáil's report.

The question now is what further should be done in relation to this matter. It is the position of Fine Gael, in full co-ordination with Sinn Féin, that a significant sanction should be adopted, whether or not it is in the rules or reflects past practice. The Fine Gael-Sinn Féin coalition which saw the latter end its policy of abstensionism to vote for Fine Gael in a Seanad by-election, is alive and well. It is noteworthy that one Fine Gael source helpfully briefed a newspaper that it would be seeking an extreme sanction and an extra inquiry. To put this in perspective, what Fine Gael is seeking would mean that Dáil Éireann would introduce a greater sanction in this case than has ever been applied to a Minister who seriously misled the Dáil or to a Deputy who libelled the good name of people not in this House - innocent members of the public. That happened in this House and Deputy McDonald would know all about it. The Committee on Procedure and Privileges found that Deputy McDonald "by failing to indicate her intention to withdraw the utterances by the date specified" had, in effect, failed to address them and, in light of this, her utterances were "in the nature of being defamatory". That was the finding of a committee of this House. It found prima facieevidence of an abuse of parliamentary privilege, yet the Deputy can get up in this House and start lecturing everybody else about adhering to best practice, constitutional rights and so on. She did not care much about the constitutional rights of those people outside of this House that she defamed. She should be careful about lecturing others in that regard.

There are also issues regarding the Ministers for Health and Justice and Equality. I remember the many pleas for leniency for the Minister for Justice and Equality. He eventually came in and apologised to the House but there was no sanction even though the House was seriously misled. We know all that happened after that. Likewise, the Minister for Health had to come in and apologise. What I find particularly striking is the aggressive shouts we have heard for severe action and I contrast that with many of the episodes that happened in recent years where we received public and private pleas to be lenient vis-à-visthe behaviour of certain Ministers. I am surprised at the comments of the Taoiseach because his main bone of contention at the time was that an apology should suffice for the Ministers for Justice and Equality, and Health.

The fact that both of them have been so relentlessly personal, partisan and aggressive this week reflects more on them than on those on whom they have focused. It is also striking that the Minister for Health has directly used this issue to avoid answering legitimate questions about emergencies in the vital services over which he presides. The report in today's papers that he is a chief advocate for an early election might explain his behaviour and confirms that he is more focused on getting out of his job than actually doing it.

I took early action regarding Deputies Niall Collins and Dooley, and those sanctions will remain in place. The Deputies will also make personal statements under Standing Order 46. While what happened last Thursday was unacceptable, we must put things in perspective. This is a very serious issue but there is also a terrible homelessness crisis going on. Children are out in food queues on our streets, as revealed on the "Claire Byrne Live" programme last Monday night. Over 800 jobs have been lost at two manufacturing facilities in the past 48 hours, and the health service is in crisis across the country-----

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