Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The report presented to the House sets the record straight. The Minister may not have had a chance to read it. Paragraph 8 on page 26 states:

During the voting block, Members take the opportunity to speak to Ministers and other colleagues, and are therefore not always in their designated seats when the vote is taking place. As a result, the practice of Members voting on behalf of their colleagues who are present in the Dáil Chamber has developed significantly in recent years. There is a general acceptance among Members that this is not good practice and must be discontinued. Furthermore, it doesn’t align with the Constitutional requirement imposed by Article 15.11.1°

That is, voting by proxy for other Members is unconstitutional. The report confirms what we all know, namely, that we cannot allow proxy voting. A Member cannot vote for another Member, regardless of whether he or she is here. Article 15.11.1° states that the questions are decided by the votes of the Members present and voting. There are two requirements. A Deputy has to be present and actually vote in his or her designated seat.

Apart from anything else, the notion that it would be acceptable to vote by proxy would strike most people outside of the House as an absurd thought. We are sent here as a Teachta Dála, the people's representative, to vote in the name of the people we represent. The rules do not allow proxy voting, whether by persons inside or outside the Chamber. One practice is as irregular and unconstitutional as the other. There is no basis for getting hot under the collar over one and not the other. We need to put our house in order and not look at this from a partisan political perspective.

I support conclusion 4 of the report on the need for a wider review of the voting system. As I have said, my preference is for us to use the fobs or cards we all carry to access our offices and so on. Our terminals were designed for the cards and I hope it is technically possible to do that.

Before I conclude, I want to make a general point. I have been privileged to represent the people of Wexford in this House since 1987. In every Dáil of which I have been a Member, every Member has taken votes in this House most seriously and most solemnly. I have seen Governments fall over votes on Private Members' business.

I was privileged to introduce one myself in 1989 when the then Taoiseach was coming back from Japan. He rushed into the House to see if the Private Members' Bill had been passed and he would have to call a general election. Deputies will remember that most Private Members' Bills caused the Visitors Gallery to be full because people regarded votes in this House as important. Governments regarded votes in this House as important. This unique Dáil regards votes in the House as votes taken by the local debating society. The Government is defeated three or four times a week but shrugs its shoulders as if an instruction of the House, the elected Parliament, is of no consequence and no meaning. Is it any wonder Members have less respect for the results of votes in the House when decisions solemnly made by the majority of Members are entirely and routinely ignored? We have a lot to put right in this Chamber. Certainly, we must get the basics right in making sure Members cast their votes properly, publicly and constitutionally. We also need to ensure votes in this House, the Chamber of elected Deputies of the people of Ireland, have meaning and are respected as such by all those concerned, particularly the Government.

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