Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta Mattie McGrath as ucht a chuid ama a roinnt liom.

I will not go over all the details of what happened. It is clear that two Fianna Fáil Deputies voted twice. It is clear that they voted for themselves and for other Deputies who were outside the Chamber. On what planet is that okay? A child in school would understand that it is wrong for anybody to vote twice. If there was a citizen in a polling station, this would be called plainly and simply voter fraud, and yet we are told that the Deputies whose professional job is to uphold the democratic structures of this State could not work out whether this was right or wrong. We heard the Fianna Fáil leader equivocate over the importance of this issue. It is also clear that when the Deputies were asked initially to come clean on this issue, their first instinct was to hide their wrongdoing and not to tell the truth.

Every year, we hear Deputies in this Chamber call laudably for Dáil reform. Everybody is always calling for Dáil reform but what Members do not realise is that most of the reforms that are necessary are in the gift of the political parties themselves. The standards and behaviour of the Dáil are in the gift of the leadership of the political parties, which are responsible for what their Deputies are involved in. Deputy Micheál Martin cannot, on the one hand, call for Dáil reform and then remain practically passive about what is happening in his own political party. He cannot call for accountability in other political parties and then simply give a gentle clip on the ear to his own Deputies for breaking constitutional law. It is incredible that we get into this fervour about investing tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of euro to change voting systems and introduce new technology in this Chamber when all we must do is the bleeding obvious and make sure that the Deputies are accountable for what they do in this Chamber.

Last night, I had a debate with Deputy Lawless of Fianna Fáil on "The Late Debate". I asked him whether it was right if a Deputy breaks constitutional law in multiple votes such as this that he or she should lose the whip, and he replied that was absolutely the right thing to do. He seems to have a different standard from the Fianna Fáil leader on this particular issue.

There is no doubt that this issue has evolved into farce. People are talking about what shoes or boots are visible on Ministers on the television.

There is no doubt as well that the people who are consumed with housing, health service waiting lists, hospital trolleys, transport crisis and the regional imbalance in the country will look at this farce here today and ask how is this helping their situation.

The new politics of the so-called confidence and supply agreement has radically devalued the House's voting system. On a regular basis, Deputies come in and vote for Private Members' Bills and majorities are attained, yet the Government completely ignores those democratic votes. The Government is basically challenging the democratic will of citizens. They are laughed at by the Government. Those Bills get to Third Stage and then disappear into a black hole where nothing happens.

Undoubtedly, votes in this Chamber have also been devalued by the fact that the Government loses them day in, day out. It would have been front page news at one time if a Government lost a vote and yet it loses them regularly, which is shocking. It is easy to diminish what is happening here but the individual votes we cast are the practical delivery of the democratic will of the people and we need to respect that.

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