Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State talked about scrutiny of this legislation and he will be well aware that the next step in the legislative process is pre-legislative scrutiny. If he had responded to my contribution as opposed to just reading the script, he would have heard me say that the next step would allow us to really scrutinise the implications of the recommendation of the Convention on the Constitution, which was to amend Article 17.2 of the Constitution. He would have heard me say that we would have the ability to bring in constitutional experts from home and abroad to look at the implications, and to ask the question of whether it is a good or a bad provision at this point in time, and whether it muzzles and stifles debate in our democracy. That is the next step.

The Minister of State, or at least the officials who drafted his speech, try to present this as coming out of the blue. It did not come out of the blue. This has been in the ether for seven years. This was dealt with by the Convention on the Constitution. Are the Minister of State, his officials or those in the Department of Finance - it is a pity the line Minister is not here - genuinely suggesting that the Convention on the Constitution did not give this adequate scrutiny, did not listen or did not weigh up properly the different types of testimony that was received at that convention over a period of days? I quoted some of the testimony, for example, that of the professor from London who was surprised that this provision was still enacted in this State.

The Minister of State says this is essential in terms of the balance, and I can understand some of the argument. However, this is not the case in all modern democracies across the world. As I said, this was a throwback to the issue of colonialism. If this was amended or repealed, it would be for us, as legislators, to set our Standing Orders. The Standing Orders are not something we can freely choose in this case; they have to be in line with the Constitution, and the Constitution, as a result of Article 17.2, places strict criteria on this House in terms of what type of Standing Orders we could have in this regard. It might be the case that there would still be strict prohibition in regard to amendments on final stages of legislation that would have a charge on the people or not. However it is the height of ridiculousness, in my view, that Members of this House and, in some cases the majority of the House, as, for example, under the last Government, could hypothetically want to decrease a charge on the public or, indeed, increase a charge on the people, which would bring in additional revenue to the State, and we would not even be allowed to debate that.

This provision in the Constitution has prevented elected representatives of this House from even introducing legislation on First Stage, from even talking about what type of safeguards we, as a Parliament, could or should put in place to make sure it was adequately scrutinised and that it had passed whatever hurdles needed to be passed. We cannot make sure, as the Minister of State said, that there would be no disruption to the economy, and that it would properly be thought out and teased out before enactment of any amendment or resolution. The idea that we cannot even debate, as legislators, or cannot even publish legislation is beyond belief and is taking this to the extreme.

I said in my opening contribution that I was not aware where the Government was going to go with this but, as I said, it is the instinct of Government to vote against this legislation, and not only to vote against it, but to not even allow it to be discussed at the next stage. The Government can decide not to allow this legislation to proceed after the scrutiny but what it is basically doing tonight, through its vote, is exactly what Article 17.2 of the Constitution does. It stops and stifles debate and it prohibits the Opposition from even being able to discuss in a proper way the proposals that it has. That is deeply regrettable.

There are buzzwords that fly around this place. They usually fly around after an election, and “new politics” was the one after the last election. By God, this is the same old politics. This is the Executive saying, “You will not go any further.” We have this scenario and it will be just as ridiculous over the coming months. Members of this House pass their own legislation. I have passed two pieces of legislation and enacted them into law. Key provisions of one of my pieces of legislation will come into effect later in September. I have another piece of legislation that will be before the House on Tuesday and other pieces that are on Committee Stage. Therefore, I am familiar with the legislative process and I am also familiar with how to get legislation passed, despite Article 17.2. However, let me say clearly what I think every Member of the Opposition and, indeed, Government Members know, as many of them were there themselves, namely, this is an outdated provision. If it is not repealed, it should be at least amended. If the Government is not even willing to go that far, I would appeal to it to at least allow it to be discussed. That would show respect to the members of the Convention on the Constitution who sat between 2012 and 2014, held their deliberations, listened to the experts, voted on the matter and believed that Article 17.2 of the Constitution needed to be amended.

I will leave it at that. It is deeply disappointing to hear what the Government has said.

The Government can talk all it wants about parliamentary reform and all that stuff; they are just more buzz words. However, when we are dealing with legislation there is so much acrobatics with reports on this and that, it is just nonsense. The fact that none of the more than 70 Opposition Members of this House could not even change a date in legislation last week screams loudly that there is a problem with Article 17.2. Until this article is either amended or repealed then we in this House will be unable to relax our own Standing Orders to allow for consideration at least at an early stage and debate our proposals. Instead, we cannot even put those proposals forward because of this article.

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