Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

Senator Boyle feels there should be a cosy consensus in this House but the role of Fine Gael is to offer constructive opposition. The two Government parties have more than enough of a majority to look after their own interests. Someone must stand up for the people and show them there is also democracy here. Fianna Fáil in recent years had no problems showing it is happy for the rule of this State to go back to Dublin Castle, completely ignoring the proceedings in this House and in committees. If the Government thinks we will play along with such gombeen democracy, it can think again.

The Green Party is tied to this Government. To talk about what it would like to do and what it thinks should be done is rubbish. It should be telling us what it will do in government and how it will achieve it. We have set out our proposals clearly. I ask Senator Boyle, instead of sneering and mocking, to tell me why public appointments are not run by Oireachtas committees. Why are people who are appointed to State boards not vetted by committees to say why they are suitable for these positions? If the Green Party is so firm in its beliefs in transparency and gender equality, can it not tell its Government partner what it wants? Why is so much of the business of these State organisations and quangos not open to freedom of information requests? Too much of this is kept away from the public. That is the accountability, transparency and democracy that the people of this country want.

Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats doubled the number of quangos in the ten years it was in power. In the current programme for Government, the Green Party envisaged the establishment of another 17 quangos. More important, how many quangos has it axed? How many of the changes which the party feels so strongly about have been made? The language is beautiful — Senator de Búrca obviously has a good researcher — and the desires are admirable but action speaks louder than words. That is what Fine Gael would like to see. We want to see quangos merged. We did not envisage the establishment of new organisations. Even the Green Party joined the Fianna Fáil attack on our proposals but they were not to establish new quangos, they were to merge the existing organisations, making them more accountable and forcing them to act the way the people want them to act. It is straightforward and it can easily be done.

Senator Boyle and the Green Party pretend to believe in this cosy approach to politics, even though they are as hard-nosed about politics as any other party. The most recent commissions that were set up by the Minister for Health and Children to look at health service reform and universal health insurance did not include phone calls to Opposition parties asking for nominations to them. The Government has no interest in the slightest in consensus or in asking Opposition Members if they would like to offer their views on these proposals.

Fine Gael will hold the Government to account on the changes it has introduced. This Government has been in power for two years and many of the proposals Senator Boyle is discussing now formed part of Green Party policy before the last general election. Many of the same issues have become even more serious, reaching crisis level in the past 12 months in terms of reform of the public service and making accountability a reality in all State and semi-State organisations. The delivery of those changes, however, is the most important thing and I have not seen any realistic change.

I have no problem supporting Green Party proposals for radical reform of the public service but there will be no cosy consensus on this side of the House. The Green Party should put forward serious proposals the next time it has Private Members' business, such as restoring freedom of information. Senator Boyle was a Member of the Dáil when that legislation was passed and opposed it as strongly as I did, saying that restricting the Freedom of Information Act would have a detrimental impact on the importance of democracy in our country. We could reverse that legislation for a start. The Green Party could force its partners in government, which has a Dublin Castle mentality and does not want to give information to the public, appoints its cronies to State boards and is too tied up with bankers and developers, where a small group of people dictated what happened in this country, to reopen freedom of information. That might help win back the trust of the public, which is starting to think all politicians are gangsters and crooks, which is not the case.

It is simple: no Government appointment should be made to any board without that appointment being put before the relevant committee. It does not require legislation; it simply requires anyone who is to be appointed to a board to submit himself to the committee to have his case examined. If the Green Party believes in that, let us see it act. It could amalgamate certain agencies and abolish others that have no impact on the rights of the people. We have identified a number of agencies that have no reason to exist at present but we have not seen similar action from the Government. There has been a lot of talk about quangos and the need to get rid of them but we have not seen a list of what the Government would like to get rid of.

All it has got rid of are those organisations that have become too self-confident in the way they took on the Government in recent years. The Equality Authority is being shut down and the Irish Human Rights Commission is being amalgamated with the Department. Perhaps the Government was getting a little uncomfortable with the results the organisations were producing. That is not reforming quangos but continuing the Dublin Castle mentality of the Fianna Fáil Party, a result of it being in power for so long.

The Green Party should not allow itself to become Fianna Fáil-light over the next few years. It is under threat as it already sounds like Fianna Fáil-light. The party leader submitting himself for a photograph when Deputy Bertie Ahern was resigning as leader of the Fianna Fáil Party shows the party is moving in that direction a little too quickly for its own good. It is time to pull back.