Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is really about dismantling the Constitution and a grab for power. The Dáil should have been reformed first, and the promises of such reform were to reduce the numbers of Deputies by 20 and the number of junior Ministers by eight. I am not referring to the Minister of State before us, I hasten to add. If that had happened, the issue of the cost of this House would not arise.

Daniel O'Connell fought for Home Rule all his life and his political life's work ended in failure because Home Rule was not achieved in his lifetime. There is a portrait near the Dáil staircase of the first Lord Oriel, John Foster, who did not believe in Catholic emancipation or that any Catholic should sit in an Irish Parliament. He did not even believe they should have had the vote, but his portrait is in a place of honour in these Houses because, as the last Speaker of the old Irish Parliament, it was his job to read the result of the vote of the Act of Union, which he fought long and hard to try to prevent. He fought those who accepted bribes, titles and land, and he succeeded with the first vote before failing on the second. As he read the result and went to take the mace that symbolised that the Parliament was in session, he believed he would some day have the honour of bringing that mace back to the House of Commons and the House of Lords, which was just over the road from us. It took 118 years to bring a Parliament back. Many people like Daniel O'Connell, who fought to bring it back, were not able to achieve it in their life's work.

In the past two and half years we have seen a loss because the Government legislated for a 40% reduction in representation, at local authority level, by the dismantling of town councils. If today's proposal goes through we will lose one third of the Parliament and a democratically elected body.

My colleague, Senator Brian Ó Domhnaill, pointed out the loss of the democratically elected members of Údarás na Gaeltachta who were replaced by experts, as is proposed for Seanad Éireann. If Údarás na Gaeltachta is an example of how experts will be picked then they will all have some link to the Government. If Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin or some other party were in power, in years to come, the same thing would happen and supporters of the Government party or parties would be appointed in our place. Such people will replace the Seanad just as was done with Údarás na Gaeltachta.

We have yet to see the Dáil or the legislative process reformed. The Leader has heard me talk about our lack of legislative scrutiny many times. The real work of the Parliament and this House is not to block legislation but amend it. We have witnessed a democratic deficit on a monumental scale that has not been addressed. In one calendar year 1,291 EU regulations were brought into this country and Ministers signed 164 EU directives without referring to the Dáil, the Seanad or the committees and passed the legislation without scrutiny. In one calendar year we have seen 594 statutory instruments, that can amend legislation, passed by this House without ever being referred back to this House. That is a national democratic deficit of monumental proportions. Ministers use statutory instruments to change and amend primary legislation. As many as 28,000 statutory instruments have been signed since the foundation of the State but 25% were signed in the past ten years. There is more and more centralised power, by the Government, resting in the hands of the few in Cabinet.

We have seen Bills guillotined. The previous Government could also be accused of guillotining Bills. We know, at this moment in time, that Bills are being guillotined at an alarming rate. We have also seen the impact of regulatory impact assessments. They are supposed to be carried out in advance of legislation to see how will it impede business, and how they will improve or disprove the current situation when it comes to regulations and red tape in this country. The Government has produced virtually none. When I asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform about how many regulatory impact assessments, RIAs, had been carried out on legislation by his Department in two and a half years, his reply was “One”.

We are tied up in red tape. We need to cut it in terms of job creation. When a report was conducted on Valentia Island, which has a population of 600 people, we found that removing red tape in terms of planning and foreshore licences could create 72 jobs. That number would be badly needed in any community were it not for red tape.

Secondary legislation, for example, statutory instruments, is amending primary legislation without being referred by Ministers. There is a little known term called the King Henry VIII clause, which gives Ministers the power to change legislation passed by the Houses without referring it to the Deputies or Senators who passed it in the first place. Does this sound like a functioning democracy? Does it sound like a republic or Legislature that is working? It most certainly does not.

There is a significant absence of scrutiny, which we need to change. Instead of considering a Bill like this, we should be considering the opportunities afforded to us. Many Senators have discussed the democratic process and the question of people in the North. I have referred to how long and hard we struggled to achieve the vote for all citizens. Daniel O’Connell fought for Home Rule and achieved Catholic emancipation 184 years ago. Women fought for and won the franchise only 95 years ago. In Derry, people marched 45 years ago for one man, one vote. This is how hard and long the struggle has been to achieve the vote.

However, not all citizens have that vote. As has been pointed out by other Senators, only those in the North who came to the South for an education in certain universities have the right to vote in our election. Under our Constitution, they are entitled to be citizens. The first benchmark of any republic is whether it gives its citizens the right to vote.