Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Two wrongs do not make a right. I am not here to defend anybody. I have no difficulty in saying how stupid and wrong it is to be wasting resources like this. From a constituency perspective, no county boundary should ever be breached. I am in a constituency, as is Senator Comiskey, where Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim and Cavan will form one constituency. That is a disgrace. There is no guarantee for any of those counties to have a Deputy from their county representing them. It is a disgrace. It is not in keeping with the constituency. There was a ruling in 1965 but it should be challenged by any Government to ensure there is a minimum of one Deputy in each county and a minimum of representation that does not result in a county being sliced in half or in three, as the case could be, and it not having any representation. That is one aspect that should be stated as wrong.

As soon as the Ministers ditched the State cars and went on the bus to Farmleigh to impress us all, what did they do? They reverted to type. Four Ministers in Cabinet run the entire show. The rest are told to do what they are told and if they do not like it, they can get out because there are people who want to take their place. Sadly, that is the reality. Lucinda knows all about that. Dare a Minister go against the Taoiseach or Tánaiste on abortion and out they will go and they can set up their own party. That is what political reform means to this Government. It does not want any dissension, debate or political reform. Parliament is subservient to the Cabinet of the day and that is why the public has zero confidence in our political system.They will never have a sense of ownership of the policy platform until they can see the message they give to the likes of Senators Michael Comiskey and Denis Landy being delivered in the shape of legislation. In reality, they cannot do that because unless they can get to the four men up top, they have no hope. If party members go into a meeting in the parliamentary party room of the Labour Party or Fine Gael and tell the Minister they do not like something, they will be told: "This is what we are doing and this is why. Now get out." I know this because I was in such meetings when we were in Government and it was, sadly, the same. We got our answer in the form of 56 seats so it is stupid in the extreme to make the same mistakes again. However, that is the practice. Why? It is because Parliament is subservient to the Cabinet or the stronger personalities within Cabinet at a given time.