Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill. To some extent, it follows on from the decision made by the House that if there is to be a citizens' assembly, it must be composed in some particular way. We are dealing with a Bill, not simply a resolution. We have not at any stage been afforded the courtesy normally extended to Members of these Houses, namely, the provision of a financial estimate of the cost involved in establishing a citizens' assembly. Resolutions do not have to be the subject of such a provision. However, when I was a Member of the Dáil - I presume this is a general rule - it was regarded as a courtesy to Members that should a proposal involve necessary expenditure on the part of the taxpayer, some estimate of the cost should be given to those voting on the issue before they make their decision.

The proposed citizens' assembly will be obliged to deal with hugely disparate topics. The only reason I mention that - I do not want to be out of order on this - is because, by any standard, if it does its work at all competently and carefully, the assembly will be in operation for a number of years. If it is to operate on the same basis as the previous convention did in Malahide, it will cost a great deal of taxpayers' money.The money that will be spent on this citizens' assembly could be spent in the health service on providing home help for people who are currently having that service curtailed. It could be spent on housing the homeless and on other issues. The question we must ask ourselves, in this and the other House when a proposal is put before us, is whether it represents value for money. Are we going to assemble 99 randomly chosen citizens who, as I said, are not randomly chosen because the great majority of people will not be in a position to commit to the time involved when they are approached to participate in this process? It will be a self-selecting group to some extent. Are we in a position to work out if what they will do over a two-year extended period on disparate topics such as, at the one end, global warming to, on the other, fixed term parliaments and the other utterly vapid proposal as to how we deal with referenda in this society represents value for money?

It seems the Government in proposing this morning's resolutions and this afternoon's legislation has not told us what this will cost us. It has not told us how many people will be deprived of home care as a result of the establishment of this institution. Those are basic things we should know about when we make decisions. I do not know whether the Minister of State has been given those figures; I do not know whether he has an estimate of the cost. We should be able to extrapolate it from the Constitutional Convention but we have to move outwards from that and ask how long this process will take. How long will the assembly spend considering climate change? If it is going to consider it over a few months, the people involved might as well stay in their homes and not bother checking into the Malahide hotel or wherever they will be sent. If they are going to consider the way in which referenda are conducted, whatever that means, or whatever it is the code for, they will have to spend some time on it. Expert advice will have to be arranged for them. Who will pay for all of that? With the greatest of respect, the Minister of State coming in here to amend the electoral law in order to allow the register to be used in this process is a bit rich when we do not know what is the cost of it.

To return to a point that was made in this morning's proceedings, the process of engaging with people to determine whether they are willing to participate in this assembly will involve selection criteria. Will a questionnaire be sent out to these people? Will they be asked about their availability? Will they be asked about their interest in any of these topics or will they be convened, regardless of whether they are completely bored by the idea of spending two years, or whatever period, talking about this disparate group of topics? Will we be told about the number of people who were approached and refused? Will we be told about the exact criteria that were used to send those people out a request to participate in the first place? What geographical spread will be put in place? It is deeply unsatisfactory that we should be kept in the dark about all of those matters. However, above all, the cost of the process is something that should be known to us now. I know it cannot be estimated to the exact euro or cent in advance, but I would like to have a view as to how much has been provided for this process and over how long. Clearly, we will have a view about how long it is intended that this assembly will sit if we know how much money is being provided for it. If we do not know how much money is being provided for it, then we are being kept in the dark about the timeframe that lies at the back of the decision. I assume there was a memorandum for Government to approve these two resolutions and I assume that memorandum stated how much the assembly was projected to cost and how long it was projected to remain in existence. I believe we are entitled to know those things before we agree to them in this House.