Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thought there might be more thoughts on the subject from other Members. Senator Fitzpatrick referred to the duplicity of the former Taoiseach in how this House was dealt with. That is a tough term to use, but it is remarkable that he paid for a Bill to be drafted and then said he had no interest whatsoever in the scheme. It is certainly remarkable that he came in here on 1 February 2018, promised reform and did nothing about it.The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, came here and told us he would set up a process, a committee among the Government parties, to consider the Manning issue and that never happened.

These things are remarkable. It is remarkable that the very limited scrutiny of EU measures, which was simply an air traffic control to alert sectoral committees and joint committees in the Houses of the Oireachtas of material to which their attention should be drawn, has been sunk on the foolish contention that the Government cannot waive a privilege it claims in respect of draft statutory instruments. That is childish nonsense and legal rubbish. We have seen it before. We saw it with the occupied territories Bill. We were told it was impossible under European law to do it. They are going to do it now, folks. We can get advice that something is impossible and then find that it is possible when it suits.

Reference has been made to the university seats in the Seanad legislation. That "reform" was one which the Government sent the Attorney General into the Supreme Court to oppose. Let us be clear about this. This was not something the Government chose to do; this was something it opposed in the courts and tried to stop. It wanted to leave things exactly as they were in relation to the university seats. There is one instance of cynicism on the Government's part. This is probably the last instance of it. Senator Fitzpatrick is a fine parliamentarian and does not argue against the principle; she just says she is not persuaded by it. Well, what am I to say about that? What would it take to persuade her of that?

People may have forgotten this but when we had the golf-gate crisis, the Ceann Comhairle in the other House decried that everybody was present at a certain dinner in Clifden in the most trenchant terms and implied they had let down the Oireachtas. The Government of the day believed it had the right to contact Senator Buttimer, the then Leas-Chathaoirleach of the House, and tell him to step down. The Government thought it had the right to say to this House, "By the way, we are directing your officer to step down". That shows where the Government considers the real power lies. Senators Buttimer and Mark Daly are fine Chairs and their predecessors have been fine people. They take their jobs seriously, and I do not denigrate them at all. However, I believe we should trust the Members of this House to make the best judgment in their private minds as to who should be Chair. By the way, in case anybody thinks I have an ambition to be a Minister, I do not. In case anybody feels the people who proposed this imagine themselves being Cathaoirleach of the Seanad, they do not. They merely took Leo Varadkar's statement that he wanted this to happen at face value and were naïve enough to ask the Committee on Parliamentary Privileges and Oversight to have the necessary rule changes drafted extremely well and are naïve enough think that if they brought them forward, they would be given a fair hearing. They were not and they were given no reasons.

Senator Kyne has given no reason either. He gave some background to the decision in the Dáil but gave no reason as to why it was wrong for Deputy Connolly to be made Leas-Cheann Comhairle of the Dail if that was the free choice of the majority of that House. No reasons have been offered here today, except that one very fine parliamentarian has said she is not persuaded. I have to press the matter.