A strategy to reform Irish political space

VB: You were not long a TD (elected first in 1987 and again in 1989) when you instigated a heave against Charles Haughey in 1991. Who put you up to it?

ND: Nobody put me up to it. I wasn't happy with some of the things that I saw going on in the 1987-1991 period. Although we were encouraged to make our views known at parliamentary party meetings, once anybody did so they were isolated. Coalition (with the Progressive Democrats in 1989) was really the first thing that I would say I took a line that caused problems with the leadership (i.e., Charles Haughey) at the time.

VB: You were opposed to coalition?

ND: I was opposed to coalition at that particular time. I was also fairly vocal, publicly as well as privately, on the Broadcasting Act in '89 and I was vocal when Brian Lenihan was being shafted during the presidential election campaign of 1990. I recall an argument in the party about extradition at one stage as well and we took a particular line.

VB: What line did you take on extradition?

ND: I had no problem with the principle of extradition but it was at that time, I think, it was almost carte blanche, extradition. We said what we had to say and the legislation was subsequently changed after the parliamentary party meeting. Some of the more senior members of the party at that time took a very dim view of the internal opposition. Now I wasn't on my own, I'm not saying that I was the only one, there were maybe six or eight of us. Then, in the previous summer there were controversies about Carysfort and the Telecom site and a whole series of things that happened then. I was certainly very uncomfortable about it; I think there were other people in the party as well. I think the final straw, if you like, was the famous interview that was done (by Charles Haughey) where reference was made to Chinese leaders going on for quite a considerable period of time. Five of us, the identity of one of the five has never been disclosed and I am not going to disclose it now, had had enough, somebody had to say something about it and see if we could change things.

VB: We won't go back over the Albert Reynolds government, when you were chief whip, and the fall of that government. Let's get into the issues you have been pushing over the last few years, first that of electoral reform. You argue the Dβil doesn't do its business because TDs are obsessed with protecting their home base, particularly against colleagues in their own parties. But it seems the primary difficulty with the Dβil is that the party political system has screwed it up. That you are not allowed step out of line, you have almost no input into legislation, it's presented to you as a fait accompli and your ability, particularly as a Government backbencher, to influence the way things area going, is almost zilch.

ND: A colleague of mine said to me some time ago in relation to my proposals about electoral reform: "I'm a backbencher and there's no (expletive deleted) way that I'm going to be content to be cannon fodder if I'm not on the local authority, if I'm not looking after the local constituency and I'm supposed to be a national legislator. I'll be in there asking questions of Ministers, Government, the same as I would have in Opposition."

I am absolutely convinced if we put the necessary reforms in place, the whole system that we have will change, it will have to change. At the moment, backbench deputies are content to do what they're doing because they have satisfaction in their work outside of the Dβil. They will not be content to put up with the kind of party discipline we have known if the system changes and that will be for the better. It might not be comfortable for governments or for ministers but it will be for the better overall.

VB: What's happened to the electoral reform proposals? It seems to be buried.

ND: It's in the constitutional committee but in effect it seems to be buried. I was talking about this a couple of weeks back, I think one of the problems in politics in Ireland at the moment is that there is no political debate.

These are issues that do need to be debated. I'm not saying that my solution is the absolute and only solution but I think we should be engaging in debate on these things. For one reason or another politicians on all sides don't seem to want to engage in it.

VB: Did Bertie Ahern indicate support for the idea?

ND: I'll let him indicate that for himself one way or the other.

VB: Can I rephrase the question? Were you happy that Bertie was supportive of the idea?

ND: Can I put it to you this way, I'm still in the job that I'm in. I haven't been moved.

VB: You proposed that people elected to the Dβil would cease to be members of local authorities. That's gone by the by as well. Were you happy with the way that the Government and Bertie Ahern particularly caved in to objections from the Independent TDs?

ND: I don't think that would be a fair assessment. The Government made a decision at the end of the day on this, that there's work to be done for the next 12 months and that we would not be sure of the support of the Independents if we pressed ahead with this. It was practical politics. I mean, I'm very disappointed that they didn't go ahead.

VB: Did you want to push ahead regardless of what the Independents wanted?

ND: I wanted to push it as far as I possibly could which I did and eventually, when there was no budge, no movement or anything else, I accepted the inevitability of it and that's God's honest truth on it.

The assessment that I got at the time, I was at home at the time with illness, but the assessment I got was that, while we'd win on the local government Bill and the dual mandate, that it would shorten the life of the Government.

VB: Who gave you that assessment?

ND: The Chief Whip and the Taoiseach, on the basis of the contact they had with the Independents.

VB: You have recently launched a set of proposals which, forbiddingly, are called spatial strategy. As I understand them, what you are saying is Dublin is becoming bloated and unmanageable and we have got to devise ways of attracting people to live in other parts of the country. That's fine but when the Government continually avoids hard decisions on transport and housing for instance, it's all rather pointless isn't it? There's no resolution, for instance, to take on the car lobby, to adopt policies that would be car unfriendly?

ND: The most frightening thing about the "do nothing" scenario as opposed to the spatial strategy is that figure of a million people extra in the country by 2020 and 800,000 of these additional people being in or around Dublin. That would lead to the total loss of quality of life in the Dublin area. The spatial strategy is designed to spread that development out over the whole country. The car has to be tackled and it has to be tackled in Dublin.

There are a range of things that are being looked at by the DTO (Dublin Transportation Office). There has to be a greater provision of public transport which is planned for the greater Dublin area and for the other towns and cities. It is true in the past we didn't make the decisions or take the hard decisions in relation to these issues. Sometimes because we hadn't the money to implement them but sometimes we chickened out politically. But we've laid out the national development plan and you see all the ructions that's over the roads development and the waste management and so on. The hard decisions are being made but the public have to support that as well.

VB: There are no unfriendly motor car policies.

ND: I wouldn't agree with that. There are some, there are not enough and there are others that need to be done. Some of them, like the restriction of car parking spaces, are beginning to take effect. The major difficulties dealing with a car in Dublin up to this or up to quite recently has been the lack of a proper public transport infrastructure. I think that that is now being tackled and I think as the infrastructure is going in, whether it is the QBCs or the Luas or the improvement in the main line rails, the kind of policies that you're talking about will have to be tackled. One of them in particular has already been reported and the DTO are looking at that report - this idea of the cordon around the centre of the city and actually charging people for the road space that they use when they come in and out of the city.

VB: A feature in the Dublin area is the number of car parks there are and car parks for public servants all over the place - there's ESB, Trinity, Four Courts. . .

ND: Some even on the Custom House (where the Department of the Environment is located), not too many.

VB: Why don't you deal with that and stop it?

ND: I have to say that I was delighted when we started off and the Minister for Finance said that he was going to impose a tax on car park space, car park spaces in Dublin where he was looking to have the study to bring forward the report. I'm disappointed that the report hasn't come forward yet, I have to say, because it's three years ago.

VB: What politicians have you admired?

ND: Parnell is one that I admired in history and I think Lemass for his vision, Garret FitzGerald as well for the vision that he had but I'd have to say that I often felt that he wasn't practical enough to implement the vision. I think Albert Reynolds - from the point of view of the single-minded determination that he showed in the peace process. Currently in the Dβil, I would mention Jim Mitchell who has radical ideas about changing the system. But much of this gets obscured by party political petty point scoring, which does politics a lot of damage.