Partnership agreement to be debated

The Government has agreed to an Opposition demand for a Dáil debate on the proposed new social partnership programme which is set to be ratified later this summer.

The Opposition is also seeking more involvement by the Dáil in the negotiation of partnership deals.

Tánaiste Mary Harney told the Dáil yesterday that the debate would be held before the House rises for the summer recess next month. "I think there are issues around democratic accountability. I have acknowledged that in the House before, and I think it would be a very good thing if the House was to debate the agreement which has yet to be ratified."

She added that the Government had a majority in the Dáil, and, therefore, it negotiated on behalf of the State and the House.

"I cannot see how you could have negotiations with a whole host of parties," Ms Harney said.

Welcoming the successful conclusion of the negotiations, Ms Harney said they had been going on for quite a considerable length of time.

"Initially, it was hoped that they would be concluded before St Patrick's Day. They have now been completed with the exception of the farming pillar."

Earlier, Fine Gael deputy leader Richard Bruton said it would be churlish not to recognise the considerable work which had gone into negotiating an agreement.

"But I would like to ask the Government why it has not made any effort to address what is well recognised as a democratic deficit in the way in which this agreement is put in place. Is it not time that we had a much more transparent and open system for deciding what our priorities are for what, the Government tells us, are 10 years ahead?

"Is it not extraordinary that the Oireachtas has never been consulted about this agreement, was never consulted about, nor never debated, the last agreement, and here we are, as the elected representatives, and an agreement is being put in place and the Oireachtas has no say in it.

"It does strike me that we are being seriously bypassed. And this is not a new topic. The Government was well aware of the concern in the House about this issue before it commenced the process of negotiating a partnership agreement."

Labour deputy leader Liz McManus said it was astonishing that an agreement, to be extended over 10 years and covering a whole swathe of public policy, had not, at any point, been subject to public scrutiny.

"We still have not seen the agreement. It would certainly appear that the media has got the information ahead of the representatives of the public who sit in this House and who have been excluded from the process."

Ms McManus claimed there was "a gross deficit in democratic accountability".

Green Party leader Trevor Sargent said the House had been excluded from the process of drawing up the partnership deal.

He said there should be a vote in the House on the deal and an Oireachtas committee which would have parallel role in the drawing up of a partnership deal.

"This is a laudable objective but lacks the democratic mandate which this House brings to the proceedings." The process was not finished, given that the agriculture pillar had to be agreed, and there should be a recognition that it did not see the "elephant in the middle of the room", the energy crisis which the country was facing more than any other European country, he said.