Contentious plan for powerful Dáil committee dropped

The Government is set to drop a contentious proposal to develop a powerful Dáil committee to examine legislation in place of the Seanad.

The deployment of the d’Hondt electoral system to redistribute the chairmanship of Dáil committees between the political parties is now under consideration. The Cabinet meets today and is expected to sign off on legislation to conduct the referendum in early October, before budget day on October 15th.

The Government hopes to enact the law quickly and to avert the threat of restive Senators disrupting its plans by exercising their right to delay legislation on the vote by 90 days.

Although the Seanad does not have the right to vote down legislation outright, any manoeuvre to prevent the referendum taking place on the Coalition’s chosen day would be politically damaging for the Government.

Ministers are keen to conduct the vote before the budget for fear of a voter backlash against the Government proposal after another round of spending cuts and tax rises.

Resistance
While the plan to set up a special legislative committee had been mooted as a way of strengthening the Dáil's oversight of draft laws if the Upper House is abolished, it ran into immediate resistance in both Fine Gael and Labour.

Of particular concern in both parties was the suggestion that external experts would advise TDs on this committee on legislation before it went into the Dáil for consideration by all TDs. Senators in the Government parties also expressed anxiety this would largely replicate much of the work carried out by the House.

The creation of such a committee is now unlikely to feature in measures to reform the committee system when the Government goes ahead in the autumn with the referendum to scrap the Seanad.

Instead, the Government is now examining whether to recast the system under which committee chairs are divided out between the parties.