If there is one topic designed to put the public to sleep it is the matter of Dβil reform. Yet if Parliament is to adapt and stay relevant, reform of the sometimes archaic procedures of Dβil ╔ireann is essential. Rather than try to engage a largely uninterested public the parliamentarians should get on with it. The public will only notice if we succeed.
One innovation that some of the public at least have noticed is the emergence of a system of parliamentary committees. Specifically, inquiry by parliamentary committee is a novel development that has attracted public attention and some approval. In particular the DIRT inquiry at the beginning of the lifetime of this Dβil certainly struck a chord with the public. This particular parliamentary innovation cannot be separated from the decision by TG4 to broadcast the public hearings live. What a pity the respective sole members at Dublin Castle didn't similarly permit the public to view for themselves proceedings at the tribunals.
If Drapier is properly informed, it would appear that there are determined efforts abroad to see off this kind of inquiry by parliamentary committee. Or, at a minimum, shackle the committee process in such a fashion that the entire process is not worth the candle. Not one but two such committee inquiries are currently before the High Court.
Drapier is not qualified to comment on either the Abbeylara inquiry or the CIE/ESAT inquiry and, in any event, wouldn't wish to do so while they are before the court.
However, yours truly feels perfectly entitled to defend the concept of inquiry by parliamentary committee provided the procedures are fair and the right to natural justice is protected. Colleagues on all sides of the House feel similarly and not least because they recognise that the DIRT inquiry was a winner with the public.
Here were six parliamentarians from across the political spectrum combining in a professional and businesslike fashion to expeditiously make findings of fact relating to a subject obviously of public interest - the evasion of tax. Drapier is unimpressed by criticisms about the manner of questioning, of the inquisitorial rather than adversarial approach and of the minimal role for lawyers. Such criticisms seem to miss the point.
This was a parliamentary inquiry, not a court case and not even a tribunal of inquiry. In any event, it is not that inquiry by parliament is an earth-shatteringly new creation by the Oireachtas. For example, the United States, Canada and the UK all have their own versions of inquiry by parliament. In the case of Britain, the concept is undoubtedly made more straightforward by the absence of a written constitution. However, if the Oireachtas, for example, were to admit legal representation in the same fashion as Dublin Castle, it would be the end of parliamentary inquiry as we know it. Drapier seems to recall the present Attorney General, Michael McDowell SC giving weighty evidence to the Public Accounts Committee in favour of inquiry by parliamentary committee but cautioning that not every subject would necessarily be appropriate to such a mode of inquiry.
Mention of the Attorney reminds me that I wrote many months ago that if McDowell and Bertie Ahern struck up a good working relationship - which seemed unlikely to many at the time - they would be a formidable partnership. And so it has turned out. In a Cabinet where Bertie has no close confidants, McDowell has emerged as the Taoiseach's most reliable ally. The Protection of Human Life Pregnancy Bill 2001 is the high point of their partnership. Bertie needed to deliver a referendum and it was McDowell's task to produce the formula.
At first glance this unlikely collaboration has produced a clever solution seeming to satisfy the mainstream pro-life brigade and avoid interference with current medical practice. On calmer reflection, it is already beginning to appear somewhat less clever, and not even the blessing of Des Hanafin will be enough to bring the Catholic Bishops on board. Although not helped by a simplistic and contradictory motion at the Labour Party conference, it is already clear that Ruair∅ Quinn's questioning is causing Bertie real grief. Will Des Hanafin be able to keep the fundamentalists on board after Cardinal Connell exposes - as he must - the departure from church teaching? Bertie's real achievement so far, however, is to get the PDs on board. Who would have predicted that the party born to break the mould would end up timorously supporting yet another abortion referendum? Liz O'Donnell is on record as instancing this issue as one that brought her into politics. Hers is now the face fronting for the PDs in a show of Government unity. Ah, the seductions of office!
Bertie's second achievement has been to cause disarray in the ranks of Fine Gael, but it is unlikely that many will be impressed by this kind of one-upmanship. And what on earth are the PDs up to in indicating support for the referendum but not for a definite date? Meanwhile, the legion of the faithful gather in west Dublin to praise Bertie and bury Kevin Barry - or this is how it is being viewed by the Opposition. Whatever the merit at this time and after 80 years of exhuming the bones of the men who died in the War of Independence, it is breathtaking that it should be organised as an adjunct to the Fianna Fβil ardfhΘis. Many like Maurice Manning will see the timing as part of the squalid squabble between Fianna Fβil and Sinn FΘin in advance of the election.
Could Bertie's apology to three journalists at the launch of Bruce Arnold's biography of Jack Lynch also be termed an untimely exhumation this time of the phone-tapping scandal? Is it coincidence that he chose a week when Sean Doherty's conduct of the CIE inquiry was before the High Court?