Proceedings in the House last week were proof of the low esteem in which key values of our State are held, writes FINTAN O'TOOLE
IT WOULD be unfair to call it a farce. Good farce requires minute planning and precise execution. And it would be wrong to call it a charade. Charades provide much harmless fun for tipsy people who would otherwise be watching some godawful film on the telly. No, the proceedings of Dáil Éireann last week were neither harmless nor well executed. They were simply the final proof that our democracy has been hollowed out and is now an empty shell.
Four things – one trivial, three of immense importance – illustrate the point.
The trivial one is worth highlighting because it encapsulates the attitude that governs parliamentary proceedings – the Opposition is always wrong even when it’s right. On Wednesday, the Oireachtas environment committee was discussing John Gormley’s plans for an elected Dublin mayor. Ciarán Lynch, the Cork Labour deputy, spotted a technical flaw in the legislation, with a reference to the wrong year. He proposed an amendment: “to delete 2009 and substitute 2007”. This was a simple issue of diligence – the correction of a drafting error.
What happened? Gormley accepted that Lynch’s amendment was correct. But he would not accept the amendment: “I can accept the Labour Party proposal to make a technical correction to the collective citation in section 1(3). I intend to bring forward an official amendment for that purpose on Report Stage. Accordingly, I would ask that the Labour Party amendment be withdrawn.” At the next stage of the Bill, “delete 2009 and substitute 2007” will appear as a Government amendment and will be passed.
Beyond this routine idiocy, there is the serious stuff.
First, there’s the Prime Time report on the lack of regulation for home care of the elderly. It was discussed in the Dáil on Tuesday. Minister for Health Mary Harney did not even bother to speak. In fact, not only did Harney not make herself accountable, neither did her human shield, the hapless Minister of State with special responsibility for older people, Áine Brady.
John Moloney, who has no responsibilities in this area, stood up to speak “on behalf of my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Áine Brady, who cannot be here this evening”. He delivered some routine blather obviously written by a civil servant which took no responsibility for anything. Even the ritual pretence that Ministers are answerable to the Dáil was set aside.
On Wednesday, the Dáil “debated” two of the most significant proposals to come before it. Whatever one thinks of the European Union- International Monetary Fund bailout and the four-year plan that comes with it, no one doubts that it will shape Irish policy for at least the next five years.
A motion approving the package was circulated at 11.40 on Tuesday night. Two hours were given for the so-called “debate” on Wednesday. It was pointed out that, after the speeches of the Minister and the main party spokespersons, this amounted to 35 seconds per deputy. Debate on the EU-IMF deal began shortly before 1pm. The vote was taken at 3pm.
The Dáil then moved on to the Credit Institutions (Stabilisation) Bill. Again, no one disputes that this is probably the single biggest transfer of power to a Minister in the history of the State. It gives the Minister for Finance virtually dictatorial control over both the banking system and the National Pension Reserve Fund – without further recourse to the Dáil. The Department of Finance, with its disastrous record of stewardship, is getting a huge range of new and unaccountable power.
It is a dizzyingly complex piece of legislation. By my count, it affects 30 other existing statutes, ranging from the Companies and Central Bank Acts to the Unfair Dismissals Act. It runs to 77 sections over 67 pages. I’ve read it twice and find it very hard to understand what large parts of it mean. I am not alone: Michael Noonan, the Fine Gael spokesman, admitted that “despite putting several hours into them last night, I am not sure what all the sections mean yet”.
Some of the stuff in the Bill is bizarre. It aims, for example, “to continue the process of reorganisation, preservation and restoration of Anglo Irish Bank”, even though Anglo is supposed to be wound up.
But since all four stages of the Act were pushed through in four hours, we can have no idea what this means. There wasn’t even time for Brian Lenihan to reply to the debate. His last meaningful contribution was the plaintive question: “To what section does the Deputy refer?”
This is the pitiful end of an institution that has lost the will to live. All pretence at accountability and scrutiny has been abandoned. Our political institutions are in the realm of the living dead – and there’s doubt about the “living” bit.
What remains is simply to say to this whole decrepit system what Oliver Cromwell said to the Rump Parliament: “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing lately . . . You call yourselves a parliament; you are no parliament. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God – go!”