THE RESIGNATION and replacement of the Ceann Comhairle this week was both dramatic and unprecedented. It was not entirely surprising that the colourful nature of these events should have distracted from an element in the whole affair that was all too familiar. In all the discussion and speculation about who might replace the departing John O’Donoghue, there was one unquestioned assumption: the post would be in the gift of the Taoiseach. That this should be taken for granted is depressing evidence of the weakness of the Dáil.
Individually, our politicians may often be guilty of arrogance, but collectively and as parliamentarians they suffer from chronically low self-esteem. In almost any other developed democracy, the idea that the chairman of the legislature would be chosen by the head of government would be regarded as an infringement on the separation of powers. It would be simply unthinkable for Barack Obama to interfere with the choice of its speaker by the House of Representatives. In the UK, when the speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, resigned over an expenses scandal, his replacement was chosen from 10 candidates from different parties in a secret ballot. Had Gordon Brown even hinted that he favoured a particular MP, that candidate’s chances of being elected would have disappeared.
This is not just a procedural question. The speaker of a parliament embodies the independence of the elected assembly. In the Irish case, the Ceann Comhairle is a constitutional officer, not a politician. The provision by which he or she is automatically re-elected to the next Dáil exists in order to remove the holder of office from the sphere of party politics. The silence of the Constitution on issues such as the procedure for removing a ceann comhairle merely emphasises the degree to which the office is intended to be a creature of the Dáil itself.
The manner in which the Dáil effectively allows the Taoiseach to pick its chairman and then rubber-stamps his choice in a division on predictable party lines points to a larger underlying problem. If a parliament is not prepared to stand up for its own independence, how can we expect it to fulfil its basic function of holding government to account?
TDs frequently complain, with some justification, that they are held up to ridicule in the media and that cynicism undermines the importance of their democratic functions. But it is hard to respect an institution that does not respect itself. It allows rafts of important legislation to be rammed through at the end of term with little scrutiny. Its backbenchers so seldom utter an independent thought that governments take them entirely for granted.
Enda Kenny suggested during this week’s debate that the Ceann Comhairle should be elected in a free vote and on a secret ballot. To adopt such a sensible suggestion would not be a revolutionary gesture, but it would be a statement of intent. It would suggest that the Dáil is capable of taking itself seriously. We have never needed a parliament with backbone as much as now.