INSIDE POLITICS:The Dáil must be transformed into a proper forum if it is to deal with the current financial crisis, writes STEPHEN COLLINS
THE SENSE of weariness on all sides of the Dáil was palpable yesterday as the House adjourned for the summer break, after a session dominated by the continuing financial and economic crises and punctuated by the energy-sapping elections of June 5th. With the autumn ahead laden with potential for political drama, most TDs were desperately looking forward to some relief from the pressure.
In the last days of the session there were numerous complaints from the Opposition about business being rammed through the Dáil and Seanad without adequate debate. While the Government’s last-minute rush of legislation and the Opposition objection is as predictable as the swallows in summer, it does raise a fundamental issue about the way parliamentary democracy works here.
The concentration of power in the hands of Ministers and senior civil servants and the impotence of the vast majority of TDs on all sides of the Dáil when it comes to having a real input into legislation makes for bad government and bad opposition. The system leads to bad government because there is often not enough time for proper scrutiny of legislation or even a proper understanding of what is at stake. The debate on the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill designed to tackle gangland crime, which was passed by the Dáil yesterday, was a case in point.
Instead of the focus being on the merits of the legislation, which is designed to ensure that the State is capable of protecting its citizens, much of the debate centred on the predictable objections of the legal profession to any changes in a system which is clearly not working. More time for the debate would have enabled any genuine shortcomings in the Bill to be rectified and exposed much of the opposition to it as ill-founded.
The problem is that over the years the Government has become used to pushing through a raft of legislation in the dying days of each session because it suits Ministers and their senior civil servants to avoid the time-consuming business of debate. In the past few weeks 18 out of 21 Bills were guillotined through the Dáil and that tells its own story.
The treatment of the Dáil as a rubber stamp for Government decisions also results in bad Opposition. TDs who are excluded from any responsibility for the running of the country often adopt ludicrous populist positions on important issues, in the knowledge that they will never be held to account for their views. The other trap for Opposition TDs is that they end up supporting vocal vested interests groups against the Government for short-term advantage rather than taking the common good as their starting point. Much of the debate on health issues illustrates this point, with the concerns of those working in the health system taking precedence over the delivery of service to patients.
It was interesting to hear former Swedish finance minister Bo Lundgren tell the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance on Tuesday that one of the key planks of his policy in dealing with the Swedish banking crisis in the early 1990s was to keep parliament fully involved at all stages so that all the major political parties participated in the solution.
In Ireland, the Opposition is given the choice of endorsing Government policy or opposing it. They are not given the option of having a real input into the creation of policy. In the circumstances there is every incentive for Opposition TDs to adopt the populist line that the Government is only interested in “bailing out the bankers” rather than facing the harsh reality that there is only a choice between least worst options.
If we want a mature, healthy democracy a fundamental shift in the way the Dáil does its business is a vital first step. All of the TDs elected by the people should be entitled to participate in the formulation of policy through a genuine committee system rather than the overblown system of patronage that most of the current committees represent.
One of the clear signs of our ailing democracy was the fact that over the past 20 years the unelected social partners were given a far greater input into the formation of policy than the 140 or so TDs who are not members of the Cabinet.
Fine Gael deputy leader Richard Bruton has long advocated a fundamental change in the system of drafting budgets to give the Dáil a direct input into the creation of policy with proper debate on all the available options.
It will be interesting to see if the Government is capable of making a small step in that direction by publishing the findings later this month of the report of An Bord Snip Nua, chaired by Colm McCarthy. While the Dáil has risen, Government business will continue as normal for the rest of July with the main focus being on the presentation to the Cabinet of the McCarthy report.
While decisions on the implementation of the report will not be made until the budgetary process begins in October, the logic for publishing it this month is overwhelming. The crisis in the exchequer finances will only be solved if the public is persuaded to accept the kind of tough medicine that is required.
While some of the options in the McCarthy report will inevitably generate hysterical opposition, the only way it will be overcome is if public opinion is mobilised to support what is necessary to get the economy back on track.
That will be much easier to achieve if the Dáil is transformed into a proper forum for legislation where all TDs are given some power, and with it the responsibility, for running the country. The current crisis demands a new departure.