Sir, – Breda O’Brien (Opinion November, 22nd) makes reference to the proposed adaptation of the concept in Article 38 (1) of the German Basic Law into the Irish Constitution by way of the draft 34th Amendment of the Constitution (Members of the Oireachtas) Bill 2014, as a means to impose a relaxation of the rigid whip system.
However, in the Bundestag, the binding guidance of fraktionsdisziplin (political party caucus voting cohesion) still applies and is effectively adhered to by German party parliamentarians.
In reality, Article 38 (1) is only invoked on relatively rare occasions and certainly would not, for example, allow a parliamentarian to be safeguarded from internal party discipline upon persistent opposition to the policies of that party, which seems to be a major rationale for the introduction of the aforementioned bill.
In order to satisfactorily alleviate the rigidity of the whip system, a better resolution would be to replicate the modus operandi within the UK House of Commons, where one-line and two-line whips are regularly granted.
There is no constitutional amendment necessary to adopt such a practice into the Oireachtas.
The main obstacle to this, however, would be the fact that Opposition and media criticism of one-line and two-line whipped votes lost by the Government would persistently permeate, as is the case in the UK whenever a government bill is defeated as a result of “backbench rebellion”.
Allowing a greater culture of agreed bilateral authorship on new legislation to prevail in the Oireachtas would be the strongest antidote to such an intrinsic dilemma. – Yours, etc, JOHN KENNEDY, Goatstown, Dublin 14.