Reform of Dáil Éireann and the long, long Summer recess

[davehiggz]

I wrote about this last year! Another issue that gets talked about, year after year and nothing gets done!!!


Guillotining in the Dáil | David Higgins

[farnaby]

VB in today's IT rants about the summer break also, though more focussed on how useless the Oireachtas is:

No Dáil, no Seanad, no change, no surprise - The Irish Times - Wed, Jul 14, 2010

the Oireachtas has no meaningful role in any of these matters, matters concerning the governing of the country, the shaping of our society and the management of our economy. Almost no role at all.

But holding the Government to account? Forget it. This Government ensures this by corralling the TDs under its control into the lobbies to inure it from accountability. And as for our parliament of the people’s representatives being an autonomous legislative body, forget that too. It does what the government of the day decides

We have a parliament that does not function as a parliament, and that is the problem, particularly a problem now because of the enormity of the decisions being taken by this Government, allegedly on our behalf. No scrutiny of the decisions, no meaningful participation by the representatives of the people – other than those in Cabinet, and not much by them either.

VB doesn't give an answer to this conundrum, instead shifting to his usual inequality rant by the end of the article. One of his concerns is that the government/cabinet make the decisions and whip their backbenchers in line to support it. The political response would be, how can stable coherent government making tough decisions be maintained otherwise? And they have a point.

But his other point is valid - that govt decisions are usually presented to the Oireachtas as the final part of the process, with the initial formulation of those decisions left in some obscurity. There are a number of issues behind this, some frequently debated here - the (in)ability of locally-geared representatives to make good decisions for the nation; the selection of ministers from that pool of local reps for reasons irrelevant to ability or qualifications; too many career politicians; the irrelevance of the Seanad. The parliamentary system is not serving us well - we should overhaul the whole thing. At least as VB acknowledges FG are starting the ball rolling, but not far enough.