Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 7 Dec 1926

Vol. 17 No. 7

ADDITIONAL ESTIMATE. - CONSTITUTION (AMENDMENT No. 2) BILL, 1926—COMMITTEE.

The Dáil went into Committee.

SECTION 1.

1.—The Constitution shall be and is hereby amended by the insertion therein of the following paragraph at the end of and as an addition to Article 21, that is to say:—

"The member of Dáil Eireann who is the Chairman of Dáil Eireann immediately before the dissolution of the Oireachtas shall, unless before such dissolution he announces to Dáil Eireann that he does not desire to continue to be a member thereof, be deemed without any actual election to be elected at the ensuing general election as an additional member of Dáil Eireann not representing any constituency and shall as such additional member have all the rights and obligations of an ordinary member of Dáil Eireann (including eligibility for the office of Chairman) save that his death, resignation, or disqualification shall not create a vacancy in the membership of Dáil Eireann."

Mr. JOHNSON

I move:—

To delete lines 32 to 34 inclusive and substitute:—"and shall continue so to be deemed until immediately after Dáil Eireann has elected its Chairman but, save as is hereafter provided, no longer. The said additional member shall be eligible for the office of Chairman and, if Dáil Eireann elects him to that office, he shall, so long as he continues therein, continue to be deemed to be an additional member of Dáil Eireann, and shall have all the rights and obligations of an ordinary member of Dáil Eireann save that his death."— Tomás Mac Eoin.

This amendment is designed to meet all the case that was made by the Minister for Justice and yet to secure that the Dáil which will be elected after any general election may still be an elected assembly. The proposition in the Bill is that the Ceann Comhairle who has presided over the Dáil shall without election be deemed to be a member of the succeeding House and shall continue to be a member of that House while it lasts. If he is elected as Ceann Comhairle or if he is not elected, he is to remain a member of the House. The Minister gave the illustration that a person elected as Chairman would be in fact a representative of the constituency of the Dáil. My proposal is that, in line with the Second Reading of the Bill, the Ceann Comhairle who comes in automatically to the succeeding Dáil is, by the fact of his being a member, open to be elected as the Chairman or the Ceann Comhairle of the new Dáil, but if he fails or does not secure election, if the new House has no confidence in that member, who has come automatically into the House, he will thereupon cease to be a member. The effect would be, of course, that there would not remain in the House one member who has not got the confidence of any constituency, not even the Dáil. I think all the claims that were put forward by the Minister and accepted by the House are still retained and some of the objections would be met by the adoption of this proposal. I think the danger that would result from having a member of the House in ordinary membership who is not representative of anybody is one too great to allow to be introduced. I put this as a possible and by no means an improbable position that might be created at some future time:

The House is elected with fairly equal representation of parties. A majority prefer not to re-elect that member, who has come automatically into the House because he had previous experience as Ceann Comhairle. They think that he would be a most suitable person to occupy a Ministerial post, and, therefore, they do not elect him as Ceann Comhairle but he is appointed as a Minister, even Minister for Finance, and there is nothing then left in the Constitution which would prevent such an event happening. I think it would be most undesirable to make it even possible for an Executive Minister to be a member of the House, because, being a member of the House, he is capable of being appointed as a member of the Executive Council, holding ministerial office but not representing any constituency. I think it will be seen that that is quite an unfortunate and undesirable possibility. Yet it is a possibility under the Bill as at present framed. The amendment would allow all that was set forth by the Minister in the House and by those in favour of the Bill in Committee, and yet would prevent that kind of happening, that is to say, that a person would be a member of the House not representing any constituency, and would prevent even the possibility of such non-representative person being chosen as a Minister. I do not think that any injustice and unfairness could result from the acceptance of this amendment, and, undoubtedly, a considerable risk would be removed. Therefore, I move the amendment.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

I ask the Dáil to reject the amendment. The Deputy bases his case for the amendment on the position that would arise in the event of the Ceann Comhairle being returned to the new Parliament and not being reappointed to the Chair. He says that you would then have within the Dáil a member unrepresentative of any constituency. It is recognised, here and elsewhere, that this question of the Speaker is one that cannot be met in a completely satisfactory manner, one that would be entirely satisfying to the logical, constitutional mind of Deputy Johnson and people like him. Let us see what is done elsewhere. Elsewhere, in Great Britain, it is recognised that it is highly undesirable to have the Speaker of the House indulging in the everyday polemics and controversies of domestic politics. He is expected to detach himself from parties and to hold the scales evenly and impartially between parties, and, because a man so placed could not be expected to defend his constituency against the competition of all or many parties, there is agreement between the leaders of parties that the Speaker's constituency will not, in effect, be contested. That has been the position for many and many a long year. The Speaker is returned automatically without opposition in his constituency. That is not entirely satisfying to a man with a logical, constitutional mind, because the consequence of that is that one large and important constituency is, and has been for a long period, disfranchised. It has really, practically speaking, no voice whatever in deciding who shall be returned to Parliament in its name, and it is really unrepresented within the House because it would be straining things to pretend that the Speaker is an adequate or effective representative of any constituency within the House. He is not, of course. That is the picture in Great Britain—a constituency in a state of chronic disfranchisement, permanently without an effective representative in Parliament.

In the light of that picture let us move on to consider what is proposed here, namely, that the man who has acted as Ceann Comhairle throughout the period of the lifetime of one Parliament shall be returned to the following Parliament, not as representing a constituency. It is proposed to eliminate that particular fiction, the fiction that is maintained in Great Britain, that the Speaker is, in fact, representative of a constituency while he is never opposed there, and his nomination and return are simply a solemn farce. It is proposed here that the person who acted as Speaker in the lifetime of one Parliament will be returned to the following Parliament without a constituency. It shall not be mandatory or compulsory in any sense on the following Parliament to appoint him to the Chair. It is desired to leave them quite free in that matter. One of the objections I have to Deputy Johnson's proposal is that it does not leave them quite free. It puts on the new Parliament a kind of moral compulsion. "At any rate here is a man in your midst; if you do not appoint him to the Chair he must go out from amongst you. You banish him from public life. We are commencing now a Parliament of five years' duration. There is one man here amongst us whom it is open to appoint to the Chair, but if you do not so appoint him, he must walk out and disappear from the political arena for a period that will possibly be one of five years."

I submit, if you introduce that factor into the position, you put a couple of degrees more compulsion on the new Parliament to elect the old Speaker than would otherwise exist, and to that extent I consider it an undesirable factor to introduce into the position. We say, because the Speaker obviously cannot compete for his seat against political parties in the country, because it is undesirable that he should be under the necessity of having so to compete, that he should be placed in a different position with regard to an impending general election from other Deputies. When he was appointed to the Chair he was called from the service of the constituency which elected him, and was divorced from the ordinary cut and thrust of party politics. He could not effectively represent any constituency from the date of his appointment and, in fact, ceased to try to represent any constituency from the date of his appointment. It is suggested that a man in that position should be returned without a constituency to the new Parliament.

If the new Parliament wishes, it can re-appoint him to the Chair. If it does not, we say he should remain serving in the House, and presumably prepare to contest some constituency outside in the general election that would next follow. But Deputy Johnson says: "I go with you to the extent of saying that he should be returned to the following Parliament without a constituency, but, in the event of his not being re-appointed to the Chair, then he should vanish." I object to that on the ground that it puts a few more degrees of compulsion on the new Parliament to reappoint him. The alternative would be that he would have to vanish from public life entirely. It is said that if he remains he is a speck on the brightness of your democratic shield, your representative character. Granted. No bigger speck than the Speaker in Great Britain, who has never been elected by any constituency, who is never opposed, and whose return is a solemn sham. If it is a speck on the representative character of Parliament, a great Parliament elsewhere, one that prides itself on being the mother of Parliaments, has such a speck. The Speaker is no bigger here than there. If there is any difference, it is that we are more relentless in facing the fact, in tearing away the sham, and in doing the obvious and necessary thing in the light of these facts. That is the only difference. There the solemn farce is perpetrated, general election after general election, of a Speaker presenting himself, forsooth, for the franchise of a constituency, all parties refraining, and his solemn return without the vote of any elector in that constituency, it being well understood that his return would never be challenged. It has not been, in fact, challenged, I understand, since 1895. Deputies may have their own view as to whether there is any great merit, or any great virtue, in keeping the pious sham, whether that holds any great advantage over the course proposed here, namely, the frank return of the Speaker to the next Parliament without a constituency, and remaining in that Parliament, serving as a member in the event of that Parliament not reappointing him to the Chair. I see no advantage. I see certain disadvantages in Deputy Johnson's amendment, and I ask the Dáil to reject it.

Mr. JOHNSON

I think it is unfortunate the Minister should have supported his case by what seems to me, in effect, to be a plea that, because a member of the House has been elected as Ceann Comhairle, and has therefore been unable to take part in the cut and thrust of political controversy, he should be allowed as a matter of kindliness and pity to remain a member of the succeeding Parliament, even though the succeeding Parliament does not choose to appoint that person Chairman. There would, according to the Minister, be a certain feeling of pity for him, that it is better he should be allowed to have the privileges of a member of the House, even though he has not a constituency, and even though the House, of which he has become a member, has not seen fit to retain him in the office of Chairman.

To introduce a constitutional amendment and base it, in effect, on a plea for pity for the defeated candidate for the Chair, is playing it on rather too low a scale. The Minister may say that it is not out of regard for any particular individual that this Bill is brought forward, but because of the feeling that if a speaker is not re-elected to the chair, he will be thrown out in the cold. That, again, is a small argument for such a constitutional change. After all, every member has to run that risk, and you do not approach the constituencies on the ground that if the retiring member is not re-elected, well, it will be pitiful; he will be thrown out in the cold, and some regard ought to be had for the fact that he has had already three or four years' experience, his way of life has been changed, and, therefore, he ought to be re-elected out of pity. The constituencies will not respond usually to that kind of plea, and it is not the right kind of a case to put before the constituencies. Yet that is the case the Minister is putting before the House in favour of retaining, as a member of the House, a person who has not been elected by a constituency, who has not received the approbation or, shall I put it more correctly, has not been deemed a fit and proper person to be appointed to the Chair. The Minister has not met the case I put up of the possibility that the House may appoint such a person a member of the Executive Council, or even President.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

I am prepared to put in an amendment to meet that.

Mr. JOHNSON

It is the Minister's Bill.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

It is, but the Minister says he is prepared to put in an amendment to meet that specific point.

Mr. JOHNSON

That is satisfactory so far. The Minister has met one point. Will he not go a little further, and see the inconsistency, to say the least of it, of having a member of the House who is not capable of filling the office of Minister?

Mr. O'HIGGINS

I withdraw.

Mr. JOHNSON

The position the Minister has taken is an admission of inconsistency.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

No.

Mr. JOHNSON

He is driven back to the case, that we are going to make a constitutional amendment because of the possibility that a member in one Parliament who has occupied the position of Ceann Comhairle may be thrown out into the cold, and have to wait for a general election before he is allowed to re-enter.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

That is not true. The Deputy knows it is not true.

Mr. JOHNSON

I say that is the case the Minister has made.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

The Bill is introduced to enable the Speaker to fulfil the proper conception of the responsibilities of his office and the duties of his office.

Mr. JOHNSON

That has been passed by the House on Second Reading. The greatest part of the Minister's speech was really Second Reading discussion. I am dealing with the proposal contained in the amendment presuming, as we must presume, that the person who has held the office of Ceann Comhairle comes in automatically to the succeeding Dáil, without election, to give an opportunity to the new House to elect one who has had experience and still to allow that person to remain outside the cut and thrust of political activity. If, then, it is found that the new House does not approve of that person being its Chairman, the Minister proposes that he should remain a member of the House. I say that not having secured the confidence of the House, and not having been elected by any constituency, he ought not to be a member of the House. The Minister agrees that it ought not to be allowed that such a member should have an opportunity of being a Minister, that it should be a constitutional prohibition, but he thinks such a person ought to be a member of the House not representing any constituency but having all the other privileges of membership. I say the Minister has made no case against the amendment and I hope the House will express its views upon it.

Amendment put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 15; Níl, 30.

Tá

• Connor Hogan.
• Tomás Mac Eoin.
• Liam Mag Aonghusa.
• Patrick J. Mulvany.
• Tomás de Nógla.
• William Norton.
• Aodh O Cúlacháin.
• Eamon O Dubhghaill.
• Mícheál O Dubhghaill.
• Donnchadh O Guaire.
• Mícheál O hlfearnáin.
• Domhnall O Mocháin.
• Tadhg O Murchadha.
• Pádraig O hOgáin (An Clár).
• Nicholas Wall.

Níl

• Earnán de Blaghd.
• Séamus Breathnach.
• Seoirse de Bhulbh.
• Séamus de Búrca.
• Sir James Craig.
• Máighréad Ní Choileain Bean
• Uí Dhrisceóil.
• James Dwyer.
• John Hennigan.
• Liam Mac Cosgair.
• Pádraig Mac Fadáin.
• Patrick McGilligan.
• Eoin Mac Néill.
• Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
• Martin M. Nally.
• Peadar O hAodha.
• Seán O Bruadair.
• Parthalán O Conchubhair.
• Conchubhar O Conghaile.
• Eoghan O Dochartaigh.
• Séamus O Dóláin.
• Peadar O Dubhghaill.
• Eamon O Dúgáin.
• Aindriú O Láimhín.
• Risteárd O Maolchatha.
• Séamus O Murchadha.
• Máirtín O Rodaigh.
• Mícheál O Tighearnaigh.
• Caoimhghín O hUigín.
• Patrick W. Shaw.
• Liam Thrift.

Tellers.—Tá: Deputies Nagle and Norton. Níl: Deputies Dolan and Tierney.

Amendment declared lost.

Question—"That Section 1 stand part of the Bill"—put and declared carried.

Sections 2, 3 and the Title agreed to.

The Dáil went out of Committee.

Bill reported without amendment.

Fourth Stage ordered for Tuesday, 14th December.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

I will probably take the Final Stage on Tuesday also. In connection with that, I hope some Deputy will see fit to challenge a division, for the reason that I am anxious to see how many Deputies of the House, having considered the provisions of this Bill, maintain an attitude of opposition. For that reason, I hope some Deputy will call for a division on the Final Stage.

Mr. GOREY

A division was taken on an amendment to the only clause that most Deputies find objection to. They have a distinct objection to the clause as it stands. The amendment, if it had been carried, would have met that objection. They have no quarrel with the rest of the Bill.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

I could not accept the amendment.