Questions Nominated for Priority: Motion.

Mr. V. Brady

I move:

That the Resolution of the Dáil of 7th November, 1989, relating to Questions nominated for priority is hereby amended by the substitution of `until the adjournment of the Dáil for the Summer Recess' for `until the adjournment of the Dáil for the Easter Recess'.".

The motions before the House today continue, up to the summer recess, the arrangements for priority questions and Private Members' Business which were agreed by the Dáil on 7 November last, having been previously recommended by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges.

On that occasion, I outlined the Government's position on the matter. Basically, our view is that while the arrangements for priority questions and Private Members Business are primarily the concern of the Opposition parties and the Government have no direct input into them, we support the present arrangements on the basis that they are the fairest to all sides of the House. In deciding our stance, we have taken account of the wishes of the vast majority of Deputies, as well as the deliberations of the Committee on Procedures and Privileges.

We recognise that these arrangements do not have the unanimous support of all the Opposition parties. Last November, when the original motions were being debated, the Leader of The Workers' Party suggested that the other parties were conspiring to change the rules so as to exclude his party from priority question time. I must reject emphatically this suggestion as it implies that the Government would tolerate a situation which is blatantly unfair. The Government support the present arrangements because we deem them to be the fairest way of allocating priority questions and Private Members' time.

The Workers' Party must realise that they do not have the numerical strength of the other Opposition parties and as such they cannot reasonably expect to have the same status as them when it comes to the allocation of Dáil time. The concept of proportionality has always been central to the organisation and arrangement of Dáil business. I am sure that, despite their protestations, The Workers' Party recognise and accept this fact.

When these motions were being debated last November, the Labour Party Chief Whip suggested that the Government were somehow responsible for the rancour and disagreement between the Opposition parties over this issue. This was because we would not agree to his party's proposal to extend Question Time to allow an extra priority question to be taken each day. At the time, I said that I did not feel that this was justified. Since then, I have been looking at how the Opposition parties have been exercising their rights in relation to the putting down of priority questions and the statistics are quite revealing. In the current Dáil session, there have been 23 occasions on which the Opposition parties have had an opportunity to put down priority questions. On only 11 of these occasions did the combined Opposition put down their full complement of five questions. indeed, on 1 March last — at a time when the Opposition were pressing the Government for more Dáil time to debate the health services — amazingly, they only put down one priority question to the Minister for Health for answer on that day.

I will leave it to the Opposition parties to debate among themselves as to how that situation arose. I merely mentioned it to point out — as I did last November — that the extension of Question Time is not the solution to the problem. In my opinion, the main obstacle to agreement on the matter is the unwillingness of the three Opposition parties to adopt a constructive and co-operative approach to the issue.

In conclusion, I would just like to say that the Government support the continuation of the existing arrangements for priority questions and Private Members' Business on the basis that they uphold the long established principle of proportionality, they are supported by the vast majority of Deputies and they have the approval of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. If the Opposition parties decide at some later date to agree on a different arrangement, within the existing question time framework, the Government would naturally be delighted to support any such proposal.

Mr. J. Higgins

The arrangement being put in place by this motion has been thrashed out both publicly and in the House before. Thankfully the Opposition parties have some small scope within the rules and strictures of the House for personal or private initiatives. Private Members' time is the main vehicle for this, albeit a mere three hours each week. We must, therefore, put in place some agreed arrangement for the allocation of this small but significant facility. As the Minister of State rightly said, it is primarily a matter for resolution among the Opposition parties.

I want to emphasise that when this matter came before the House last November every possible option was looked at. The only matter that could not be resolved was who got what amount of time. At the end of the day we had to have recourse to the numerical strength of the parties. Fine Gael have 55 seats, the Labour Party have 15 seats and The Workers' Party have 7 seats. Fine Gael therefore have two and a half times the combined numerical strength of the other two parties — 55 as against 22. The Labour Party have more than double the number of seats held by The Workers' Party.

Working on the basis of 77 combined Opposition seats, Fine Gael are entitled to five out of every seven Private Members' debates, and Labour are entitled to twice The Workers' Party's entitlement. While The Workers' Party may, as the Minister of State said, protest, that they should be entitled to more, I have not heard one valid, cogent argument to justify that. Of course, every party would like to have a bigger slice of the action, but at the end of the day it has to be decided by the numerical strength of the parties or proportional representation.

On the issue of priority questions, Fine Gael sought vainly to accommodate all sides. There are five priority questions each day. Fine Gael with the other two parties tried to prevail on the Government to increase this to six by which one would have to concede three additional minutes of Government time to Question Time. The breakdown of that arrangement would mean that Fine Gael would be prepared to have three questions, the Labour Party two and The Workers' Party one. This, however, did not meet with the agreement of the Government and, finally, we had to revert to proportional representation or numerical strength of the parties. This was the deciding factor.

The formula, therefore, is to give each party their precise entitlement and any deviation from this disadvantages some other party. When the numerical strength of The Workers' Party increases, then and only then will we be prepared to look at any rearrangement of the existing breakdown of both priority questions and Private Members' time.

Mr. Howlin

It is important that we set the record straight on an issue like this, although we already decided on this matter some time ago. The Opposition have very limited scope in relation to the organisation of this House to test the policy decisions of this Government. A number of the institutions that operate in this House are archaic, are not in tune with modern democracy and should be reformed. However, we have some functions here and Private Members' time and questions afford the Opposition the opportunity to test the attitudes and actions of the Government. For that reason opportunities to have Private Members' discussions here or to table questions, particularly priority questions, are important for Opposition parties.

The Minister of State made some disingenuous remarks at the outset about priority questions. The one opportunity we in the Labour Party get on a daily basis to table a question is used on every occasion. I concede to the Minister of State that on no occasion since this Dáil was convened did the Labour Party not table a priority question. On occasion, unfortunately, the one question we are allowed is ruled out of order and the Order Paper would appear without a priority question. That is causing great frustration to all the Opposition parties when questions we table are ruled out of order and there is no opportunity to submit another question. Some questions are ruled out of order for reasons that need to be re-examined. I would have brought in a breakdown of questions over the last six months had I known the Minister of State had such a keen interest in it.

A huge proportion of ordinary questions, way out of alignment with our numerical strength in the House, have been tabled by the Labour Party, so anxious are we to keep the pressure on this Government. The Minister of State mentioned a day when the Minister for Health had only one priority question, and that was tabled by me. I tabled it in the name of Deputy Ferris because on the day the Minister was to answer questions I was in London in the company of the Minister of State present in the House on business related to the broadcasting of this House, as the Minister may well recall.

There are pressures on all of us to try to make the greatest possible impact on the business of this House. The Labour Party have used our time very wisely in the past. We have used Private Members' time to save the National and Social Services Board something I was very proud to do as Labour's spokesman on Health; we raised the haemophilia issue which ensured ultimately that a proper settlement was arrived at for those unfortunate people who contracted the HIV virus through contaminated blood. It is important that we have the maximum input into this area. Ultimately the only way to do that is by proportionality unless we can extend the time.

I regret that the proposal I made on the last occasion to increase the number of priority questions to six — that would take only three minutes of Government time a day — was not accepted by the Government. The Minister of State cannot come in here, wring his hands and say it is a matter for the Opposition when he had the opportunity to give representation to everybody on an equitable proportionate basis. The Government refused to do that.

More requests are coming in to us now. The Committee on Procedure and Privileges will tomorrow debate a request from An Comhchoiste don Ghaeilge to have more time for debating questions as Gaeilge sa Teach seo. That is an important move that we must make and will require additional time. That request came from all parties on that committee.

There are many things that need to be looked at in relation to the reform of this House and making this House more answerable. As far as the Labour Party are concerned, it is our objective and our practice, as the record shows, to bring as much pressure as possible to bear on this Government and on any other Government who will be sitting over there to advance the policies we espouse for a fairer society and we will use all the mechanisms this House affords to advance that aim.

Proinsias De Rossa

I propose on behalf of The Workers' Party to oppose both motions. I stated in November that I regarded the motions as an outrageous assault on the rights of The Workers' Party in this House and I continue to hold that view. If the Minister reflects on it he will realise that this House has not always approached the allocation of priority questions or of Private Members' Business strictly on the basis of proportionality. That is only a recent innovation in this House.

There is probably no point going over all the details — indeed, I do not have the time to go over all the details I mentioned on the last occasion — but it has to be acknowledged, and we intend by way of challenging a vote on this to emphasise that we regard ourselves as being discriminated against by the weight of Deputies who belong to the other parties. What is of most concern to us is that, having been effectively robbed of our right to put down priority questions on particular days, we find that other parties frequently do not have their allocation of priority questions taken up. I recognise that that can happen as a result of a question being ruled out of order, as Deputy Howlin points out, but it has to be pointed out that on more than ten days when priority questions were due to the Fine Gael Party, their full allocation was not used and on more than three days the allocation to the Labour Party was not used.

It is also clear that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction among Deputies generally about how priority questions operate. The original procedure for priority questions when they were introduced was that they would come at the end of Question Time, and this meant priority questions were sometimes taken into ordinary Question Time because they were linked to earlier questions. In order to overcome that, priority questions were slotted in at the beginning of Question Time. The effect of that is that Deputies who do not have the access to priority questions — most of the Deputies of this House — now find their ordinary questions for oral reply taken during priority questions with no opportunity for them to ask the Minister supplementaries. While that may be all right for Deputies who belong to a party who already have the related priority question tabled, those of us who do not belong to those parties are frustrated because we are not able to press the Minister on issues which perhaps will not be raised for a variety of reasons by the party who have the priority questions. There is a need for a full review of the operation of the priority questions system in the light of the dissatisfaction to which I have referred. Part of the solution could be to increase the time available for Question Time generally, giving more time to priority and ordinary questions.

I have not done a specific count but I am quite certain — judging by the Order Paper — that the number of Dáil questions tabled for oral answer has increased enormously in recent years, certainly during the last year. However, there has not been a proportionate increase in the parliamentary time allocated for the questions. Given that it is virtually the only opportunity Deputies have to put direct questions to the Minister and having an expectation of a direct answer, it is clear that there is a need for a fresh look at that area.

We want to restate our position on the question of Private Members' time. When the original motion went through the Dáil in November we expressed the view that account has to be taken of party size when allocating time for Private Members' Business but what is being done here is clearly aimed at putting The Workers' Party at a disadvantage. For instance, today is the first time in nine years that The Workers' Party had the opportunity to move a Private Members' motion in the House. I accept that because we were a party of fewer than seven Members our right to do so only occurred last June but we had to wait roughly nine months for the opportunity to do so.

The effect of the motion today in extending the present procedure will be that a new rota, on which we come tenth on the list, will start when the summer recess is over so, effectively, the likelihood is that we will not get another slot in Private Members' time until around this time next year. Regardless of arguments about proportionality it is hardly fair to claim that a party of seven Deputies may only have access to Private Members' Business once each year. It is hardly a proportionate way of allocating time.

We are opposing both motions today. The democratic procedures of this House are being threatened and thwarted by what are effectively administrative procedures introduced in order to restrict our access. I do not believe that this kind of activity reflects any credit on Government or Opposition parties involved in this affair.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 27 Mar 1990