Vol. 429 No. 7
I move:
That notwithstanding Standing Order 51, Dáil Éireann takes note of the Orders of the Dáil of 7 April, 1993 appointing Select Committees on Finance and General Affairs, Legislation and Security, Social Affairs and Enterprise and Economic Strategy.
In the unavoidable absence of the Minister, I will make a speech on his behalf.
The last time Deputy Power and the Minister stood together, they brought the Taoiseach down.
We have been standing together ever since.
Oireachtas reform is a vital — and will continue to be a vital — part of our task as legislators, because we must ensure that our democratic institutions keep pace with the evolving needs of our society and the increasing complexity of Government work. The section of the Programme for a Partnership Government, "Broadening our Democracy", outlined the range of measures, including a framework for a committee system, which the Government believes will develop the role of the Oireachtas as part of the process of reform.
The new committee system is the most fundamental change in the way the House has conducted its business since the foundation of the State. The existing system led to frustration for many Deputies because the contribution they could make to the legislative process was minimal. The new system will go some way towards relieving this frustration. It will increase opportunities for Members to participate in a meaningful way and will make better use of their expertise.
All this is fine in theory but it requires one further ingredient, the wholehearted support and co-operation of all Deputies and a commitment by them to improve current practices as well as procedures.
The motions establishing the new standing committees were passed by the House on Wednesday, 7 April 1993. The four committees were proposed in the Programme for a Partnership Government, and have now been established. The goals in establishing the system are: to enhance the role of all Members in the legislative process; to enable Members to perform their function of scrutinising Government Departments more effectively; to ensure careful scrutiny of legislation by all Members of the House; and to more evenly distribute the workload among committees to facilitate the effective participation of Members.
The new system will let committee members come to terms with Government Departments. They will learn as they monitor Department activities, and that very process should increase committee influence over Government policy.
In addition to the new Dáil standing committees and the Foreign Affairs Committee, Committees on Procedure and Privileges, Public Accounts, Selection, Joint Services, and State Sponsored Bodies and the Irish Language have also been established. The Women's Rights Committee will be re-established and the necessary motions have been agreed.
As outlined in the programme, the necessary legislation to provide for the remuneration of the chairpersons is also being prepared as well as legislation regarding privilege and the compellability of witnesses. The terms of references of the new committees mean that each committee will consider the Estimates for the Public Services relevant to the Departments mentioned in the terms of reference. This is the first time the Estimates will be dealt with on a line by line basis. Up to last year many Estimates were not fully discussed; indeed, in some cases they were not discussed at all. While last year was an improvement on the previous procedure, it still meant that the Estimates were not fully scrutinised. I am sure the Deputy opposite will be very happy with this new development.
Another aspect of the committees' terms of reference is the emphasis on equality. The principle of equality should be a cornerstone in the consideration of all areas of public policy. This is reflected in the terms of reference of the committees, who will have the power to consider the impact of each piece of legislation on equality. The committees will consider the Committee Stages of Bills referred to them by the House. To ensure that the members of committees have a better understanding of the issues involved in the legislation and the thinking behind it, a briefing session or sessions will be held between the officials of the relevant Department and members of the select committee or, if appropriate the subcommittee. Consideration of a Bill by a committee should allow for greater examination by all members and a greater input by them. It will also allow more time for the discussion of Committee Stages of Bills. The first Bill to be considered by the Finance and General Affairs Committee will be the Finance Bill. In general in the past when special committees considered Bills, amendments and ideas from backbenchers were accepted more readily than across the floor of the House, the atmosphere being less confrontational and less adversarial, with everybody making a contribution. The Government is anxious to build on this.
In addition to the detailed examination of Estimates and the Committee Stages of legislation, the committees will consider reports referred to them by the House on subjects relevant to their terms of reference and will be required to report to the Dáil. The committees will be independent, make annual reports to the Dáil on their work and, on their adoption, have the power to print and publish their reports and documents. In order to keep the arrangements within the committees as flexible as possible and to allow for maximum input, a Member of the House may substitute for a member of a committee.
On the question of resources, each committee will have the service of a clerk from the Houses of the Oireachtas. Departments will provide officials when the committees are dealing with legislation and Estimates which affect them. The committees will have the power to engage the services of people with a specialist or technical knowledge to assist them or their subcommittees and may invite submissions in writing from interested groups or individuals. These provisions, together with the holding of briefing sessions by departmental officials, adequately demonstrate the Government's resolve that the committees should be effective in their work.
It is not true to say that the committees will be ineffective because Ministers will not be answerable to them. Ministers will be answerable to the committees in a real way. They will have to bring their legislation before the committees for detailed examination and their departmental Estimates will be examined in a detailed way by the committees. Constitutionally, Ministers are answerable to the House and not to a committee. This is the practice and precedent in such matters. Reference has been made to the position in the UK. Apart from the fact that our constitutional positions are not the same, it is not true to say that British Ministers can be summoned to and are answerable to a committee. Ministers may be required to attend a committee and the Prime Minister decides who, if anyone, should attend. Additionally, our committees will have much more access to Ministers than committees in the UK.
The possibility of splitting the responsibilities of some Departments between the committees has been raised. It is the intention that Departments with similar responsibilitis should as far as possible be examined by parallel standing committees. For this reason the subjects of Labour Law, Equality and the Gaeltacht were deemed to be more appropriate for consideration by the Social Affairs Committee and the issue of Law Reform most appropriate to the Legislative and Security Committee. This makes pragmatic common sense. If over the course of time it is felt that other arrangements would be more suitable, the Government is open on the matter and would be prepared to reconsider the allocations.
The success or failure of these committees will largely depend on the effectiveness of the cathaoirligh and convenors. They will play a key role in ensuring the effectiveness of the new system. The task will be a difficult and time consuming one and for this reason they should be properly paid for it.
It is absolutely essential that there should be liaison both between committees and between the Government and Opposition parties. Therefore the Minister of State has proposed that convenors should be appointed for each committee on the Government and Opposition sides and that these convenors should be paid. Their work will be similar to the work of the Whips in the Dáil. Before committees take business, consultations will be held to ensure that the matter is dealt with in an orderly way. The parties will have to agree on the taking of the business and the way it is to be taken. As there are limited facilities for the taking of committee business at present there will have to be liaison between the committees to organise timetables. The convenors for each committee will also have to ensure that Members attend at committee meetings and will agree pairing arrangements for the meetings.
The proceedings of the committees will be televised from an early date. Work will begin very shortly on the equipping of a room in Kildare House for this purpose. The committees will meet in the Dáil Chamber and, subject to agreement, in the Seanad Chamber when the Dáil and Seanad are not sitting. It is important that the House and the way it works should make sense to the people we serve, and I hope that the extension of TV coverage to the committee system will help to bring that about.
The most radical overhaul of the Oireachtas since the foundation of the State has been tackled by the Whips of all the parties over the last few months in an open, positive way. The Minister of State wishes to record his thanks to them for that attitude and approach. All the Whips agreed that they may not get the new system exactly right initially and for that reason he suggested that we should be as flexible as possible until we are all reasonably satisfied that this system is working efficiently and effectively. To ensure this he has agreed to a regular review of all the reform measures, particularly the committee system.
The Whips have discussed arrangements for the coming session and agreed that committees may sit on Tuesday mornings from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and all day on Fridays. Plenary sessions of the Dáil will take place from 2.30 p.m. on Tuesdays, all day on Wednesdays and all day on Thursdays. These arrangements will remain in place until the end of this session. Committees will also sit during the months of July and September and the Dáil will return for one day in each of these months to consider the reports of the committee cathaoirligh. In the next session it has been decided to have plenary sessions of the Dáil for three out of every four weeks and the fourth week will be devoted exclusively to committee meetings.
I am delighted to welcome this debate on the establishment of these committees——
On a point of order, before Deputy Bruton begins, I wonder if we could have the script of the speech just delivered?
We will get that for Deputy O'Malley.
I am very pleased to welcome the establishment of the Select Committees on Finance and General Affairs, Legislation and Security, Social Affairs and Enterprise and Economic Strategy.
In 1989 my party proposed exactly this type of committee structure for the Dáil. The essence of this structure is that, whereas in the past Committee Stage of all legislation was dealt with here on the floor of the House rather than in an actual committee, as were the Estimates, these two important items of business in future will be dealt with in a genuine committee. The importance of this is that, as a House, we will be enabled to do three and four times as much work as we could otherwise be doing.
There is a lot of criticism of this institution on the part of people outside who contend that we do not sit long enough, we do not sit sufficiently long hours, weeks or months in the year. In my view the object of us in politics should not be simply to sit longer hours for appearances sake. Rather our objective should be to do three and four times as much effective work as we are now doing; it should be to improve our work rate rather than simply our working hours. This proposal to introduce a genuine committee system for the mainline business of the House is a means of doubling, trebling or even quadrupling the work rate of this House. That is why I welcome it. That is why I may say, with no false modesty, I proposed it in 1989.
I am very glad that the parties forming the Government have adopted almost exactly the proposals I made, which were included in the Fine Gael Programme for Government forwarded to the other parties prior to the opening of the negotiations between the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil, and which Labour and Fianna Fáil have now adopted as part of their programme.
I want to make a few points about the way in which this will work. I fear that the committee work will not get the prominence in the media it deserves. Publicity is the oxygen of politics in that, without a measure of publicity politics dies and politicians lose interest in their work because they are not seen to get the credit that is important to them for what they are doing. One of the obstacles to publicity of proceedings in committees, particularly on live television or live radio, is that there is not clarity as to the privilege applying to things said in committees, particularly by witnesses who are not Members of the House. One of the reasons RTE would not provide televising of committees was that they were not sure that they might not be sued if something said there was slanderous.
That is the case because we have not passed the legislation to provide for the privilege and compellability of witnesses. I might remind the House that the requirement for legislation in regard to the compellability of witnesses before committees of this House dates back to 1970. The need for compellability of witnesses arose from the fact that, I believe, a Member of this House refused to appear before a committee of this House which was investigating matters arising from the Arms Trial. It is that long, 20 years and more, since committees of this House have sat without this power to compel witnesses. The intention to introduce legislation to allow for the compellability of witnesses and, consequently, for the privilege attaching to witnesses who are compelled to attend, has been promised by Government after Government. I say very clearly to the Minister of State that this experiment will not work unless that legislation is passed because the media will not be satisfied to give publicity of the type that this work will require. I hope the Minister will be able to do something very definite about having that legislation introduced. I might suggest that he set a time limit for its introduction by the summer recess this year.
I very much welcome what was said on behalf of the Minister of State by Deputy Power in regard to the fact that henceforth Estimates will be examined line by line. This will mean, for example, that one will be able — if, say, one feels that the amount that the Department of the Gaeltacht is spending on consultancy services has risen too quickly, that they are spending too much on consultancy services and not sufficient on grants to people who speak Irish — to raise a point about a particular subhead and say: "there is too much being spent there and too little being spent somewhere else". That will be very welcome and will mean we will be able to scrutinise spending in the same way that a local authority would scrutinise the individual lines of a local authority estimate. This House is most unusual, as a body authorising public spending within the Irish administrative system, in that it does not allow for line by line examination of Estimates. In every other statutory authority where the spending of money is authorised, line by line examination is possible.
There are two things that need to be done if this committee system is to work. First of all, the Estimates must be introduced in this House before the money begins to be spent. At present we have not discussed a single Estimate for any Government Department for 1993 even though one-third of the year has already elapsed. When we do eventually get to discuss whether a given amount should be spent on, say, consultancy in 1993 by a particular Government Department, the likelihood will be that half of the money, if not all, will already have been spent. In other words, if we attempt to reduce the amount for a particular purpose, we shall be attempting to close the stable door after the horse has bolted. Therefore, if this committee system is to work it is essential that Estimates be published in September or October of the preceding year, which is the case in most other European countries.
The other change that needs to be made if this is to work is that committees must be allowed to amend Estimates. It is not sufficient simply to have an opportunity to make a comment, line by line, on individual Estimates. If the debate in the committee on Estimates is to be in any way meaningful it must be possible for a member of the committee to propose that the amount, say, provided for consultancy should be reduced by £10,000, that that £10,000 should be transferred to grants for a particular purpose or whatever. There has to be the capacity to introduce amendments to transfer spending from one subhead to another. Of course, it should not be possible for the committee to increase the overall amount of any Estimate; that is clearly a matter which should lie solely within the discretion of Government. Within the overall Estimate, there should be a means for a committee to propose reallocations of expenditure from one subhead to another.
I would ask the Minister to consider those two changes, the first to ensure that Estimates are published in time so that their discussion in the committee will be able to influence what happens rather than after the event and second, that committees should have the power to propose amendments to the Estimates within the overall figure, the latter properly being a matter to be determined by Government and not by this House.
I welcome the fact that the committees will publish annual reports. I question the division of equality and law reform between two committees, so that the Minister for Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Taylor, will be responsible to two committees rather than just one. The Minister of State, through Deputy Power, has said he wants to continue with this process. I think he is making a mistake in that respect but that is really a matter for him and I shall not make an issue of it.
Deputy Power's speech delivered on behalf of the Minister of State contained a statement to the effect that it was intended to have a regular review of the committee system. I welcome that proposal, but I want to ensure that it is not just the usual well-intentioned statement that Ministers make whenever matters of this kind are being introduced. I remind the Minister of State, if he is not already aware of it, that at the time the televising of Dáil Éireann was introduced, it was agreed that a broadcasting review committee would be established. That has not happened. I hope such a committee will be established — perhaps the Minister of State will clarify the point — and that his statement that the operation of the committee system will be reviewed is a statement of intent which will be fulfilled and does not represent a token genuflection.
I welcome the statement on behalf of the Minister of State that legislation relating to the question of privilege for witnesses will be introduced. It is important also that the House should make regulations governing the exercise of privilege by Members of the House. Given that Members have absolute privilege they can say anything they like about people outside the House. They can accuse them of any crime under the sun and the person outside the House has no right of redress; they cannot do anything to vindicate their reputation if a Member of this House chooses to abuse its privileges by making unsubstantiated allegations against somebody outside it. It is clear from recent court decisions that the courts will not intervene to vindicate the rights of any person offended or whose reputation has been taken away by a Member of this House by an irresponsible statement.
If the courts do not have jurisdiction in the matter then the House must have jurisdiction and must be willing to regulate the use of privileges conferred on Members. It is imperative that the House should guide Members on how they should use privilege in regard to the statements they make about people outside the House and ensure, if Members manifestly abuse privilege by, knowingly, making false and irresponsible allegations about people outside the House, that it can discipline those Members for abusing their privileges in this House.
I do not want to refer to matters which are currently sub judice or the subject of discussion elsewhere but it should be recognised that Members of this House who make the law should not be seen to be above it. If Members can say anything they like about people outside the House who do not have a tribunal to whom they can turn to seek redress when an irresponsible and untrue statement is made by a Member of this House with the result that their reputation is taken away then, de facto, Members of this House are above the law. This should not be the case and I hope this will be changed in the legislation. I am dealing with this matter in general terms and not referring to any specific instance although I am sure many Members have a specific instance in mind.
Furthermore, if the committee system is to work Ministers must be willing to accept amendments. Like Deputy Rabbittee and Deputy O'Malley who was then Minister, I served on the special committee which dealt with the Companies Bill. That was a very good committee but from one day to the next one did not know whether amendments would be accepted. I got the impression on occasions that if Deputy O'Malley was in good humour he might be willing to accept an amendment whereas if his Minister of State was present and had not been given instructions it did not matter how good one's arguments were, an amendment would not be accepted. This is an abuse.
The Cabinet Minister concerned who has the authority should attend or, alternaively, should make sure that whoever attends on his behalf will have the freedom to accept amendments. Otherwise, Members will not bother with the committees. Given that they will not receive much publicity unless they feel they will be able to make an impact by having some of their proposals accepted the system will collapse. It is very important, therefore, that the Cabinet colleagues of the Minister of State mut attend and be willing to accept amendments within reason or ensure that the Minister of State who will be attending on their behalf will have freedom to make decisions on the spot.
As someone who has been in Government, we should be wary of the risk of hyper-caution on the part of officials who, because an argument is made by a politician and not from some other source, are slow to accept it. I am aware that a strong Minister or Minister of State will pay no attention to this but officials should be advised that this is a very important experiment, that they should be willing to listen to the arguments by Members of the House and not be cautious in relation to any new idea which they did not think of themselves.
I have reservations about the payment to be made to conveners. However, I welcome the fact that the Government proposes to pay Government and Opposition party conveners. I have no doubt that the members of my party who will act as conveners for our group will be more than willing to accept anything the Minister has to offer in this regard and that the money will be divided on a pro rata basis. However, is it wise, from the point of view of public relations, to pay people to do what they should be doing in any event? If one is a member of a committee and receives notice in the post he or she is expected to turn up for the meeting without having to be reminded by a telephone call. We are all adult and responsible, we should consult our diaries to remind us of appointments. For instance, I know that I should be somewhere else now. There is a meeting of my own party which I cannot attend, but I do not need a convener to tell me.
If the Deputy does not want to accept the emoluments he could pass them on to Deputy O'Malley and myself and we will see what we can do with them, given that we are excluded.
I thought that a person of such high principles would never be influenced by filthy lucre.
I did not say I would be influenced, just that I would accept it.
The Deputy will accept it and then waste it. I am sure we will have an opportunity to discuss this matter later.
There is one other issue that I wish to bring to the attention of the House relating to the way in which the proceedings of the committees and the House are reported. As I said already we are in a very bad situation when it comes to the indexation of the reports of the proceedings of this House. We are now producing indexes covering the subject matter of debates which took place in 1985. No index is available in respect of any of the proceedings of this House since 1985.
I respectfully suggest that indexes for the period 1920 to 1985 are of historical interest and of no value or interest to Members of this House; they are of interest solely to historians. On the other hand, an index of the proceedings of this House and its committees during the past two years would be of great value to Members. We would then be in a position to check what was said about a particular subject, Members could avoid repeat questions and make relevant contributions. I do not believe there is another Parliament in Europe where the system of reporting of the proceedings is so outdated. We are not producing authoritative final reports of the proceedings of this House until eight years later.
Will the Deputy draw his remarks to a close, please?
I hope the Minister of State will ensure that adequate arrangements are made for the reporting on time of the committee proceedings, for the indexation of the subject matter covered by them and that this be done simultaneously with the reports. Perhaps he could arrange for a debate in Government time on the overall issue of the reporting of our proceedings both in plenary session and in committee so that we will be able to take this issue in charge and ensure that our proceedings are properly reported.
In conclusion, an index of the proceedings of this House and the subject matters covered, if it were on a computer data base would be a marketable commodity and it would generate revenue if it were available on line to commercial operations. Indeed, the marketing of this could make a contribution to our appropriations-in-aid which would be to our benefit and may enable us to do other things. I suggest the Minister of State look at this urgently.
I move amendment No. 1:
To add the following to the motion:
"and that the Select Committees so established shall have power to call Ministers and Ministers of State before them on reasonable notice to assist the Select Committees on matters of policy and administration, within the scope of their official duties."
The substantive motions in regard to these four committees appear to have been passed on 7 April and it seems to me that what is happening today is largely a debate on these motions after the event, because the motion before us does not propose the establishment of these committees but refers to the fact they have already been established. I think it is right that the additional powers which the committees do not have, but which I recommend in my amendment, should be granted to the four committees and indeed to the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs which was debated earlier today.
I welcome the principle of the establishment of these four committees, particularly because of the time they will save in the expeditious handling of business. This will allow business to be conducted simultaneously on two or three topics, something which cannot be done at present. Having expressed that welcome, I now wish to express my severe disappointment that the powers of the proposed committees are in my view severely and unnecessarily curtailed. The inability of the committees to examine Ministers or Ministers of State on matters of policy and administration means in practice that the committees have no more extensive powers than the Dáil sitting as a committee of the whole House has at present, because no greater powers are proposed for it than the Dáil sitting as a committee of the whole House currently has.
For this reason I am proposing in my amendment that each of the committees should have this minimal power because without it no significant change takes place in the powers of the Dáil. There may well be a change in the more expeditious ordering of the business of the Dáil and in allowing certain matters to go on in parallel or indeed even in triplicate on certain occasions. The powers, however, are not changed. Paragraph 7 of the motion of 7 April allows submissions to be made in writing, and only in writing, on the invitation of one of these committees. I query why those submissions can only be made in writing? Since paragraph 8 of the order of 7 April compels the committee to hear the Government's side of the case on a Bill or another matter from officials of the relevant Department, it seems to me to be wrong not to allow people who have a contrary view to express their opinion in person and to be cross-examined on it in the same way that officials can be questioned.
These four committees have no power to send for persons or papers or to take evidence except from departmental officals. Although both Standing Orders 70 and 71 of the Standing Orders relevant to public business envisage evidence being taken on a Bill or on any other matter, those two Standing Orders envisage a select committee being empowered to send for persons, papers and records. The most valuable contribution which these committees could make would be their ability to investigate matters which arise from time to time and to examine Ministers and others in connection with those matters. I see only limited value in these committees if they do not have this kind of power. At least one of the prolonged inquiries which we have had recently by way of public tribunal might well have been avoided if we had a meaningful committee system with meaningful powers and particularly if the committees concerned had the powers I am advocating now. Without them they could not obviate the necessity for public tribunals afterwards.
I regard it as unsatisfactory also that subparagraph (4) of paragraph 1 of the order of 7 April limits the committee's jurisdiction to matters which are referred to it by the Dáil and which are already the subject matter of reports — in other words, the committee has no power of initiative in regard to what it would investigate or report on and is dependent on an order of the Dáil being made; and, under paragraph 1 (4), the Dáil can only ask it to investigate something if a report has been carried out already on it. Therefore, the committee is simply the second body reporting on it. I do not see much value in that. I think it curtails the powers of the committee completely unnecessarily. The jurisdiction that the committees have in this respect therefore is so limited as to be of little value.
It is regrettable that that should be the case. It may be that the Minister of State, when replying, to what I and others have to say, will say that the reason the Government is putting forward these motions and has not included evidence from individuals is that the legislation to give them the complete freedom and privilege to speak has not yet been passed. I would remind the Minister of State that Deputies have full privilege in these committees and there is no reason that the committees should not be fully reported, televised and broadcast so far as Deputies are concerned. It seems to me that the appropriate time to bring forward legislation on the compellability and privilege of witnesses would be simultaneous with these motions. It is a pity this has not happened. If we do not see the legislation for a long time or if it is not passed for a long time, these committees will languish with very limited powers indeed. They will be of only partial value and will do very little other than expedite the business of this House, even though that in itself is valuable.
In the speech read by Deputy Power, he said:
What about the suggestion that the committees will be ineffective because Ministers will not be "answerable" to them? Not true: Ministers will be answerable. Answerable in a real way — they will (i) have to bring their legislation before the committees for detailed examination and (ii) will have their departmental Estimates examined in a detailed way by the committees.
Ministers have to do both those things in the Dáil at the moment. There must be Committee Stage of Bills in the Dáil. The fact that these debates have been guillotined regularly in recent years and therefore are shortened is regrettable but at least in theory Bills have to be examined in detail in Committee. Therefore, what is new about Ministers going to a committee with legislation? The fact that departmental Estimates will have to be examined by the committee is no different, in theory at least, from what happens in the House. No doubt if the committee does not have time to deal with them they will be passed in the same way as they are passed when the House has not time to deal with them.
Deputy Power made the following point that is questionable from a legal or constitutional point of view: "Constitutionally the position is that Ministers are answerable to the House not to a committee — this is also the practice and precedent in these matters". Apparently in saying that the Government is relying on a statement in the Constitution that Ministers are answerable to Dáil Éireann. However, that does not preclude them from being answerable to committees of Dáil Éireann, which is the assumption. If this matter was interpreted by the courts I would be surprised if they decided otherwise. If we were to take that phrase literally, a Minister would not be answerable to this House while in committee. This House spends much of its time in committee of the whole House. In my experience I have never seen Ministers demur in regard to answering to the House when in committee or say they are in a different position from that when the House is sitting as Dáil Éireann proper. Most Members would not even know whether the House is in committee at any given time.
If in practice Ministers are answerable, as they are, to a committee of the whole House, how can it be claimed they are not answerable to a committee which consists of only 30 Members of the House? That argument is entirely fallacious and I deeply suspect the Government simply does not want to be answerable. It does not suit Ministers, collectively or individually, to come in and answer questions. If they did so, many difficulties and delays would be avoided. If there was a proper system whereby Ministers could be made answerable for matters arising in the course of their duties and matters of public policy there might not have been a Beef Tribunal, which to date has sat for 198 days.
In the Minister's speech a comparison is made with Britain. The constitutional position is not the same there as it is here, in that in Britain Ministers attend only if the Prime Minister decides they should do so. I do not think that is a very strong argument because there are certain instances of committees in the House of Commons in recent years at which Ministers who did not attend and answer in respect of their policy decisions and so on would have suffered very much politically. It is most unlikely that the Prime Minister of the day would prevent Ministers from attending committees because it is in their own interests to do so. Ministers here shelter behind an illusory constitutional protection, which I do not believe exists. If there was a genuine commitment to transparency and to answering on matters of public policy, Ministers would be both willing and anxious to do so.
I would like to refer to some of Deputy Bruton's remarks. The Deputy is carried away with the significance of this matter, but it is much less significant than he believes it to be. I agree with him in that much will depend on the attitude of the Government in practice, whether it is anxious to protect itself under the precise terms of the motion of 7 April or whether it is prepared to enter into the spirit of this system, as it and others have enunciated it here. If they are prepared to enter into the spirit of it, this system could work quite satisfactorily and could be improved greatly in a short time with the passing of legislation regarding the privilege of witnesses.
Deputy Bruton referred to the unwillingness of some Ministers to accept amendments in committee, and he instanced the Special Committee on the Companies Bill over which I presided for two and a half years and of which many lengthy meetings were held. If the Deputy looks back over the records of that committee he will find that I accepted not only dozens or scores of amendments but almost hundreds in the course of that very long and complicated Bill. I never sought to make an ideological point against any valid argument. That Act of 1990 has literally hundreds of changes from the Bill as it was originally introduced in 1987. That is the correct approach to take in respect of Bills.
Committees have a great deal more to do than consider Bills in detail. One of their most valuable functions should be to examine people in regard to events and public policy. Instead of exclusively looking at what happens in Westminster we should more properly look at what happens in Washington where committees of this kind are very powerful and useful instruments in the examination of public policy and the investigation of scandals or alleged scandals. The fundamental system in Washington is different from that here, but that does not mean we cannot adapt a system of that kind to our requirements.
Because of the necessity to call Ministers and Ministers of State and to ensure they are examined and answerable to committees and because there is no question of privilege in regard to Ministers since they are already Members of the House, I urge the Minister to accept the amendment in my name and that of Deputy Keogh so that these powers can be added to the powers and jurisdictions of the committee. If one reads through the 15 headings of the motion passed on 7 April one will find that the jurisdiction of the committee is quite limited in many respects. It does not extend beyond the jurisdiction of a committee of the whole House at present and it does not allow the committee to take initiatives. Interpreted literally it means the Government will continue to dominate committees in the same way as they dominate the House. That would be unsatisfactory and would not relieve the frustration referred to by Deputy Power, which is the wish of many of us as legislators. The Minister should give the fullest consideration to this amendment which would immeasurably improve the effectiveness and value of these committees. They will certainly perform a valuable function in terms of expediting the business of the House and allowing it to be carried out more fully and more rapidly.
I congratulate the Minister on managing to pilot through this package of Dáil reform, but I am critical of it because to a large extent the jury is still out on how effective the new package of reforms will prove to be. I can understand that Deputy Bruton, who has come to be associated with pushing the need for Dáil reform, would feel especially enthusiastic. But I cannot believe that all will be changed and changed utterly, that we can impose this new system on the old and expect that there will be far wider participation by the House and automatically much greater productivity and quality legislation. However, I acknowledge the role of the Minister of State in progressing the matter this far this quickly. I regard the Whips as being a bit like personnel managers. The personality of a personnel manager often determines whether or not progress can be made. This personnel manager has managed to persuade the other Whips, almost by stealth on occasion, of the reality of Dáil reform, in so far as the Government sees it, in advance of this package.
There has been a marked reluctance among Members of the House to appreciate the extent of progress made and the necessity to address the implications of these changes. The Whips generally — and perhaps I should only speak for myself — did not appreciate that this was such a high priority for the Government. If one looks at the last term, which was the first term of this Dáil, reform was probably its major achievement; or it was the major achievement as sold to the people by the Minister of State, which is almost the same thing in politics. The Minister of State has been especially successful in convincing the public and the absent press corps that we have profound radical, fundamental and complete change. I congratulate him on that. We will all be the winners in this House as a result of his public relations job. As a Member of this House and Whip for one of the groups in the House I am entitled to look behind it a little bit deeper than has been probed so far by some of our critics in the media who have been calling for this for such a long time.
I welcome the changes and look forward to seeing how they work in practice. I welcome the Minister's commitment to review them regularly and I hope to take on board improvements as the need manifests itself. It is regrettable that in the public mind, Dáil reform has come to be equated with the setting up of new committees. It is not as simple as that. Dáil committees alone do not constitute Dáil reform. Many questions must be asked about how efficaciously the committees will work. I expressed the view privately and at Whips' meetings that, for example, this House cannot be taken as another version of the "mother of parliaments", the House of Commons, where committees have a very long history and where in some cases they have worked very well. There are, after all, 166 Members of this House and there are 650 Members of the House of Commons. When one takes 30 Ministers from this House and the Front Bench spokespeople, one does not have endless scope for drafting Deputies onto more than a dozen committees. In the House of Commons there is a very wide range of skills, interests, experiences and backgrounds from which to draw. There is proportionally a great deal less in this House. When one takes on board the fact that there has never been any great enthusiasm expressed in this House by the Deputies outside the front benches to become fully involved in the legislative process, one has some idea of the hill we have to climb. It cannot be automatically assumed that because the committees are now in place and the participation of all Deputies is invited, that it will be forthcoming. The Minister in his speech indicated that committees are very fine in theory but he said that they required a further ingredient which was the wholehearted support and co-operation of all Deputies and a commitment by them to improve current practices and procedures. I endorse that. It is a salutary word of warning from the Government Whip, because our last state will be worse then our first if it emerges after a reasonable period that the system is not working.
I see the main defects in the performance of the Dáil as being capable of being summarised as follows. There are, and have been, too few sitting days. There has been an inability to address urgent topical issues. Too few legislative measures have been enacted in each term. One could add that there have been inadequate and ineffective procedures to make the Government accountable. This is an especially major defect in a parliamentary system that tolerates a situation where the Executive dictates the decision making process rather than the Dáil. The combined effect has been to diminish the remnants of the Dáil and to have questions increasingly raised about its capacity to respond to the challenges of modern society.
I agree that theoretically the existence of legislative committees ought to free the Dáil Chamber to get on with other business while the detailed work of line by line examination of legislation will preoccupy the committees. If the committees are to work as intended it will require the participation of a majority of TDs as legislators and not merely in the fashion that many backbench TDs have conducted themselves up to now. This will be a culture shock to the system. Up to now a majority of backbench TDs have left the drudgery of legislation to their front bench colleagues and have concentrated on being re-elected.
I do not think it can be presumed that this tradition — in the old hallowed sense of that term — can be expected to change automatically. Indeed, one of the most remarkable features of the present Dáil is the number of Deputies presenting regularly in the division lobbies for votes. There was a clamour for this debate. Perhaps the cart is coming after the horse, as Deputy O'Malley said, in the sense that the motions have been put through already. We have not had Deputies jumping up and down in their seats indicating a wish to get in on the debate at this stage. It would be far more injurious to the reputation of this House if, because we are in the unique position of a Government that dominates the House in terms of numbers, many Deputies felt that the traditional obligation on them to present for divisions in the House were to diminish.
I should like to refer to the question of resources. As I recovered from the late equaliser I turned on my monitor and I thought for a moment that the world had stood on its head when I heard Deputy Power dispensing largesse and announcing what he would do to make this Chamber work more effectively. I thought there had been a coup close to the heart of Government. I listened carefully to what he said about how chairpersons and conveners would be paid a modest stipend. What Deputy Bruton has said about Opposition conveners being involved is news to me and I do not think it will get as far as the smaller parties in the House. However, it raises an important question in as much as we have discussed the necessity to resource these committees adequately if they are to function. That is especially important having regard to the imbalance which exists as between the resources available to the Executive and those available to the Opposition.
Traditionally Governments have arrogated to themselves not only the expertise of the entire Civil Service but increasingly a panoply of special advisers, whereas the Opposition are expected to contribute meaningfully to complex legislation without access to similar resources. It is especially exacerbated in the case of small parties like my own, the Green Party and Independent Deputies, where an arbitrary figure of seven Deputies is fixed before any financial assistance is available. I would be quite satisfied to forego any bite at the cherry, so to speak, that may or may not be in prospect for me or my group, in return for some modest resources for my group to equip itself to cope with the new situation. It is not acceptable that Independent Members of the House and small parties have no access to any such resources.
I refer approvingly to the section of the Minister's speech where he makes the point that he expects all Members of this House to play their part in making the system of Dáil reform work. If that is to happen and we are seriously and genuinely expecting all Members to participate fully, then the Standing Order that prevents a group such as mine from having any access to resources to enable them to cope with that challenge is unfair. Deputies who are subjected to that unequal treatment are expected to participate fully.
Deputy O'Malley proposed an amendment on the answerability of Ministers. That is an argument that we have heard in the past and I presume the Government will vote down the amendment. The Minister said the process will be subject to regular reviews. Another important and critical aspect of Dáil reform, if it is to be meaningful, is the extent and quality of accountability in the House.
I welcome the fact that the Minister appears to be prepared to introduce the kind of schedule whereby there will not be any significant diminution of plenary sessions of the House and opportunities to the Opposition parties to raise pressing issues of the day. However, the quality and style to which we have become accustomed and the standards we accept, for example, at Question Time, leave something to be desired. Deputy O'Malley has argued that if Ministers were answerable it might obviate the necessity for certain tribunals of inquiry and so on. The chairman of the only tribunal sitting at present has made the explicit point that if certain questions, over a certain period, had been answered fully there would not have been any necessity for that tribunal. It is frustrating when the Ceann Comhairle gets up and says: "I have no responsibility for how Ministers answer questions" when Ministers patently evade questions or give minimal information. For example, in the papers which were open to the tribunal of inquiry into the beef processing industry a senior civil servant congratulated a junior civil servant on how expertly he had managed to put the questioning Deputy off on the wrong scent.
It is not acceptable that one needs to know precisely the form and the nature of the question to be put in order to get important information in the public interest. The transfer of questions needs to be examined. There has been a growing practice recently of transferring questions, particularly from the Taoiseach to Ministers. These questions can only be answered by the Taoiseach because they relate to things which he said or did, yet they are transferred to other Ministers. There are examples of questions being transferred where in any reasonable assessment it would appear that the Minister to whom the questions were addressed should be required to reply.
The media too have obligations. Some sections of the media have been very vocal in criticising, often from an uninformed position, the performance of Members of this House. Competition and rivalry between parties and politicians being what it is, unless the committees are assured of a reasonable amount of fair coverage that will be a further bucket of cold water on top of the efforts that have been made.
One of Deputy Bruton's hobby-horses is the question of the privilege of Members of this House. I am not sure why he is so agitated about this because there is already a system in this House whereby Deputies are made accountable for any transgression or abuse of privilege conferred on Members of this House. If any member of the public is fearful of losing his employment or of sanctions being taken against him as a result of coming to a Deputy of this House, purely out of public interest and with no other motive, with information of far reaching importance, then the system of parliamentary democracy would be at risk and the citizens would be the losers.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate. Open parliamentary debate is a cornerstone of democracy and legislators have a vital role to play in this important process. However, if this process is to take place in an effective and open manner it must be supplemented by modern and efficient procedures. Idealism alone is not sufficient. Our society is changing rapidly and our democratic institutions must reflect this change if they are to have a meaningful function.
The new committee system marks a major advance in attaining this greater democratic effectiveness, particularly in comparison with the old system which was often the source of much frustration.
The four new committees proposed in the Programme for Partnership are an integral part of the ambitious proposals of this Government. They will involve all the Members of this House in a wide-ranging legislative agenda. There will be many positive aspects to the new committees which will greatly enhance the democratic function of this House. They will monitor the activities of the various Government Departments. This process should increase the influence of Members of this House on Government policy. The fact that the committees will have the ability to consider the Estimates for the public services represents a major improvement given that up to at least last year many Estimates were not fully discussed, indeed some were not discussed.
Another commendable aspect of the new committees is their emphasis on equality and that they will have the power to consider the impact of legislation on equality. Equality should be an integral part of our democratic system and the committees will make a major contribution in ensuring that this vital principle is respected and enforced.
All too often the Members of this House, occupied as they are with constituency work, do not have as much time as they would like to study other issues. For that reason I welcome the fact that briefing sessions will be held between departmental officials and the committees. This will allow for a more indepth awareness of the issues concerned which will enrich the level of debate in this House. This is a very important aspect of the whole new procedure and I want assurances from the Minister that we will have the co-operation and support of officials in the relevant Departments because that is not always the case. The success or failure of these committees will depend on the goodwill of the Minister and, in turn, of his officials, irrespective of the Department.
This is a major change. It will, for the first time, give Deputies an opportunity to participate in a meaningful way. Most legislation that comes before us is drafted by civil servants and, while they have served the State well, I welcome the new procedure whereby we can invite persons who prepare reports and who have a positive impact and input in advance of legislation being introduced. For that reason I want the Minister's assurance that full co-operation and support will be forthcoming. To give an example, the Judicial Separation Act, 1989, was dealt with in committee and the Minister showed great flexibility in relation to the contributions made by Members on that committee. That resulted in very good legislation and I compliment the Members of the House on their involvement and contribution at that time.
Debate is at the heart of the democratic process, these new committees will allow Members to examine Bills in greater detail and to have a greater input. In addition there will be more time for discussion on Committee Stage of Bills. This new system will allow for more open and positive discussion as opposed to the more adversarial system which can often be counter-productive. It provides a forum in which all are free to make a constructive contribution.
Deputy Rabbitte said that co-operation was needed on all sides of the House. I endorse that because there will be teething problems. It will take time to get used to the new system. It is up to all Members to ensure the success of this reform for which they have called for years and which gives us the opportunity to participate fully.
I understand that a clerk and other assistance will be available to the committees. That is important because they must have the necessary backup to ensure success.
Like other Members of this House, I have been a member of all party committees, some of which were very successful and others which were not. I would like to pay tribute to the Committee on Crime, Lawlessness and Vandalism which prepared 14 or 15 reports, some of which have been acted upon in this House.
I welcome the proposal before us. I compliment the Minister and all the parties who worked out the proposals to ensure that we all have the opportunity of participating in a more meaningful way on behalf of the community. We have heard repeated criticisms of the antiquated systems in the Dáil, and of the ineffectiveness of Deputies and backbenchers. This is our opportunity to make this system work. It is in all our interests and if we are successful we will do a service, not alone to this House, but to the community at large who look to us to bring in good laws.
As the Labour Party Whip and one of the people involved with the Minister of State at the Taoiseach's Office in promoting, since the new Government came in, the concept of change in the format and running times of this House, I commend the Minister for the patient manner in which he dealt with this matter through the Whips' meetings. Although it was a commitment by the two parties in the partnership Government, and one of the items documented and publicised as being a welcome change, the Minister has taken the unusual step of coming back to the House on two occasions: first, in a consultative way and then reconvening special meetings of the Whips which dealt specifically with the format in which these new committees would come into operation. He did that in the knowledge that there was a widespread demand among all parties in this House, as well as among the public and in the media, that changes should be made in the way this House carries on its business. This privilege does not rest with Deputy John Bruton or with anybody in particular. Indeed, the Minister's patience at Whips' meetings confirms that there was initially a reluctance on the part of people, reflected again today by Deputy Rabbitte, to make these changes because the implications for the smaller Opposition parties were unclear.
Parties change from one side of this House to the other, from being in Government to being in Opposition and vice versa. Any changes we make, therefore, should be formulated in such a way that they will be fair to all Members of this House regardless of their party. They should be able to use the legislative arm of the State to the best of their ability and ensure that the electorate they represent are served in the best way possible. There is a perception in the minds of the public that we do not use this House to the best of our ability, but these committees represent a step towards changing that. They are not to be confused, as Deputy O'Malley has obviously done, with other committees of the House. He referred to them as if they would have the same standing orders as exist for Oireachtas joint committees, such as the Joint Committee on Commercial State-Sponsored Bodies, the committee on financial affairs, the services committee and other standing committees of the House. These committees we are debating now are select legislative committees and their role will be to examine all legislation in detail on Committee Stage. Legislation will first be dealt with in a plenary session of the House in a Second Stage debate, during which Deputies who have an interest in the legislation will be involved. Individual items of legislation will then be referred to the relevant select legislative committee to deal with the detailed work that takes place on Committee Stage. This will include, as the Minister said, the line by line examination of all legislation and particularly of Estimates. This will represent the real work of these committees. They will sit initially on separate days from the plenary sittings of the House. The Minister has indicated that we can review their operation and, if we make errors in our suggestions now, they can be considered at a later stage. In the interim the committees will sit on Tuesday mornings up to 1 p.m. and all day on Fridays in both this Chamber, which will not be in plenary session, and the Seanad Chamber, if agreement is reached with their Committee on Procedure and Privileges. The committees will also sit in other suitably equipped premises within the jurisdiction of the Oireachtas and will be televised by the media. This will highlight the important work that takes place on Committee Stage of a Bill. When a Bill concludes on Committee Stage it will return to a plenary session of the House for final approval of all Members of this House. That is how legislation should be dealt with efficiently here.
The benefit for all Members of this House, particularly the Opposition, is that it will make available the plenary sessions of the House for other important work which might be delayed under the existing process. Plenary sessions of the House can then be used for Second Stages of Bills or for debates on topical matters. This would be in contrast to the present fiasco that takes place daily on the Order of Business. It will make the Taoiseach and Ministers more available for questioning. It will eliminate the problem of time running out on priority questions, when some Members because of time constraints never get an opportunity to put their question despite all their work.
The Government is trying to ensure that this House is more relevant to the needs of Members. It will also give to Members appointed to these committees a greater input into legislation. They have been criticised in the past, by the media in particular, for not attending to their legislative work because of the demands of their constituents. This new procedure will represent a blending of our legislative role with our constituency representation. Let us hope that these committees will operate efficiently and that the media will highlight their work. The media often criticise the operations of this House and occasionally that is brought to their attention by Members of this House. When trying to reach agreement on the Adjournment of the House, or on the number of sitting days in a particular week, normally agreed between the Whips, Members — for obvious reasons — often accuse the Government for not sitting more frequently and call votes on the matter. That immediately attracts media attention. The House then criticises the media for criticising the House, when we, so to speak, invite them to do so.
The Labour Party is fully committed to this committee procedure. It is part of the Programme for a Partnership Government and we feel it is a welcome change. However, it should not be confused with the other committees of the House such as that covered by the earlier motion today, when for the first time, a Foreign Affairs Committee was established. The terms of reference of this committee have been agreed and the Tánaiste has conceded to most of the demands of the Opposition in this area. However, we reserve the constitutional right that a Minister in that type of committee is answerable only to the House and not necessarily to the committee. I am sure that all Ministers will want to avail of these committees, but the legislative committees will have to be used by Ministers because their legislation will have been initiated in the plenary session of the House on Second Stage. The committee will be chaired by another Member of the House. The Minister will be present for the debate on amendments to concede them or otherwise, and there will be votes. The Bill will eventually return to a plenary sitting of the House for the Report and Final Stages.
What could be more appropriate and effective than the proper use in this way of the committee system? The Minister has said this could not be successful if it was imposed on top of the existing system. He is trying now to accommodate all views by separating the two systems initially. It can then be reviewed and hopefully we can make better use of our time in the four or five days a week that the House will sit. In this way we hope to be able to deal with the affairs of the State while looking after the needs of our constituents also.
In 15 minutes I will call on the Minister of State to conclude the debate. A number of Deputies wish to contribute. I call Deputy Ellis.
The motion before the House this evening in relation to the committees is probably the most important work the House will do during the lifetime of this Dáil. It is important to consider the committee system in its totality. We should look on members of committees as not just having the right to debate but to make suggestions. During the last Dáil I was a member of the EC legislation committee which did more work than it received credit for. There were a number of reasons for that, for instance, it was not subject to the glare of publicity that is focused on the Dáil Chamber. Many of the reports prepared by that committee went unsung and, in many cases, unread by the media.
Members of the general public whose lives were affected by some of the recommendations of that committee did not realise the reports were available.
I am sure everyone accepts that the new committee system will have teething problems but I expect that within 12 to 18 months they will be very efficient. They will give Deputies an opportunity to play their role as legislators. In the past Deputies have been unable to make full contributions in regard to legislation because of time constraints or because of being a member of the Government party. A Deputy might be unpopular if following the Minister's contribution he or she put a point to a full plenary session of this House. In establishing these committees we are modernising this House and bringing it to a new level. The committees will operate a system whereby all legislation introduced in this House will be fine-combed on Committee Stage. This will help to eliminate some of the defects in legislation passed in this House, some of which have had enormous consequences for the Government. Yesterday, it was necessary to introduce a Bill as previous legislation was not watertight. If legislation is to be subject to examination by the courts and the best briefed barristers here, it is important when drafting it that the same backup service should be available as to those outside who may wish to contest any action or process in regard to enacted legislation.
These committees provide an opportunity for backbenchers to play a major role in this House. They enable Deputies to represent what they see as their role. For too long much of our time has been taken up, not working as legislators, but as public representatives or semi-ombudsmen dealing with constituents. They wish Deputies first to represent them and second to work as legislators. These committees will provide Deputies with a new opportunity to combine both roles to great effect with regard to the future development of democracy.
I hope these committees will receive the media attention they deserve in the years ahead. In the past, meetings of the committees of this House rarely received media coverage. This is an opportunity for the media to highlight the role of the Oireachtas for the ordinary citizen. People are of the view that we do very little work here but that is not true. We do a great deal of unrecorded work which, to many people outside the House, might appear irrelevant which is not the case.
These committees mark a new beginning for the House and a new role for its Members. If they are operated properly and to full effect they will portray a new vision of the work of the Houses of the Oireachtas and the elected representatives to the general public.
One of the many valid criticisms by visitors to this House is the small number of Deputies present. They assume that because 166 Deputies are elected approximately 100 should be present at any time. They do not realise that Members work ouside the Dáil Chamber. I have been a Member of this House for 24 years and served on various committees of the House. Those committees have operated outside this Chamber in Setanta House and elsewhere without much notice being taken of their activities. The work of those committees often went totally unsung. Deputies do not continue in this business if they do not receive publicity. However, it is unfair to criticise Deputies for not being in this Chamber, especially when the people in the press gallery are aware of the position but are not prepared to report it.
I am delighted that select committees are being set up to deal with legislation. Every party in the House, particularly in Opposition, has called for this and my party is no exception. The committees will now be established and it is up to Members on all sides to ensure that they work. As Deputy Rabbitte stated earlier, there may be a reluctance on the part of backbenchers to participate in committees because they may have got into the habit of not participating in debating legislation. I do not think that will be the case. I participated on Committee Stage of the Roads Bill and there was always a full turnout. I welcome the committees and I am confident that all parties will participate. Backbenchers realise that it is also important for them to participate. They will not have any excuse for not participating.
I hope the committees will be televised and receive media coverage so that the general public can see that their elected representatives are participating fully in debating legislation. The new committees are particularly important for backbench Members of the Government Parties. With the operation of the guillotines in previous administrations and in this Dáil backbenchers rarely get an opportunity to participate in debates, they may have to share time and may be allocated only five minutes which is not adequate, one requires longer than that to make an effective point. The establishment of these committees will create an opportunity for those members to contribute. When a general debate is introduced in the House by the Taoiseach or a Minister, a Deputy from all other parties is allowed to contribute before a member of the Labour Party. Indeed, the four members of the Democratic Left have fared better in contributions to the House than the 22 backbench members of the Labour Party.
Better quality.
I am prepared to have that tested with my colleague, the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and Deputy McManus any time. The quality of contributions from Wicklow Deputies has been very high.
That is the way the proceedings of this House are operated. The Government has 100 members, the Opposition has 60 and Opposition Members are allocated 50 per cent of the time of the House. That leaves very little time in which backbenchers may contribute. Therefore, I welcome the establishment of the select committees of the House where we will have an opportunity to contribute more frequently. Nobody wants to come in here and listen interminably to another speaker. Members want an opportunity to contribute themselves.
Staffing of committees has not been given sufficient consideration. The House is operating with a limited staff and because of Civil Service rules, staff numbers cannot be increased to an acceptable level. Constraints also apply in regard to the money we may spend on staffing, as outlined in the Estimate for the Oireachtas. While there will be not be any great increase in the amount of money allocated for increasing staff levels, there will be a huge increase in the staff's workload from those at the top down to the ushers, our secretaries and so on. Deputies will be spending much more time in the House and will require more staff, but there has been no mention of increasing staff numbers. If we require more time from our staff for the select committees, the joint Oireachtas committees will suffer. Those committees are already experiencing difficulties in regard to resources — staffing and financial resources.
While being enthusiastic about increasing the number of sitting hours and the various committee meetings of the House, we must remember that such committees require people to staff them, record the proceedings and so on. The question of staff is important. I hope the Minister will indicate that finance will be made available to increase staffing levels so that the work of the committees can be carried out efficiently.
I compliment the Minister of State on his concern in regard to Dáil reform. He genuinely wants to see reform take place and this House operating more efficiently; none of us should have a quarrel in that regard.
My concern relates to the accountability of Ministers to the committees. We have put down an amendment which we will be pressing, to ensure such accountability. Those committees will sit in various rooms of the House which means the work of the House will be more streamlined. However, the committees will have no greater power than the House dealing with the Committee Stage of Bills. That is my main criticism in regard to the new committees. We are merely window dressing this issue. I am not being offensive to the Minister in that regard because I am aware of his commitment to Oireachtas reform.
If we are genuine about reform we should be talking about root and branch reform. We should completely reformulate the way this House operates, but unfortunately that is not what is happening. We are putting a little oil on the hinges and stopping the place from creaking and that is not genuine and comprehensive reform. Committees should be able to call Ministers to account and request that they attend and explain elements of policy in greater depth than they do at present in the House. That would go some way towards proper reform.
A number of Deputies have referred to the role of backbenchers on the committees and said that they believe they will have a greater role to play. I welcome that, but unfortunately it is not enough. They will be participating only on the Committee Stage of Bills and will have an input in Estimate debates.
I thank all Deputies who contributed to the debate. I thought more Deputies would have been in the House for the debate, but they may be otherwise engaged because of the event taking place today. I thank Deputies who have thrown a number of bouquets in my direction in relation to Dáil reform. Deputies have stated that I am committed to Dáil reform. That is true and I hope during the lifetime of this Government that that will become more apparent. I will begin by throwing a number of bouquets around in acknowledgement of the role played by the Opposition Whips in regard to Dáil reform and to my colleague in the Labour Party, Deputy Ferris, who is an assistant Whip on the Government side. I thank all the Whips for their co-operation in this regard. It is not easy to get messages across to members of parliamentary parties, Leaders of parties and so on, who are busy with many other aspects of their work. The Whips have made my job much easier by being open and willing to discuss change and we have put forward a good package. It is a start and I would like to see it continue.
I will briefly address a number of the major points made during the debate. Members are getting somewhat hung up about Ministers being answerable to the committees when what they mean is that they want the committees to have the power to summon Ministers to attend. Ministers will be answerable in that they will have to attend the committees when legislation and Estimates concerning them are being debated. It will be up to members of the committee to question Ministers about expenditure in their areas of responsibility at those meetings. As Deputy Ferris pointed out, these are legislative committees and we have other committees — for example, the Committee of Public Accounts, the Joint Committee on Commercial State-Sponsored Bodies and the Women's Rights Committee — who will have an involvement in the area of policy, etc. Ministers will be answerable to the committees in so far as they will have to attend meetings, answer questions in regard to the Estimates for their Departments and deal with the Committee Stages of Bills. Members may be somewhat confused about the question of the answerability of Ministers to committees and the right of committees to summon Ministers to attend meetings. The primary role of the committees is to deal with legislation. If they summon Ministers to attend meetings on a regular basis or cause conflict, Members of the House may adopt an adversarial stance towards them. This would reduce the effectiveness of the committees in terms of dealing with legislation.
There is room for the expansion of the role of the committees at a later date. However, we cannot expand their role and leave all the other committees in place. It is important that we see how this small movement forward works in practice and over a period finalise logistical problems such as the running of the committees and timetables. We can discuss the expansion of the role of the committees when these issues are finalised and the system is working effectively. I will be open to doing this.
I referred to the Estimates and the detailed questioning of Ministers by the members of the committee. Ministers will have to justify the expenditure of money under their Departments' Estimates. Deputy Bruton referred to the scrutiny of the Estimates and asked that Estimates be introduced before the money is spent so that they can be discussed by the committee. Due to other events, the Estimates for this year were not published prior to Christmas. I am sure that Deputy O'Malley and other Deputies in the House will be aware that during the lifetime of the previous two Governments — I think going back as far as 1987 — Estimates were produced prior to Christmas. I hope that the committee system and the debates on committee reports once a month will enable us to discuss the Estimates before any money is expended.
I agree with the points made by Deputies about the need for more resources. I have taken this matter on board previously and will continue to do so. I also agree that Opposition parties need more resources than Government parties. I do not think any of the Deputies opposite will find me wanting in my efforts to secure the maximum amount of resources in terms of money and staffing. Members of the staff of the Oireachtas will act as clerks to these committees. I have insisted on this as these people are held in very high regard. The various Departments will appoint people to liaise with the committees and give them back-up. This will be of some assistance to the committees. The Joint Committee on Employment was the best example of how this system works in practice. I hope that this system works well in the future and, as I said, I will seek more resources if they are required.
I thank the Deputies who have contributed to the debate and the Whips for the various parties for their co-operation in dealing with this matter. I believe this fundamental change in the way this House conducts its business will be welcomed by the public and Members of the House. I repeat my commitment to keep the matter under review and to change any aspect that is not working or is not seen to be working.
