I take this occasion to ask the Minister to give his attention to the need to reform this House at the earliest possible opportunity. We are spending a substantial sum of money here in the administration of our own affairs, yet we are carrying out those in accordance with procedures which we inherited from the Houses of Commons and of Lords at Westminister in the early twenties. Indeed, both of those institutions have reformed themselves in the meantime, but we are still, broadly speaking, following procedures inherited from them, unreformed, in the early twenties.
Clearly, expenditure of additional sums of money to enable Deputies to do their work more effectively — with which this Supplementary Estimate is concerned — is justifiable but only really justifiable if that is accompanied by an increased constructive output from the Members of this House. Unfortunately the procedures of this House render such an output very difficult. We need to have established here substantially more committees to investigate not just legislation but also the administration of public funds. I raised an example a few moments ago in the Minister's presence in regard to a committee on non-commercial semi-State bodies.
We also need committees in regard to legislation which would enable outside bodies, many of whom write long and detailed letters to each of us as Members of the House, to present that evidence orally in regard to individual pieces of legislation before a select committee of the House. We need to show the public at large that they can have an input into the doings of this House. Unfortunately, there are insufficient mechanisms for taking evidence from outside bodies. I would hope, in respect of all major legislation, that a committee could be established with a very limited period of operation, perhaps three weeks, whose responsibility it would be to take evidence from outside members of the public on a particular item of legislation coming before the House, so that those who have something to say about legislation are not forced into simply writing cyclostyle letters to all 160 Members — some of whom reply, some of whom do not, but most of whom do not read the representations received for understandable reasons, because they have a large number of other things to read. If a select committee could be established to receive these representations orally and cross-question the people on the case they are making, the legislative process would be much more relevant to the nation as a whole. Unless we succeed in doing that, people will question, in increasing numbers, the relevance of this House to the government of the country. They will see that, in fact, many of the decisions are taken outside the country, or are certainly taken outside this House by the Government who come in, under normal circumstances, and present their wishes to the House and have them passed without a change of a line or a comma, simply by exercise of the Whip. That process certainly has a debilitating influence on our democracy and forces the Opposition — whichever opposition it happens to be — into a purely negative oppositional role because it has no constructive opportunity to contribute, apart from the limited opportunity afforded by Committee Stage debate on Bills, to the better government of the country.
If we want our economic problems to be solved they must be solved ultimately with a broad measure of agreement (a) about the facts of the problems on both sides of the House and (b) by a measure of agreement between most or all of the parties on the measures to be taken to solve them. We must recognise that the problems facing us at the moment are so deep and severe that the measures to be taken to solve them will put our democracy to the test. We must reform this House to enable those decisions to be taken in an open fashion, whereby people will see why they are necessary and they will not be seen just as the evil machinations of the Government of the day — whoever they happen to be — acting irrationally to damage people's living standards, as seems to be the way in which issues are presented to the public, not because governments are a necessary evil, but because of the unreformed character of this House which does not afford an opportunity for issues wherein possible areas of agreement could be reached to be teased out in a rational fashion between all the Members of the House.
I must congratulate the Minister on having reacted positively to the proposals made by the previous Government in regard to the financial business transactions of this House, but would hope that he would also take an interest, as he is now moving this motion, in the issue of Oireachtas reform to reform the entire way in which this House does its business.
We must also reflect on the fact that speeches here — and perhaps my own is an example in this instance — can be too long. This is so because there is not an opportunity in this case for a to and fro discussion. If a Member speaks once, he or she cannot speak again on far too many items of business. The assumption is that by allowing people to speak only once this will shorten the debate. In fact, the opposite is the case. If people are told they can speak once for an hour, they make absolutely sure to speak for an hour, the debate will take far longer and be far less constructive.
We should try to do our business by the system which applies in New Zealand where people are allowed to speak a number of times but at no time for more than about five minutes on a particular item of business. This allows for a type of Committee Stage discussion, with people speaking on a point, getting an answer on that point, moving later to another point and so on. They have what is a normal dialogue situation in regard to the different issues. Our present system sends everyone to sleep and everyone out of the Chamber, because there is no chance of another Member getting in on the debate. I speak for an hour and there is a Member over there waiting to speak for an hour and another, in his turn, waiting to speak for an hour. That takes up three hours, so the remainder of the 160 Members can go to their rooms because they know they will not have an opportunity to speak for those three hours. It is no wonder that people in the public gallery are disillusioned when they see that the House is almost empty. Much tighter restriction on the limit of speeches, but the capacity of speaking more frequently on particular items, would lead to a much more natural and normal debate in the House, which would be to the advantage of the Government as well as to the Opposition, would not slow up business but would make the House more relevant.
We must also look hard at our system of voting. Every time we vote we waste 20 minutes ringing bells and going through the lobbies. I know that the Committee on Procedures and Privileges is anxious to do this — we should seek a way of voting, possibly electronic, but obviously tamper-proof, because one could not have a system with which one could be enabled to vote in another person's name or steal other Members' keys and so forth. This would not consume such vast quantities of valuable and expensive parliamentary time. I hope that will be given some priority.
I should like to see at the earliest possible opportunity radio and television broadcasting of all the proceedings of the House. Up to now I was hesitant to favour this because I was anxious that we should start by broadcasting committees. Committees get insufficient press publicity, and one way of rectifying this would be to bring radio and television into committees first so that they would get an enhanced profile. However, the danger of the House becoming irrelevant to the nation has become so acute that we will have to go the whole way if we are to restore public confidence in and understanding of what we are doing. Experiments in Britain show that the public perception of the value of the House of Commons has been enhanced by the fact that the House is broadcast. We should learn from that experience.
In regard to committees, I should like to see hearings by committees held outside of Dublin. We need to bring the Legislature to the people. One way would be to have committees hold hearings on subjects which are relevant to particular areas in those areas. If, for example, we had an agricultural committee there is no reason why it should not hold hearings in the West when dealing with problems which relate to the West. If, for example, it was dealing with industries in Cork there is no reason why a committee sitting should not be held in Cork. That would get away from the them and us situation which people have who live outside the capital. They feel the capital expresses an undue influence. If we brought the Oireachtas into the country we would do a lot to bridge that gap and it would help Members to do their work more effectively. It would stop us from seeing problems solely through the eyes of our own constituencies. One opportunity we have to visit other constituencies in a serious way is during by-elections. Although this is a valuable way of finding out about problems in other areas it should not be the only one. The other way is by going to dances late at night where, as we all know, we learn very little and sometimes we can even make mistakes, as has happened in the recent past. I do not believe that the House when in plenary session should move, but if committees moved to other parts of the country it would be invaluable.