Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 19 Nov 1991

Vol. 413 No. 1

Private Members' Business. - Oireachtas Joint Social and Economic Committee: Motion.

Mr. Quinn

I move:

"That Dáil Éireann, alarmed at the projected increase of unemployment to over 300,000 in 1992; conscious of the deteriorating economic situation within Ireland; concerned about the changes which will affect agricultural output as a result of the GATT talks and the changes in the Common Agricultural Policy; determined to act decisively to deal with the wide range of problems in the delivery and extent of our social services, in particular health, housing and education; resolves to establish on a statutory basis an Oireachtas Social and Economic Committee with not less than 18 members drawn from both Houses:—

(1) to review economic and social policy from time to time,

(2) to examine in detail the reports from various bodies such as NESC and ESRI,

(3) to deal with such legislation at the Committee Stage as Dáil Éireann may from time to time decide,

(4) to receive submissions from the social partners and other interested groups on matters concerning the creation of employment and wealth, and on the rights of workers and unemployed persons,

(5) to make detailed recommendations, from time to time, to the Government and the Oireachtas on the creation of employment and wealth, and all related matters and

(6) to commission reports and employ consultants as required;

and Dáil Éireann further resolves that adequate staff and resources be provided to the Committee so as to enable it to do its work, and that the proceedings of the Committee may be open to the media and public."

I seek permission to share my time with my colleague, Deputy Michael D. Higgins.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is that satisfactory? Agreed.

Mr. Quinn

I propose to speak for approximately 20 minutes. This motion calls for the establishment of a social and economic committee. No one doubts that the country is facing economic and social problems on an enormous scale. As recently as last weekend two publications coming from diverse quarters served to underline our serious economic and social problems.

The Sunday Business Post, the voice of commerce and the business establishment here, talked about a state of emergency and in an unprecedented full page editorial they outlined the major problems facing the country and called for a philosophy which will act as a binding agent and hold society together in the coming decade. It was the most dramatic editorial they have ever produced.

In a separate document published over the same weekend by the Catholic Justice Commission and the Conference of Major Religious Superiors on aspects of the 1992 budget, the authors called for a massive transformation in the way our budget is formulated and in how the economic policy which it underpins is implemented.

Both publications underline the extent of the crisis facing society but they are only two of numerous publications which over the last year and a half have documented the extent of the failure of our economy to create the level of employment required to sustain at a reasonable standard the lifestyle of all our people.

There have been changes in the economy over the last three years or so in terms of public spending and in the wider economy. There have been various efficiencies, prunings, rationalisations and an outside commentator looking at Ireland would readily recognise the considerable shake-up that has taken place and might even describe the economy as being leaner than it was. But, would they come to the conclusion that our economy is more competitive as a result? I doubt it. All the signs are that the economy is less well able to withstand any economic shock than it was. By the same token it must be doubted that our economy is well equipped to benefit from any significant international recovery. Above all, there is no sign that we will be better able to translate economic growth into the jobs than we were.

What a price has been paid in the polarisation of society, in the breakdown of communities, in the suffering of young and old alike if they need a service from the State?

Two points must be made right at the start of this debate. First, the breakdowns that we have witnessed have not happened by accident — they have all come about as a matter of choice and are all directly related to the priorities of Government in the last four years. Second, all these things — hardship, unemployment, and the economic failure of society — are related. The climate which has allowed and encouraged emigration on a historic scale, the collapse of parts of our health service, and the gradual dismantling of high standard free education, is the same climate, regrettably, that has permitted the emergence of a new sort of scandal in Ireland — the scandal of greed and petty corruption that has characterised the last few, sad, sordid months.

It is not our purpose to use this motion or debate to recriminate. There has been enough of that. There must now be a constructive and positive political response to this problem that reaches beyond the narrow historical and bitter boundaries of party division and Civil War animosities that flared into life last Wednesday night in this Chamber.

I congratulate the Minister for Finance on his new appointment on my own behalf and on behalf of my party. The public are crying out for a constructive, comprehensive response from all elected politicians. If we fail to respond in a generous and creative manner, we run the risk of not only forfeiting their support but of undermining the foundations of democracy. When I say "we", I refer to everybody in the Chamber. For how long can we sustain, in stable form, a society which by any reckoning — and the CMRS report is the one to which I most recently referred — has one third of its population below the poverty line and 20 per cent of its workforce condemned to virtual indefinite idleness? It cannot go on forever. We must do something about it.

The role of Government is to provide leadership and direction. It has never been an easy task. Our problems have been compounded in recent years as the difficulties facing individual Ministers and parties in Government have increased. Faced on the one hand with the demands of participation in the meetings of the Council of Ministers in the European Community while at the same time managing complex Departments at home, Irish Ministers are becoming increasingly remote and isolated from Irish society due to the demanding pressures on their time. I have not even added the demands with regard to constituency representation or party affairs. The role and workload of a Minister today is infinitely more demanding than it was five or ten years ago.

The traditional culture of Cabinet Government has depended on a near exclusive relationship between the Ministers of the day and the permanent civil servants. Problems are analysed in private, policy options are debated in secret and solutions, if any, emerge from behind the wall of Cabinet collective responsibility, to be presented to the Oireachtas in the form of legislation which will require the rubber stamp of approval from Government supporters. We have all experienced that either as Government supporters or Ministers. It is a very old system which has been in operation since 1922, but it has not served the nation well. It has been comprehensively reviewed and seriously damned by Professor Joseph Lee in his award winning work on modern Irish history. Despite our proclamations of independence, we inherited a Westminster model of parliament in 1922 and we have not seen fit to reform it, nothwithstanding the fact that that Mother of Parliament model has itself significantly transformed the way in which it does its business.

I put it to the Chair in his capacity as Speaker of the House who is familiar with the workings of many parliaments, that most people in this House recognise that virtually every European Parliament has a committee structure that involves the members of the parliament, irrespective of their party allegiance. The European Parliament and the Congress of the United States have committee structures, although they do not have Cabinet Government in the form we know and recognise. The committee system is an integral part of the work of every modern parliament.

Where are we with regard to the attitude and intentions of the present Government in respect of the utilisation of the resources of Parliament in a constructive committee structure? The recently agreed Programme for Government between Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats contained the following:

In future, suitable Bills will be dealt with on Committee Stage by a Select Committee and debates in the Dáil on these Bills will be confined to Second Stage and Report Stage. Streamlined voting procedures in committee will be introduced, so that there is a minimum interruption in the flow of business.

A calendar will be set out in advance for the meetings of the Oireachtas Committee.

The Government will propose the establishment of a European Affairs Committee along the lines proposed in Report No. 7 of the 6th Committee on Secondary Legislation of the European Communities. MEPs will in future have a right of audience at meetings of this Committee.

The Government will examine the feasibility of giving a special allowance to the Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committees in recognition of their additional responsibilities and workload.

While I welcome that modest step forward and the commitment that underlies it, it simply does not go far enough. It will not deal with specific requirements which the public now want from the Oireachtas. We cannot do the business we have been elected to do with the system which we now have. All the talk about changing the voting system is irrelevant if we do not change the way we do business inside this House.

It is the considered view of the Labour Party, which I believe is shared by most Members of this House and certainly by all Opposition Parties, that we need to harness the energies of all the Members of the Oireachtas and to open the doors of Departments of Government to the social partners and other interested and concerned groups in our society who want to see our problems confronted and who have solutions to offer.

This motion proposes to establish on a statutory basis an Oireachtas social and economic affairs committee. It would draw its membership from both Houses of the Oireachtas and would have its own independent staff with adequate resources to enable it to carry out its work. In this context, since both the Minister and one of his more senior advisers are here, let me make a plea for a separate estimate and separate budgetary control for the Houses of the Oireachtas to be incorporated into a method of financing this democracy similar to that in other parliaments in Europe. Otherwise the plea for resources will fall on deaf ears.

The committee would become the eyes and ears of the Oireachtas in responding to the economic and social problems which confront our people. The committee would review and analyse reports which are being prepared and published by a wide range of exports and commentators and make recommendations based on those reports to the relevant Departments of Government.

The committee would do something that is never done in this House. It would listen to the views of civil servants who are charged with the responsibility of implementing policy and hear their comments and observations as to the practicality of some proposals and the difficulties relating to the administration of existing policies. This is a practice with which every member of a local authority in this House is familiar; yet it does not exist in this House. Something that has no prospect of practical implementation can be proposed. There may be very good reason why it cannot be implemented, but these are never articulated because the people charged with administering the proposal do not have the opportunity to talk in a non-adversarial manner to the Members of this Oireachtas.

The committee would provide, on a regular and open basis, a forum for dialogue and discussion between representatives of the social partners, who have now been virtually institutionalised, so as to enable us to understand the problems of different sectors of society. We would talk to each other rather than at each other and we would talk within the confines of this building and not over the air waves through RTE. The committee would enable people to say in public what they are saying in private and convey their views directly to Members of the Oireachtas who would ultimately carry the responsibility of changing policies and implementing decisions. The committee could, if directed by the Oireachtas, deal with specific legislation on Committee Stage from time to time in a comprehensive and professional manner. The committee would provide the basis for a democratically elected forum which would be open to the views and representations of citizens throughout this State in a manner that currently does not happen.

This new approach would speed up the process of law making in our society and bring to bear upon its formulation a wide range of expertise within the Oireachtas and outside it which is presently excluded. It would also free up time within the Houses of the Oireachtas to enable other debates to take place, thereby improving the overall efficiency of the operation of our national assembly.

If anything has been conveyed to me over the last number of weeks it is that the public are crying out for a constructive and positive response from politicians of all parties in an attempt to solve the many social and economic problems which currently afflict this land. The animosities of the last weeks, the bitterness of the last few days have damaged relations within this House and even undermined support for democracy outside it. The results of a survey, albeit taken last March, seem to give some credibility to that assertion. If we are listening, and the Labour Party most certainly are, we must respond positively and I believe the Minister will so do.

The Government have tabled an amendment and I want to devote the last three minutes of my time to analysing that amendment. First, I recognise the attempt by the Government to respond positively to the spirit of our proposal. I have to say in all honesty, however, that it simply does not go far enough. I have already read into the record of the House our proposals for Oireachtas reform and they are quite minimal. There is no firm commitment and no explicit reference to the kind of committee I am seeking. Second, with the absence of resources — and Members of this House will be familiar with this problem in the context of the Committee on State-sponsored Bodies and the Oireachtas Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities — the committee simply cannot do the work that they have been charged to do by this House in the broader sense. Ministers for Finance have never had an easy task and the present Minister, coming into today's budgetary climate which has been compounded by mismanagement over the last year, is facing a very difficult task indeed. I put it to him that a properly constructed economic and social affairs committee would provide an additional forum, an additional democratic place under this roof that would enable options to be explored, solutions to be teased out and possibilities examined in a manner that would bring us, maybe not immediately but inevitably, towards solutions that would work and would, because of the way we participated, have the support of the public at large.

Every other democratic assembly on this continent works this way. The United States Congress harnesses the expertise of every one of its members. What is so special about the 15 members of this Cabinet — and they are certainly not permanent members, as we have seen in recent days — that they are uniquely endowed with the skills to come forward with solutions to problems that have baffled many other people while all the back benchers on the Government side, all the expertise on the Opposition side, are simply ignored. One could count on the fingers of one hand the number of constructive amendments that have been accepted by Ministers on that side of the House, because it has not been part of the culture of Cabinet Government to open up to that kind of thinking. I can make that criticism because I have been a part of that culture. I have on occasions accepted amendments against the advice of the culture and on other occasions I have refused to accept amendments on the advice of the culture because it is a closed culture born in the suspicions of 1920 to 1922. However, the world has moved on a long time since then.

Let me conclude by making an appeal to the Minister for Finance. We have offered this debate in a constructive manner. We believe the problems now facing us are on a scale never previously encountered by a democratic administration on this island. Nobody believes the Minister can produce solutions on his own. We on this side of the House do not have all the solutions either. We have to pool our expertise in areas where consensus exists and where it is only a matter of exploring the precise practicalities of implementation. If we do not do that we run the risk to having in another 20 or 30 years a compendium volume published by a successor to Professor Joseph Lee which will damn us for our failure to manage the State but it will be compounded by the fact that after 70 years of independence we failed to learn the lesson of not fully involving the expertise and commitment of the Oireachtas. I appeal to the Minister and the Government parties, Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats, to reconsider the amendment in the name of the Minister for Finance because it does not go far enough. They can do much better than that. Without prejudice to whatever solutions may emerge from such a committee, their establishment is an absolute priority. I strongly recommend this motion to the House.

Mr. M. Higgins

I am very pleased to join my colleague, Deputy Quinn, in urging the Minister to agree to establish this economic and social committee. In doing so I wish to point out that there is among the public a great concern that there is a kind of fatalism here. There is the growing idea in many circles that there is almost nothing that anybody can do about the rising level of unemployment, emigration and low income levels.

When I first entered politics in about 1969 the unemployment figure stood at 65,000. I remember discussing this issue with Dr. Noel Browne at a time when people used to say, as the figure headed over 70,000, "what if it reaches 100,000?" As we wait for the unemployment figure to rise above 300,000 we are speaking about little less than a national catastrophe in social terms. Of that 300,000, 160,000 are at present long term unemployed.

Ministerial speeches give a very flimsy analysis of unemployment. I should like to make one last appeal for a dropping of one convenient excuse about unemployment which I have listened to so often in this House in recent years: I challenge the new Minister, whom I wish every success in his new ministry, to drop this nonsense that if we create a climate in the economy we will automatically produce jobs.

Let us take it very simply as an elementary economics student would take it. We have had superficial economic growth but with that growth we have had neither investment levels nor job creation. Ministers speak of an economy that they measure and test by low inflation rates, favourable interest rates and, sometimes, growth rates although this has abated in recent times as growth has slipped away. Even in times of favourable growth, of 5 per cent and up to 7 per cent, there has been no impact on unemployment. The notion of creating a climate and relying on these superfical indicators is, as I described it for years, an image of a depeopled economy, it is the fundamental fallacy as some of us were taught when we studied economics so many decades ago. It goes back to Adam Smith who rejected the notion that one could have an economy which did well but a people who did badly. Any serious politician has to make the fundamental test of an economic strategy: what is its outturn in terms of investment levels and job creation? This has not happened in recent times.

Let me point out how this fallacy arose. I watched what I call the econometric fallacy flourish in the Department of Finance: the idea that the engine could be ticking away even if one did not ask what it was moving and the idea that the indicators could be right and the people could be suffering. I watched this thinking shade into the Economic and Social Research Institute. I pay tribute to that institute and to the NESC because both bodies saw that, ultimately, the economy was an instrument for social benefit and that one had to consider unemployment, emigration, social policy and the amount of money available for health and so on. Uniquely, all the staff of the Economic and Social Research Institute combined, under the director and others, to produce a volume on unemployment. They took on the national problem of unemployment. All this motion asks is that intellectually, socially responsible, important work finds its place in the political process.

What is standing in its way — I was often accused of this — is the kind of ideological block which exists in the thinking in the Department of Finance — I am being very careful about this — the idea that it is soft to consider the social outturn of economic strategy and that real economics deal just with the indicators, the depeopled economy. Thus we have had little less than rubbish prepared for Ministers in recent years, which had a mantra like quality, which stated: "In these difficult times when at last the national finances are restored and brought to order" and so on. One speech after the other contained that little rhyme at the beginning.

The second fallacy I urge the new Minister to take on is the notion — it was created again in a hostile environment to the unemployed — that the causes of unemployment are located among the unemployed. One has two options, and it was always so when economists and social economists looked at unemployment. One saw high levels of unemployment as a feature of the economy or one saw and explained it in terms of the characteristics of the persons unemployed. Old poor law always justified it as the characteristics of the unemployed. There was the notion that they had to be conscripted to work at a time when job opportunities were drying up in the economy.

The third fallacy I have heard, disgracefully, repeated in the House time and again is that the slowing up of emigration is responsible for the high unemployment rate. When the figures are adjusted we will see that our high unemployment rate is due to a net loss of jobs in manufacturing, the increase in the numbers coming into the labour force and migration from agriculture. If we took all the emigration figures out of the increase in unemployment one would not explain the rise in unemployment. It is dishonest and untrue to say that the fact that people are not leaving is responsible for the high unemployment rate.

I might say about those who are being forced to emigrate — this is what gives urgency to what Deputy Quinn and others have said — that we should be very clear that they are emigrating into a hostile environment for migrants everywhere. The next ten to 20 years will see the attitude towards migrants all over Europe as perhaps one of the most significant social problems in the European Community. Already workers who are non-nationals are in difficulty in practically every country in the Community. Migrants, and those who talk to emigrants in London, speak about the difference in attitude now as against other years. We have a responsibility to our emigrants and to the unemployed. We are asking in this motion that academic work of the highest quality that is engaged in the issues of social policy, unemployment and job creation and critiques of our industrial policy be fed into our thinking in a non-con-frontational way in this Chamber and in the other House. I cannot for the life of me understand why a Government would resist this. Perhaps they will come back and say that that is the function of the Department of Finance but I would then have to ask where is there in print an analysis, for example, from the Department of Finance with their new resources? Our national debt, which we hear is a great burden, had some unique features, not least the fact that maybe over 65 per cent is owed to Irish institutions. Have the Government transmitted to such institutions that they have any responsibility for investment in the Irish economy and for job creation? Where is there any serious thinking like this?

It is indeed, as Deputy Quinn said, a certain 19th century feature that Finance operate in isolation from social policy. I would go further and say that if we had such a committee we could have discussed Telesis and the disastrous industrial policy of high front-loaded grants which were justified. I am in favour of forms of industrialisation; I remember the argument, the idea was to capture them and, through their linkages, they would transfer technology and, through their purchases, transmit benefits by a multiplier through the domestic economy.

There were studies — again by people outside the formal decision making system — which showed that the linkages were not taking place. There were studies piled upon each other relating to the informal economy, the amount of profit escaping from the country; they showed that maybe between one-eighth and one-tenth of gross domestic product was escaping from the country without any benefit, investment outcome or jobs.

The Minister has a choice of continuing to preside over a deadly fatalism of a very sinister kind which argues that we must let the blood keep flowing, that there is nothing you can do about unemployment until the economic climate gets better. Occasionally in the speech of a Minister for Finance there are a few paragraphs about world conditions — it is hailstoning in the world — therefore, we cnanot expect to do better; if the British economy picks up so might we. There is an argument about the degree of connection between the British and Irish labour markets and how one responds to the other. It is said that if there was growth in Britain there would probably be more emigration from this country and less unemployment. That is elementary. All this motion is asking for is the creation of a forum to which we will bring the best of thinking to analysing the nature of our unemployment problem through the parliamentary process.

Every month, for the last 14 months, unemployment has risen. What are the Cabinet supposed to do about it? Certainly it would be an extraordinary act of ostrich-like quality to bury your head in the sand and say that you must not have a forum because we have the Department of Finance; you must not read the NESC reports or critiques of industrial policy; you must not read those valuable reports about value added in agriculture; and you must not read reports about, for example, changed definitions of services, etc. Every agency in the country are asking us to have a more informed debate about unemployment and investment.

If the motion is rejected we are in danger of not heeding any of the reports. I have noticed this attitude. I am 50 years old and I have attended many seminars; I have seen the so-called economists. I detest people who condemn economics as a science but there are people who practise a form of economics which do not have anything to do with the people economy. I have heard them talking about those who are concerned about poverty, the unemployed, social welfare, old people who can only have one cataract removed at a time and replacement hips. They regard them as a soft group of people and not real to decision makers — good, real, non-elected decision makers, good, real, non-elected, ignorant decision makers, good, real, non-elected, ignorant anti-intellectual decision formers who want to exclude from this House the work of a whole lifetime on peopled economics. They are people who have spent their life doing research and comparative studies on economies in the labour market in Europe and outside it.

We do not have such a committee at present and we are driven daft by being told that the Taoiseach is consulting different people in Europe. He reminds me of the poor old tenants going up to the big house saying: "would your honour be moved to give us a better price for the potatoes?" That is our preparation for Maastricht. In every parliament in Europe there are draft versions of treaties and discussion papers which have been debated by elected members. The Minister will be presiding over these decisions. Is it on that the Irish people will be asked to accept a common currency, a central bank in Europe, for example, when all the evidence since the Single European Act is that their peripherality and the disadvantages that flow with it have increased? Where, in this business of getting more money and so forth, is there any semblance of constructing a set of policies and strategies that would convey that to the areas of high emigration and high unemployment?

Recently at a meeting in Europe I could sense that we were the laughing stock by not having adequate regional structures. In every country which speaks or writes about regional policy, going back to the sixties — and I speak as a founding member of the Regional Studies Association in Ireland — it is accepted, if you are to have a regional authority, you must give it the power to analyse a problem, prepare a programme, establish a budget, discuss priorities within the budget and have some kind of accountable elected body to administer and monitor its policy. That does not exist because the people in the regions cannot be trusted and, after all, you have this kind of subtle control through the existing county system, not necessarily to elected county councils but through bodies like county managers' associations.

There is so much that could be done. Parliament is becoming, as it is in many countries in Europe, less and less accountable. This committee is an attempt to erode a driving conviction at the moment that Parliament has nothing to say about unemployment, emigration, poverty and low income levels. It is an attempt to create a forum in which we might discuss alternatives. Deputy Quinn said that we can be generous in that regard, we just want an opportunity to present ideas. My own time in politics began in 1969 when unemployment was around 60,000. It is now heading for 300,000.

What kind of discussion do we have in this House on economics? What will the Minister do about it if he blocks a committee like this? It is very important to bear in mind — this is the good old Department of Finance thinking again — that the problem will disappear eventually but the census figures do not bear this out. For example, in 1988, there were 70,000 four year olds in the country. It will be well into the next century — perhaps in its second decade — when the natural increase will affect those available for work. The problem is not going away. At the same time there has been a decimation of job opportunities in agriculture. There is also a structural problem in the British economy which is allowing it to return to growth but which is not creating jobs.

This committee could take as a hypothesis — I am willing to be judged by the evidence offered for or against it — that while there has been neglect of unemployment, emigration and poverty among those on low income, at the same time there has been the sustenance of a culture of speculation that has judged wealth creation on its own terms, that the spending of wealth was important. However, that culture of speculation has been involved in job destruction. The people who have received the greatest accolades for creating wealth, which they spent ostentatiously, were people who destroyed jobs rather than created them. I hope that the proposed committee will shift the thinking on the ground to a culture of production in which all our ideas will be geared towards the creation of jobs and discussions on economic and social aspects of the economy.

Minister for Finance (Mr. B. Ahern)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after Dáil Éireann and substitute the following:

"supports the proposals for Oireachtas reform set out in the recently published Programme for Government and in particular

—the proposal to enable suitable Bills to be dealt with at Committee Stage by a Select Committee;

—the proposal to review after the Christmas recess the possible arrangements whereby short debates on topical matters take place each day;

notes that these proposals will give ample scope for detailed discussions on Committee Stage of Bills and for frequent debates on economic and social policies including examining in detail reports from various bodies such as the NESC and the ESRI and providing Deputies generally with the possibility of voicing their opinions on economic and social policies including the creation of employment."

I would like to thank Deputies Quinn, Higgins and Noonan for wishing me well in my term in the Department of Finance.

I acknowledge the contribution of Deputy Quinn in moving the motion. I accept he has done so in a constructive way and that he is taking a positive attitude to what can be done in this regard. I have been involved for many years in Dáil reform. When Deputy Bruton was Leader of the House during the Fine Gael-Labour Coalition and I was Whip for Fianna Fáil we worked for 18 months, in 1983-84, to see what committees could be set up and how the workings of the House could be improved. Eight years later we look back and realise that some of those committees were a success but many of them did not live up to the expectations or the aspirations we outlined at the time. Certainly the work programmes that were laid out were not completed and, for that reason, I am concerned as to the value of such committees. However, I do not rule them out.

In the Programme for Government I considered ways in which we could reform the workings of this House. I accept that such reform is necessary. Deputy Quinn read into the record many of the aspects of that programme. Some points in it were referred to the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, of which I was honoured to be a member for many years, and these issues will be teased out in that committee. I argued eight years ago when I was Government Whip and a member of that committee, as did Deputy Quinn when he was Whip of his party and later when he was Minister, and also Deputy Seán Barrett, that it was best to deal with this matter not at committee level but in the House. It was suggested that committees be set up to deal with Committee Stage of Bills, and, again, that point is reflected in the Programme for Government.

Another point raised is that we should be entitled to freer, short term debates in the House on major issues that affect us. The proposals in the Programme for Government will allow the Committee on Procedure and Privileges to decide on how best that can be done and whether we can make progress in this regard. If useful committees are to be set up we should consider the points in the Programme for Government and take them up in the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. In that way these issues can be dealt with and progress can be made.

The motion put before me yesterday evening for examination and response and put before the House by the Deputies opposite has underlying it a basic contention with which I do not disagree, that is the idea that valuable contributions to the formulation of public policy in vital areas of national life can and must be made by Members of the Oireachtas. I feel strongly, as I think do all my colleagues in Government, that elected representatives in their daily work can tap a wider range of experience and opinion than any other group in the State and that evaluating, distilling and articulating that volume of opinion must have a recognised place in our political and parliamentary system. Deputy Quinn made that point although he feels that Government Ministers, because of their heavy workload — which is the case regardless of who is in power — are remote from the decisions of ordinary people, but I do not accept that.

Despite my feelings on this point, I disagree with the motion because the form in which it is put forward underrates the value and effectiveness of the contribution which is made, and continues to be made, on the floor of this House by Deputies of all parties and the degree to which those contributions influence the operation of Government in all areas of public policy and administration. The motion proposes the creation of an Oireachtas committee with a remit so widely defined as to ensure that no area of national life falls outside its purview. What it seeks to do is set up a body which would oversee not the work of a single Minister or a single coherent area of Government but of our entire political system. We already have such a body, called Dáil Éireann, which carries out that work. What the Labour Party seek to do is to assign to a small body of no fewer than 18 Deputies and Senators a substantial part of the functions which belong to all Members of this House. This is not a measure to enhance the powers of the House, as some speakers pretend; it is a proposal that the House hand over a most fundamental part of its functions to a committee.

Even if this House were predisposed to abdicate its responsibilities in the manner proposed by the motion and agree to the creation of the committee, we are faced with the question of how workable the new machinery could be. How would it mesh with the operation of other committees of this House? It would impinge on many of the committees whose establishment I was involved in some time ago. How would it impinge on the operation of the Government to which this House has entrusted the affairs of the country?

My contention is that the terms of reference of the committee have been so widely drafted that if established on the basis proposed it would regard itself as entitled to trespass on the remit of all the other committees established to look at specific and identified problem areas of public administration.

It is for these reasons that such a committee would be unwieldy and unworkable, that we on this side of the House feel constrained to oppose an amendment to this motion. Our amendment takes account of the desire to increase the involvement of Members of the House in the detailed shaping of legislation, as referred to by Deputy Quinn, and in teasing out in the fullest way possible the implications for the community of the specific details of proposed laws. It also makes provision for the revision of arrangements introduced by this Government to ensure that the views of Deputies on matters of topical concern can be placed on the record promptly. I acknowledge what Deputy Quinn has said, that the proposal goes a considerable way towards solving the problem but does not go all the way.

This Government have shown their commitment to the enhancement of the role of the Oireachtas in the field of legislation and examination of governmental activities in a practical way — the number of topics which can be discussed in the House as a result of the alteration in the Adjournment debate arrangements has been increased and allows Members to deal promptly with matters of topical concern while the institution of broadcasting from the Houses of the Oireachtas has enabled the concern of legislators with the issues of the day to be literally brought home to the constituents. We have also established a new committee to assist Members to reflect public concern with crime and other matters under discussions. Under our new Programme for Government, we have committed ourselves to enhancing the role of the Dáil through a series of specific measures. We have in particular indicated our support for a procedure which will allow suitable Bills to be dealt with on Committee Stage by a selection committee.

While I was in opposition I raised this issue, and I know Members of the Opposition have been calling for it for some time. We are making arrangements to allow urgent topical matters to be deal with. I know Deputy Seán Barrett has raised this issue in the House for many years whenever Dáil reform was discussed.

The first of these arrangements will allow a greater and perhaps more productive involvement by Members of this House in what may seem to be the minutiae of legislation; but, as most of us have cause to realise, the small details of legislation, the manner in which a statutory phrase is deployed, can have significent impact on the lives and activities of those we represent. The sceptics may argue that legislation and concern with economic and social affairs are different elements of the parliamentarians task, but a look at the thrust of legislation which has come before this House in recent years highlights the difficulty of drawing a meaningful distinction between legislation which has a social economic effect or dimension and that which has not. Our concerns as legislators are primarily with domestic policy and with those aspects of European affairs which bear on our industry, agriculture or social affairs. The difficulty of drawing such a distinction is underlined in what I may describe as the preamble to the proposals put before us which refer to these areas — unemployment, housing, health and education. Give a committee this wide ranging remit and what business is there left for the rest of the House.

The second of these proposals is designed to improve existing mechanisms available to this House to discuss matters of topical concern. In making those improvements a consultative process will be involved to which the Members, through their Whips, will be able to contribute and their exprience of the working of the present arrangements for short debates drawn on to devise improvements for the year ahead. I think we are all aware that the existing arrangements were not intended exclusively to enable Members to mount fire brigade exercises on matters affecting their constituencies but to allow topics of wider concern in areas of evolving policy to be discussed.

The range of topics indicated in tonight's motion suggests that the coming review might profitably focus on how best these arrangements should be modified to ensure frequent debates on economic and social policies, including detailed examination of reports from various bodies, such as the NESC and the ESRI, and to provide members of the House with enhanced possibilities for voicing their views on economic and social policies including the creation of employment.

My own belief is that any perceived restriction on a Deputy's scope to contribute to the public discussion of these topics can be more readily and properly removed by the mechanisms I have outlined to enhance his or her scope to make points on the floor of the House or participating in the detailed scrutiny of legislative proposals than by establishing the "catch all" forum with limited membership envisaged in the motion. This is the positive case for the amendment we are proposing to the motion.

No doubt the proponents of this motion will represent their initiative as indicating their concern for a wide range of socio-economic issues as Deputy Higgins has outlined. I find it hard to credit that the Deputies proposing this motion really believe the committee which they propose could possibly promote advancement in any of the many areas they would encompass. There will be a cross-over into the work of the existing committee, on which Members worked hard and diligently. The committee envisaged lacks any coherence or clarity of purpose. In attempting to consider and make recommendations on the entire spectrum of economic affairs, it will inevitably collapse under the sheer weight of the task. If we are honest we all know about the difficulties in the management of committees.

I negotiated with Deputy Bruton in 1983 and it was agreed that the work of the committees would be reviewed on an ongoing basis but, frankly, that has not been done. We tended to build on the existing committees. However in the Programme for Government we allow for an examination of the committees to see what committees should be retained. In the indepth discussions on 1992 I do not rule out that amendments would be taken but we should not add to the committee list until that review is undertaken. The committee proposed in tonight's motion fails palpably to fulfil these requirements. Instead it is an appalling mish-mash of organisational theory which would not achieve any worthwhile purpose. Certainly the proposed committee would do scant justice to the wide range of weighty matters which it is suggested it should consider.

I would have the gravest doubts about the merits of establishing this or indeed any committee on a statutory basis. This would mark a decisive change from long established practice. As things stand, no Oireachtas committee is so established. Even the long standing Committee on Public Accounts is not statutorily based but is established under Dáil Standing Orders. I do not believe in unnecessary legislation. Oireachtas Joint Committees should be established — and indeed abolished — on an ad hoc basis in response to the evolving perceptions of the Oireachtas on the issues which are currently appropriate for consideration at such a forum. I can see no justification for the creation of unnecessary rigidities by the establishment of any committees on a statutory basis; in any area such as this flexibility is an important requirement.

The functions envisaged for the proposed committee leave me with a decided sense of unease for a whole range of reasons. Let us examine them one by one. The first function is to review economic and social policy from time to time. I cannot see any Oireachtas committee operating satisfactorily with such a wide remit. At any given time there would be such a range of topical current issues which would fall into these categories that the committee would inevitably spread their resources far too thinly to allow for any meaningful review to be undertaken. In my view, Oireachtas committees are most needed to look into areas which the Oireachtas, because of pressure of other work, is precluded from considering in sufficient detail.

I think that most Members of this House would agree that as things stand, the Oireachtas spends a very considerable amount of its time debating matters of economic and social concern. There are regular formal opportunities for such discussion provided by the lengthy debates on the Estimates, the budget, the Finance Bill, the Appropriation Bill, Question Time and Private Members' Business.

Most of the time of this House is spent on issues raised in this motion. We have the opportunity to raise issues of agriculture, housing, health, education and economic and social matters during the debate on Bills, at Question Time, Private Notice Questions and on Adjournment debates. We have indicated in the Programme for Government that we are prepared to consider the reorganisation of the working of this House. Deputy Quinn acknowledges this point.

The second function envisaged for the committee is to examine in detail the reports from various bodies such as the NESC and the ESRI. Anyone who has ever read a report from either the NESC or the ESRI will readily acknowledge that they are consistently well presented and always incorporate, where appropriate, clearly enunciated proposals and recommendations. They do not in my view lend themselves to the type of minute scrutiny by a committee of selected parliamentarians which is envisaged in the motion. These reports frequently deal with a single topic — often one with relevance to the area of responsibility of a single Minister.

Some such reports attract a deal of media attention which often includes elaboration and criticism of their conclusions by experts and commentators in the field concerned. Deputies, and I have some experience of this, may express their views on such reports in several ways: they may pose questions to Ministers on their reaction to such reports at Question Time or in the annual discussions on a departmental Estimate; they may pursue contentious elements, where relevant, through the evidence taking mechanisms of existing committees — be it the Committee on State-sponsored Bodies, the PAC, the Committee on Women's Affairs, the Select Committee on Crime and the Committee on Procedure and Privileges; or if they regard the span of public attention on the topics concerned as limited, they can ventilate their views in the form of motions during Private Members' Time or during the Adjournment debates. Given the range of commenting options open to Deputies, it is doubtful whether any contribution can be made by another committee in this area.

The next proposed function is to deal with legislation on Committee Stage as the Dáil may from time to time decide. What is envisaged here is definitely worth considering, but I am not entirely certain what is intended. Is it envisaged that Committee Stage of all legislation which touches on the entire range of social and economic affairs should be so considered? The Government are sympathetic to the motion that appropriate legislation be referred to a select committee, and I think that I have outlined that. The House may, indeed, as the motion implies, be less inclined to utilise the mechanisms available to it to have specific legislation considered by committees rather than the whole House. I think that all of us will admit that Members are perfectly happy to make worthwhile contributions on the scope and thrust of certain legislation generally but find that they have less enthusiasm for teasing out the possibilities inherent in the phrases in a section or subsection whereby the draftsman gives expression to the intentions of the particular Minister. The use of special committees on legislation has the advantage of removing discussion on those items from the limited time available for discussion on the floor of the House, thus allowing a fuller and more technical discussion on them. It also has the advantage of allowing that particular task to be assigned to Members selected because of their known interest or experience of the problems reflected in the Bill. I think we have done that to great effect with at least two or three Bills in the life of the current Dáil. To my Labour Party colleagues I say that I agree with that proposal wholeheartedly. It is in the Programme for Government and there is no difficulty with it.

What is proposed in paragraph 6 of the motion would, I grant, remove discussion on Committee Stage or in special committees and assign it to a fixed team of members rather than a hand-picked group. We have seen the advantage of a hand-picked group over a fixed committee with two of Deputy Shatter's Bills where that worked very successfully. I put that forward as a system which has worked well and which could perhaps be extended.

The Government's proposals, as I have stated, as set out in the new Programme for Government satisfy any requirement to preserve the time of the House as a whole at least as effectively as the proposals outlined. It is a clear improvement on them in terms of ensuring that the Members dealing with Committee Stage of a particular Bill have a proven interest in it. More important, the Government's proposals ensure that the diverse talents of all Members of the House, whether they be front benchers or backbenchers, are more likely to be drawn on in the course of a session than are the proposals put forward in the unamended motion.

Leaving aside the particular advantage offered by the Government's proposal, the Labour Party's motion contained a procedural change which cannot be made. I just ask the Labour Party to consider it. I presume that it is just a drafting error that has been made, so I shall not argue it out.

The fourth proposed function is to receive submissions from the social partners and other interested groups on matters concerning the creation of employment and wealth and on the rights of workers and unemployed persons. There can be no objection to interest groups seeking to communicate their views to Members of the Oireachtas. Indeed, many such groups already systematically canvass Deputies on topics of interest to them and bring their views to attention through submissions, lobbying and presentations. That is something that happens every day, whether one is in Government or in Opposition. I am doubtful that even advertisements soliciting views on economic and social issues generally would bring to light anything likely to add to the sum of parliamentary knowledge. If we went along with this proposal, what would be the result in terms of the action needed to improve employment or wealth creation? The Oireachtas is the Legislature; the Government, not the Dáil, is charged with carrying legislation and public policy into effect. That is a point we have to remember. To have a practical impact, the committee would have to convey the views they received to the Government.

My time in Government has taught me some realities: first, no group with an idea it wants translated into governmental action misses a chance to communicate it to Ministers or the Government; and, second, no Deputy convinced by a constituent, a group — whether they be a lobby group or an interest group of any kind — or a contact, that he has a solution to some national or local problem fails to find a means of bringing it promptly to ministerial attention either on the floor of the House or through representations, delegations or deputations. As things stand, numerous groups make submissions — both written and oral — to the Government. Every year Government Ministers meet with and consider proposals from a wide range of interest groups. The Government consider that this process represents an important contribution towards the formulation of economic and social policy.

What worthwhile role could an Oireachtas committee play in that matter? Clearly, all that the proposed committee could do would be to bring the matters raised to the attention of the Government, as groups and individual Deputies already do. In essence, what would be involved would be the creation of a new, needless layer of mediation that would serve only to create an artificial barrier between the Government and various interest groups. Deputy Quinn made many good points, but I think that he argues against himself because — as Deputy Noonan would certainly know from his capacity as Minister for Industry and Commerce through the years — a number of bodies come to the Government and if a Minister is too busy in other affairs and cannot keep in touch, he or she is at least kept informed by the lobby groups, who have a right to bring their requirements and their arguments before a Government Minister. To leave all of that to a committee would certainly create the barrier about which I think Deputy Quinn has an argument. I know, as every Minister for Finance knows, what is required between now and budget day in early January and of the number of bodies and groups to meet both officials and Government members. That position applies not to one Department but to most Departments of Government.

The fifth proposed function is that the committee would make detailed recommendations from time to time to the Government and the Oireachtas on the creation of employment and wealth and all related matters. The issues of employment creation and the generation of wealth are undeniably of paramount importance and urgency in the context of the country's economic development. I do not deny that many Members of the Oireachtas have valuable contributions to make in that regard. The essence of a successful committee is that the Members, while allowing for personal opinions, should be able to work together to achieve a consensus on the matter under consideration. Issues of employment and wealth creation are at the heart of the ideological divide in this country, as elsewhere. I promise Deputy Higgins to try to deal with some of the issues that he raised. I accept that perhaps he has some arguments on the matter; we have had this argument across the House before on the rising tide and other issues and perhaps some of his arguments over the years have proved to hold some weight. In a different job from my job in the Labour portfolio, in which I did hear some of those arguments, perhaps I should now try to look at those arguments from another point of view. The Deputy has been consistent on what he has said from 1987, so I shall certainly listen to the points that he has made strongly and consistently.

Mr. Ferris

You are making progress.

Mr. B. Ahern

That last function — because time is moving on — ascribed to the proposed committee is that it would commission reports and employ consultants as required. I accept that any Oireachtas committee is conscious of its need to have impartial advice on tap so that it can heighten the degree of expertise it brings to bear on the examination of the public service or public policy. I sometimes worry that Deputies once they get on a committee are not inclined to underestimate their own ability to probe deeply into complex problems and are perhaps over-impressed by the possible contributions that some outside bodies can make. The ERSI and the NESC, as things stand, are entitled to engage the services of consultants, and they do. As these organisations have been established to examine issues of social and economic importance, the engagement of further consultants involves a duplication of their efforts. Many other Government agencies and bodies do bring in consultants and, I think, are encouraged by Governments to do so when the need arises, therefore I am not too sure that we need to start overdoing it in committee, although this very day I have been dealing with a committee of the House which requires the services of consultants on a particular aspect.

There is, however, a general point about the proposed committee that must not be lost sight of. Experience throughout Europe has been that committees work most effectively when their work is targeted towards a recognised and clearly defined area of activity. We have in general avoided the establishment of committees which simply mirrored the activities of a single Department. Indeed, the arguments against such a close alignment between committee and ministerial portfolio are clear. We have achieved the focus which other countries obtain by having such an alignment by ensuring that the responsibilities of our committees are clearly defined on the basis of their subject matter. Our committees have, within those parameters, operated with considerable and growing effectiveness and each has developed modes of operation which the Members believe most suitable to their particular task. In general the nature of the tasks entrusted to those committees has allowed Members, irrespective of their party allegiance, to reach consensus on the subjects of their study and to work together with a common purpose. This characteristic and the practical benefits which flow from it is one which we would all wish to maintain in any extension or development of the committee system.

Apart from its wideness, the remit envisaged in the Labour Party's motion for this new committee seems to us on this side of the House to run counter to this trend. Divergent views on the manner in which the economy should develop or on the wisdom of specific initiatives in the social areas exist in this House: they are strongly held and do not lend themselves to easy synthesis or consensus. I see no grounds for thinking that a committee of 18 or fewer parliamentarians licensed exclusively to examine the difficulties we have encountered will sort out those difficulties and fundamental differences. My fear is that, by turning an area of proven and accepted contentiousness over to a committee, by asking them to undertake what cannot realistically be done, we would be building in to our committee system serious contention, possibly altering the consensual culture of our existing committees who have served us so well and in whom I perceive much value. So far I have taken this motion at face value and rather than create another Oireachtas Committee——

An Leas. Cheann Comhairle

Does the Chair anticipate the House allowing the Minister an extra minute?

Mr. M. Higgins

Agreed.

Mr. B. Ahern

I reject the comments built into the early part of the motion. While in no way wishing to diminish the significance of, or Government commitment to, improving the social and economic problems we are experiencing, I must repudiate the implication in the motion that the Government are not grappling with these problems in a vigorous, effective manner.

Total employment this year to date has been higher than even the high level achieved in 1990, as demonstrated by the strong increase in employment-related revenues. For example, receipts from PAYE to the end of September, and from the training and employment level up to mid-October, were up by 8.2 per cent and 6.7 per cent respectively over the corresponding period last year. The increase in unemployment has not been the result of a reduction in employment levels. Rather it is related largely to the cessation or reversal of emigration. While that does not account for all of the problem it does to some extent.

The Government are committed to achieving further significant improvements in the employment area. Deputy M. Higgins raised the question of a task force on employment with me in a debate in this House about a year ago. We must bring together the various sectors of industry in an endeavour to formulate proposals which if not successful at least constitute a desirable attempt. That point was taken in the course of the discussions on the Programme for Economic and Social Progress. I think it was Deputy M. Higgins who was the first to raise that matter in the House. It is my hope that such efforts will be successful. However, because of the growth in the labour force the unemployment picture will remain difficult for some time to come. For that reason the Government are determined to continue the approach which has already begun to yield fruit, and that approach is underpinned by the Programme for Economic and Social Progress. The Government believe it is only through co-operation with the social partners, with the support of this House, that economic progress and employment creation can be achieved.

I take issue with the contention that unemployment will reach a figure of 300,000 next year. That is a very pessimistic estimate, a figure that assumes a large fall in employment which is not realistic on the basis of the most up-to-date data. Whatever problems the Government have had — or the even greater ones attributed to them by hostile commentators — we have never relaxed our efforts to deal with them. We will continue to do so and will not be distracted from that task by suggestions of simple solutions such as those embodied in the motion before the House. A number of segments of this motion form part of the Programme for Government. The others can be discussed in the light of changes in the committee structure suggested in the Programme for Government at the Committee on Procedure and Privileges.

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick East): I have already taken the opportunity to congratulate the Minister in the House. I should like to congratulate the Minister of State present and wish him well in his capacity as Minister of State at the Department of Finance. I know him fairly well. He has been a hard-working, dedicated backbencher for a long time. He comes from a very good political tradition in south Kerry where his mother was a very popular woman. Indeed, many women play a part in his political life. For example, his wife can make a great input from another very strong political tradition in the Labour Party in west Cork. I wish the Minister of State well.

Minister of State at the Department of Finance (Mr. O'Donoghue)

I thank Deputy Noonan.

Mr. Noonan

(Limerick East): First, the Fine Gael Party will support the motion of the Labour Party unamended. Our opening position is that we consider it does not go far enough in terms of our having a useful committee. However, we will not quibble about its detail and will be voting for it tomorrow evening.

There is now a need for a very strong political structure in this House. Sometimes people draw comparisons with what is happening right across Europe, which is relevant also. It seems to me that, in Parliaments around the world, there is a conflict between the Executive — the Cabinet — and the Parliament. The opening position from the point of view of the Executive is that they want to take all decisions and treat the Parliament as a rubber stamp. The opening position from the point of view of the Parliament is that they want to scrutinise and have power over the Executive, allowing the Executive to act only under their authorisation. They are the two opening poles of the conflict between power-sharing between parliaments and executives. Of course one always must be a balance to the other. Clearly parliaments serve the function of balancing the power of government. Various countries have found the balancing point somewhere along that line or spectrum, but we are too far at one end of the scale; in our scale the Parliament is more or less a rubber stamp. Our Cabinet has operated for a long time as the only decision-making body, the only executive authority. Quite frequently, our Parliament has been reduced not only under the Constitution and the law but also under the procedures of this House to simply having a function of stamping the decisions of the Executive, sometimes even doing that without scrutiny.

That arises from the 1937 Constitution in that its main instigator, the late President de Valera, envisaged a Constitution for majority governments. In cases of clear-cut majority governments, especially looking back into his political past — in which there were Cumann na nGaedheal Governments in the twenties and Fianna Fáil Governments thereafter — he foresaw circumstances in which one majority Government would replace another majority Government, Fine Gael and Labour on the one hand and Fianna Fáil on the other. The rules and arrangements are laid down for majority Governments. Over the past 23 years we had a majority Government here from 1977 to 1981 only. Looking at it historically — if I may be permitted a political barb — probably it was the worst Government we had, with a huge majority, that of former Taoiseach, Mr. Jack Lynch.

I do not think our arrangements necessarily are the best for coalition or minority Governments. Yet over the past 23 years to a very large extent that is what we have had. Many of the crises which arise here — we have seen them over the past couple of months and we saw them when we were in power — arise from the fact that coalition or minority Governments, in their perception, have total power and only need the Parliament to stamp their actions. Then, on a given night, the Parliament rebels and there is no time for an accommodation to be made with the Parliament. Therefore, we saw on budget night in 1981 two Deputies hesitate in the lobbies and, because they wavered, and went one way rather than the other, the Government fell. We witnessed this time and again, where the Parliament did not have time to consider the action it was taking over a period and certainly did not have time to negotiate its way out of the trouble. I have seen it on a number of occasions, again going through the lobbies, when Deputies said; "we are going to cause an election but we have no alternative." It happened even on nights when they did not cause elections.

If we want to rule our country as modern European countries are ruled, it seems that coalition or minority Governments will be more the norm than one party majority Governments. It follows that we should make arrangements in Parliament to allow them to work. That is the strongest argument for an effective committee system. It is only through such a system that the fundamental differences between the parties, even within one Government, and between parties on all sides of the House can be resolved in the spirit of compromise so that an unimportant detail of policy does not plunge the country into the chaos of an election when nobody wants one.

Such an arrangement would have to go further than this motion proposes. The traffic envisaged in the motion is one way. A committee of this House consisting of 18 Members would examine all sorts of things and receive submissions and then advise the Government on the basis of the advice they had taken or the reports they had gone into in detail. There should be traffic in the other direction as well. There has to be a procedure where the Government would lay the general principles of their decision before a committee so that the committee would have a say before the final decisions were taken.

I have in mind the Estimates, which will probably be published before the Christmas recess. They will probably be debated by way of a "take note" motion on which statements will be made and there may or may not be a vote at the end. Members will be voting on the totality of the Estimate. I do not believe there is a single Deputy who is totally opposed to the total Estimate, nor do I believe there is a Deputy on the Government side who is totally committed to the whole Estimate yet half will vote against the whole Estimate and the other half will vote for it.

While the powers of the Minister for Finance derive from the Constitution and consequently cannot be interfered with in this House, an intermediate arrangement could be made. The Minister could decide the overall figures, the current budget deficit, the EBR and the whole package in terms of gross and net figures, but the House would have the authority to vary it. I cannot see anything wrong with a committee of this House or the whole House in Committee deciding, for example, that they wanted to spend more money on primary education rather than some other aspect of education or that money in the Health budget should be moved to community care in order to keep people out of institutions. I do not see that the Government would be embarrassed, lose face or be in any way less effective if all Deputies were involved in the detailed perusal of the Estimates, while agreeing that in the final analysis macro-policy must be in the hands of the Minister and must be the responsibility of Government. The detail of policy could be worked out and improved by a mechanism which would allow a contribution from all sides.

We had a minority Fine Gael Government in 1981 and a minority Fianna Fáil Government in 1982. Under minority or Coalition Governments many of the crises which result from the big bang theory of Government, where Deputies must march through the lobby when they hear the bell, would be ruled out if we had a proper committee system. That is the strongest argument for it. It involves a shift of power from the Executive to Parliament, not necessarily concerning matters of principle but of detail. Parliamentarians are the best authority on detail. This is where the influence of the constituent comes in. In my clinics I do not get advice on the grand principles of running the economy, but I hear about the small problems which illustrate the flaws in the system. There should be an opportunity for Deputies to influence decision making in that manner.

Political parties are far more complex now than they were in 1937 when Mr. de Valera drew up the Constitution. In 1937 there was still a small and undivided Labour Party, although it divided very early in the war. The two big blocs were Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, whose identity largely came from the national movement and the split in 1922. There was a coherence of attitude within the big parties which made it possible for their leaders in a Cabinet to represent their views fully. Parties now are structured in a complex fashion, having within them many individual views, sometimes moving in the same direction but sometimes in conflict. There must be an outlet for the complexity of views within political parties. Effective committee systems would be important in resolving such problems.

We have heard time and again that the House is not relevant to the needs of the people, that people lack confidence in the Government and in politicians. The institutions within which we work are not responsive to our own needs or to the needs of the people we represent. A movement towards a committee system is the best way of resolving the problem.

I suggest this very short and rather minor analysis as an illustration of why many of the European countries are ruled very effectively by coalitions. They have a system of parliamentary committees which lends itself to that form of Government. For many years we have been swimming against the wind and the tide. Institutions which were geared under the Constitution for somebody who had single party majority Government in mind are being forced to accommodate a different reality in the eighties and nineties. We should move to accommodate the new reality and find a new point on the scale between the powers of the Executive and the powers of Parliament. We are fairly familiar with the strong committee system in the United States. A President has to negotiate a budget through the Congress, in circumstances where he represents the Republican Party, normally a minority party in the Congress.

I cannot see anything wrong with a budget promulgated here in the first week of January which would not have to pass through the House until the last week of that month. The Minister for Finance could read out the budget, which would become the property of the House in Committee or of a committee of the House, with the power to recommend variations to the Minister. There would have to be some arrangements about bonded warehouses and so on in respect of excise orders. Apart from that, there is not a fundamental problem in moving towards a real committee system to accommodate the needs of the community through the complex representation in Parliament, while at the same time giving an outlet for the talent in the various political parties.

Debate adjourned.