I move:
That Dáil Éireann:
recognising that:
the unqualified and urgent desire of the people of Ireland is to rebuild Ireland's political system into an effective, accountable, transparent, representative and participatory institution;
there is a critical need for immediate and meaningful Oireachtas and local government reform, to be done in tandem;
Dáil Éireann has a clear constitutional role to hold the Government to account;
there is a vast difference between this and the practical reality whereby the Government exerts its will over Dáil Éireann; and
the current party-political whip system has created an overtly centralised parliamentary decision-making mechanism, severely curtailing the freedom of individual TDs to cast their parliamentary votes in the interests of those they represent;
resolves to:
increase Cabinet accountability to the Dáil through:
the abolition of the party-political whip system to allow individual members to vote according to conscience and not instruction;
greater transparency in Cabinet decision-making and the decision-making of senior civil servants;
opposing any reduction in Dáil time for Taoiseach's and Ministers' questions;
reformatting Dáil debates, Ministers' and Taoiseach's questions to create a more dynamic and open forum in which discussion and debate takes place;
the timely publication of regulatory impact assessments to allow for full consideration of the pros and cons of proposed legislation;
providing legal advisory capacity to the Dáil;
-improve the committee function of the Oireachtas through:
increasing the powers of committees to allow for input prior to initial drafting of legislation; and
introducing compulsory powers for Dáil committees;
implement meaningful local government reform in advance of the 2014 local government elections.
I wish to share time with Deputies Pringle, Flanagan, Daly, O'Sullivan and McGrath.
During the general election the electorate limited the range of issues they raised. These were largely national issues and political reform emerged as one of the key questions. The economic crash that preceded the election had exposed that it was not just our economy that failed, but that the political system had failed to protect the country from that crash. That political system needs to be rebuilt if we are to respond adequately to the demands made.
While political reform emerged as an issue, it means different things to different people. Some were concerned with the cost of governance, others were concerned that the citizens had insufficient controls, while others complained about the empty Dáil Chamber and how the Dáil itself functions. Fundamentally, the desire was for change, and I believe this is a real opportunity that must be seized with both hands.
The business of politics should no longer be left to political elites. There was a clear understanding that politics does matter and that decisions impact on all our daily lives, sometimes in an adverse way. The values underpinning an effective political system must include democracy, transparency and accountability. New ways also need to be found to give control back to the citizen.
If we are to have meaningful reform at national level, then local government reform must occur in parallel. Otherwise, we will continue to have people elected to the national Parliament primarily dealing with local government matters unless we build a local government system that is effective, democratic, accountable and transparent. We simply cannot have Dáil reform without local government reform.
As a country, we are much better than that which is reflected in our political institutions. There are many things which work well and there are many things of which we can be proud. For example, at local level we can point to the credit union movement, to sporting organisations such as the GAA, to the level of community activity and the volunteering associated with that. The one common denominator is that they are built around a community or parish identity. There is a degree of trust at this level which shows that localism works well in the right place.
There were many complaints during the election campaign that there was too much localism in Irish politics, but the real problem is that the localism is in the wrong place. We need to face up to the fact that we do not have a local government system, rather a system of local administration. The county or city manager and his or her executive do not contest elections and are not directly accountable to the citizen, yet more and more power has been transferred to them since the State was founded. If we are to have a system that is truly democratic, that needs to be reversed in favour of the elected officials.
Our system of local administration also has a very limited set of powers and functions. If we are to change that, we need to build an effective system of local democracy and we need to transfer functions. Many of those functions that clog up the national system should be transferred to a new local government system. We also need to incorporate the plethora of informal quangos into a rebuilt local government system, where that is appropriate.
Ireland is in fact abnormal in that we have a very centralised system of governance. Much of that has occurred owing to the historic lack of trust between national and local government. It is time we grew up. We inherited our local government system and have been slow to change because of the lack of trust. The first local authority to which I was elected in 1988 was established under the Town Improvement Act 1854. That was Leixlip Town Commission which was the last town authority established and only one of four established in the history of the State. Our county council system was established in 1898. We have a regional authority system — that will come as news to many — which was put in place at the insistence of the EU as an oversight role for regional funds transferred to this country from the European Union.
We are not playing to our strengths. I wonder if the county council system is appropriate to our current needs. We have too often been told that counties are essential to our local identities, yet the interesting thing is they are far from uniquely Irish and were established between the 12th and 17th centuries so that the Crown could gain control under the county sheriff and grand jury systems. We need to go back to the place where trust is a strong value, which is at community or parish level. We need to create a district council system. That should be overlapped by a very small number — perhaps three — elected regional councils in which there would be procurement advantages. Such authorities could deliver, on a more strategic basis, water, waste management, strategic planning, transport provision, health care, education, sports and other leisure facilities at a regional level. These regional authorities would have a delivery function, but there would also be economies of scale where savings could be made.
This would not be the first time the county council system has been abolished or phased out. In Northern Ireland, often known as the Six Counties, these counties do not function as the primary level of local government, as there is a large number of district councils. Dublin County Council was broken up and replaced by three county councils, but the roof of identity did not fall in.
The Constitution is clear about the role of Dáil Éireann. It is not just the role of the Opposition, but the responsibility of the Dáil to hold the Cabinet to account. That simply cannot occur when a Whip system is in place. One has to question if that system is in fact repugnant to the Constitution.
Some fairly minor changes are being proposed by the Government, some of which are welcome and some with which I disagree. They are intended to be in place for the autumn session. These changes appear to tinker at the edges rather than represent a comprehensive set of reforms. I can foresee the Government parading them as one of its achievements in its first 100 days. I know a constitutional convention is proposed at some point in the future, but the desire for change is now. We must not miss this unique opportunity and what is proposed is much too modest.
I very much welcome the public appetite for reform. Developing a civic morality is essential if we are to build a republic of which we can again be proud. It is not enough to rely on our education system to teach civics. It must be linked to how we do things. Building a civic morality must become a political value. Our political system since the foundation of the State has outsourced many functions. Parts of our education and health systems were outsourced to the religious orders. We outsourced our moral values to the church, but even at that, the morality we outsourced was not about inequities within society but was confined to reproductive issues. Our system of planning was largely outsourced to the construction sector. We have laws that are called planning laws but are more about development and in some cases are simply developer laws. They were at best about curbing excesses rather than being visionary about how we construct our cities, towns and villages. After all that, we wonder why we have not developed a civic consciousness. We wonder why we do not feel a sense of shared pride about what we have built.
Just less than 100 years ago, bemoaning the lack of a civic consciousness and describing it as a national flaw, James Connolly wrote:
Someone has said that the most deplorable feature of Irish life is the apparent lack of civic consciousness. It is, indeed, strange that the people of a nation, which has shown indomitable determination in its struggle for the possession of the mere machinery of government, should exhibit so little capacity to breathe a civic soul into such portions of the machinery as they had already brought under their control.
He was speaking about the municipal authorities.
They were the only democratic institutions before 1916. One hundred years later, we must realise that if we are to change the political culture, we must begin with a set of values. We must map out a vision and plot a course to achieve that vision. Otherwise, we will miss the unique opportunity that has taken almost a century to present itself. I have pleasure in commending this motion to the House as an opening salvo from the Technical Group on political reform.
