No Justification for Second Chamber
The case for abolishing the Senate is that there is no case for keeping it.
The case for abolishing the Senate is that there is no case for keeping it.
Labour Party TD for Dublin South and Minister of State for Primary Care, Alex White, will be Labour’s Director of Elections for the two upcoming referenda to abolish Seanad Eireann and to establish a Civil Court of Appeal.
Given there is no public element to the inquiries into the banking system which we are told are taking place, perhaps a progress report in terms of what precisely is happening in those examinations could be made to the Houses so that we can get some sense or insight into what if anything is happening. There is a need for public information so that there can be proper public debate on these issues. We simply do not have that information. I heard last week an independent economist, Dr. Alan Barrett of the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, say, when asked his view in terms of the comparative approach of allowing Anglo Irish Bank to be wound down or for the bailout to continue, that he could not give an answer in that regard because he did not have available to him the basic information that would allow him to give an intelligent response or any response.
When I hear Members the Government parties say that this is the only way forward and is the correct thing to do, I cannot assess that. I and no other member of the public can assess whether what we are being told is simply a spin because this is what the Government is doing and is the course on which it has set itself. We should be able to assess and understand independently what precisely is going on so that we can compare the two different scenarios. It is taxpayers’ money and the public interests that are being dealt with here and as such we should be given more information, even basic information, on what is going on. We have no information in this regard.
Last night, I appeared on Tonight with Vincent Browne on TV3. The other panellists included Sarah Carey and Fintan O’Toole of the Irish Times and Siobhan O’Donoghue of the Migrants Rights Centre.
You can view the show in full by clicking here.
It has been a good weekend for the party. The 2010 National Conference took place in NUI, Galway over the past three days where the subjects of jobs, prosperity and fairness were the main themes dealt with.
It culminated in a rousing speech by Party Leader, Eamon Gilmore TD on Saturday night. The speech seems to have been received as positively outside the hall as it was inside. You can view the speech in full by clicking here.
I spoke on Saturday morning on a motion regarding NAMA and the need to stop any preferential treatment of developers and landlords over ordinary families. Below is a video of that speech.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zgKQ6zF7_0]
The Seanad discussed the plans for a banking inquiry. Labour is very much against the idea of a private inquiry and I had an opportunity to put my views to the Minister of State, Martin Mansergh TD.
I welcome the Minister of State to the House to talk about the promised inquiry that is to be instigated into the banking system and related issues that have brought us to this position. I have had the opportunity to read his speech but I do not know if he spoke also perhaps impromptu about whether the investigation of the commission - most people accept that the preliminary stages ought properly to be held quickly and therefore in private - should hold public hearings. That would be a matter for the terms of reference but these should be set by the Oireachtas. There is some suggestion that will be the case. I invite the Minister of State to agree that it would be appropriate for the default position to be that the commission of inquiry would hold its hearings in public. There could be circumstances in the course of its investigation that it might decide a particular hearing should be held in private but the default position should be that proceedings would be in public.
The question of trust is at the heart of this whole controversy and debate. One cannot restore trust by simply asking people to trust. It does not work that way, certainly not in view of what happened in this country in the past two years. Far too much of what has gone on has occurred behind closed doors. People do not trust a whole range of actors, from politicians and the Government in particular to the banks and the construction industry. People cannot be expected to trust an inquiry held predominantly in private. People argue against this by suggesting we want a public execution in St. Stephen’s Green and that we will bring on the guillotine, as if this is the only basis for calling for it to be heard in public. I disagree with some members of the Opposition who give the impression, perhaps unwittingly, of wanting an inquiry that would be a public execution, whether of the Taoiseach or anyone else. If the Taoiseach is to be executed politically it will be done at the time of the next general election. I very much hope it is done but that is a matter for the general election. That does not undermine the proposition that a commission of inquiry ought to be held in public to examine the grave issues the Minister of State touched on in his speech. Why should there not be a presumption of hearings in public, with perhaps some allowance for the inquiry to make an ad hoc decision on a particular part of the inquiry to be held in private? I will not re-engage with the differentiation between private and secret drawn on some radio programme, where the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, got himself into trouble.
What is the problem for the Government? The Minister for Finance made some reference to it costing €150 million for lawyers. I do not accept this. If people seek to have lawyers representing them, this will be true whether the inquiry is in public or private. If it is contemplated that there should be a cost, there is no way around the argument that if this is not held in the public eye it will not deliver the restoration of trust we all wanted to see. This is an argument the Green Party made, unsuccessfully as it turns out. If this is not held in public, it will not deliver the restoration of trust we all want to see.
It is interesting to read reports in newspapers which in the past have stated - perhaps hoped - that public service unions were beaten. They are now leading with headlines that the Government has caved in to the public service unions. It cannot be both and in my view it is neither. One newspaper stated that trade union leaders were jubilant at this agreement last night, which is quite fanciful, and the union leaders certainly do not look jubilant in the photograph beside the article.
They have no particular reason to feel jubilant and they are not looking for jubilation. They are not looking for humiliation and defeat either, which appears to be what some commentators and politicians want. It seems that the only way some people think we can make progress is through confrontation, with people being beaten and shot down. I do not agree with that or see it as the way forward for our country or the public service.
As somebody who absolutely supports the need for radical reform in the public service, I know that nobody in their right mind believes it can be achieved in two weeks of negotiation. How could all the issues we have debated in here be addressed in that short time? It is nonsensical or daft to suggest that was possible.
There was no cave-in and the trade unions have not won a famous victory. One report in a newspaper had a trade union group describing what happened yesterday as “the greatest betrayal in the history of the Irish trade union movement”. Which is it? My party has called for negotiations with a view to reaching agreement and yesterday’s developments represent a small but welcome advance. It is only an interim measure and it’s not a solution to the problem. I do not know if it will work.
Others may be right in raising how the 12 days of unpaid leave will work. Perhaps we will describe them as the 12 days of Christmas 2009 in a couple of years. We do not know how it will work out. The idea should be considered further and thrashed out in the next couple of weeks. Do we want confrontation or progress? People must decide what they want; do they want to see people beaten down or do they want a national recovery effort involving all of the country’s people in order to turn around our current economic position?
For that limited reason, yesterday’s developments are welcome. In the Labour Party we have argued that the public sector pay bill must be reduced and serious efforts should be made to achieve that without cutting people’s basic pay. The interim agreement seems to suggest that is possible. I do not know if it will ultimately be possible to reduce the public sector pay bill without cutting basic pay but I hope it will. This represents a small step forward in that regard.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBhi6ibRiBU]
Today, the Seanad got an opportunity to speak on the business plan for NAMA in advance on the Bill coming before the House late next week. Minister Martin Mansergh was in the chamber to listen to the contributions from Senators on all sides. Above is my own contribution.
Last night in the Seanad, Senator Shane Ross put forward his Appointments to Public Bodies Bill 2009 for discussion. The Bill is the same Bill that was introduced by Senator Dan Boyle in the Dail in 2007, when the Green Party were in Opposition but Senator Boyle said that he could not vote for the Bill without the support of Fianna Fáil - something he failed to get. I spoke on the issue and below is my contribution:
As I listened to Senator Dan Boyle speaking on this topic, it occurred to me that greater love for, or adherence to, a Government hath no man than to vote against a Bill he authored. That is the position the Senator finds himself in this evening. I have previously heard him try to spread the blame for this problem by saying that everybody has engaged in these practices since time immemorial. While I do not accept that is true, for the sake of argument I will accept for the moment that abuses of this nature have been perpetrated by parties other than the Fianna Fáil Party. Even if that were the case, Senator Boyle must admit he is in a position to address it. He has told us this evening, in a roundabout sort of way, that he cannot get the Fianna Fáil Party to agree to support the Bill proposed by Senator Shane Ross. That is manifest. Senator Boyle has told us that he continues to agree with the contents of the legislation, but cannot persuade his colleagues to agree to it. That is precisely what has occurred. The Senator has pointed to the marginal references to this issue in the programme for Government, but unfortunately that does not meet the point he made when he correctly advocated this legislation some years ago. Senator Ross and others have quoted liberally from what Senator Boyle said on that occasion.
I agree with and welcome this Bill. I congratulate Senator Ross on pursuing this important initiative. He is right when he says there needs to be far greater accountability at the heart of our system. I distinguish to some extent between accountability and transparency. We certainly need much more of the former. It would probably be more difficult for us to achieve accountability although we should strive for it, but transparency can be achieved much more quickly and very easily. Even if there is no measure requiring an appointee to a public body to account for himself to an Oireachtas committee, although this should be an objective, there should at least be some transparency so as to find out who are the candidates. We should find out their qualifications and the basis on which they are appointed to any given public body.
I do not believe political participation or involvement in a political party, irrespective of which party, should operate as a bar to selfless and honourable service on a public body in the public interest. It clearly does not do so. The problem, suspicion and, in many cases, the reality is that people are appointed to public bodies not because of their merit, which may exist, but because of their political connections. That is the difficulty that arises. If Members on the opposite side of the House believe this is more a perception than a reality, they are incorrect because there are so many examples of patronage in public appointments. I have witnessed many cases personally, as have colleagues.
I am extremely disappointed that the Government appears to have lost out on the opportunity afforded to it when its representatives met the social partners - I believe they are still referred to in this way but the title may now be something of a misnomer - to engage in any real or meaningful discussion, particularly with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. The Government’s current line is, “We have to do what we have to do.” Such an approach does not provide a basis for seeking consensus across society in respect of the difficult situation we face and the undoubtedly serious measures that must be taken.
It is simply not good enough that the Government puts out three figures as comprising the €4 billion in savings that need to be made and then announces that this is the way it must be. There will be no consensus in respect of, buy-in to or support across society for this type of dictatorial approach with regard to what is going to happen in the next couple of months. I have appealed to the Leader of the Seanad to do what he can, however minimal that might be, to persuade the Government and the Minister for Finance not to take this kind of approach or attitude towards the former social partners. I also urged the Leader to convince the Minister for Finance to use the opportunity that will present itself in the coming weeks to enter discussions with the trade union movement and put it up to its members to contemplate those areas - be they in the public service or elsewhere - where radical change must occur and invite them to come forward with proposals. I do not know if that is the basis on which the Government wishes to have the discussion on this matter. However, simply announcing a position at this stage will not work.