Dail Rises for Eleven Weeks Summer Holidays Today

Its a yearly story, as consistent as rain in June. The Dail rises sometime in July for nearly 3 months summer holidays. In comparison to many of the parliaments in Europe we have some of the fewest sitting days of any country.

As noted by Senan Moloney in the Independent;

The Green party campaigned for a hugely increased Dail workload during the recent general election, but the agreed Programme for Government has no specifics on this. Instead, it says that Fianna Fail, the Greens and the Progressive Democrats will “pursue the issue of reform of Oireachtas sitting times, Oireachtas procedures and strengthening the role of committees”.

While the role of committees won’t be strengthened this summer by the non-appointment of Chairs (worth an extra €20,000 to the lucky man or woman in each case), the envisaged reform of the legislature also promises to reconsider the recommendations of the All Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution on the subject. And the programme says that the coalition partners are pledged to “determine the extent of cross-party agreement on the recommednations of the Report on Seanad Reform.”

The Greens specifically promised to “more than double Dáil sitting time with sittings running 45 weeks per year Monday afternoons to Friday lunchtimes from 9.30am to 7pm;” alongside other promises to reform expenses and attempt to change the electoral system. This time of year sees much talk of reform and more sitting days and little done about it. One hopes that the Greens will manage to make the argument for reform and perhaps achieve a level of reform over the life time of this government. However the problems for the Dail are many, far more than simply days they sit. As the Dail breaks up so closely following an election perhaps this is a good time to see if there can be a debate on the manner in which the Dail may be reformed.

Surely there is little point in getting TDs to attend more frequently unless they have something to do, at present the Dail is poodle to the whims of those in power and has always been thus. It seems unlikely that any government in power would seek to give away the power over legislation and policy that they currently enjoy. However the fact that the manner in which debates and legislation occur are skewed by their ties to past practice means that it is doubly unnecessary for any speakers to attend at all. There is little chance of debate changing legislation, there is little hope of amendments succeeding and there is little hope of simple debates getting heard in the wider citizenry.

There are a number of interesting proposals about to seek to make the Dail more independent and effective as an oversight body (if not a pure legislating body). These include expanding the power and role of committes, but most importantly giving them funding to hire a support staff of researchers in order to become less reliant on the evidence of those they are investigating. There is also room for an expanded committee involvement in legislation and oversight of the 600+ quangos that currently run the country on the government’s behalf.

These are short ideas and many more have been mooted around the place, ulitmately though they are likely to come to nought. I hope that the Green party in power will bring it up yet I fear that Fianna Fail in power will smack it down.