Barring Orders

Gene Kerrigan reviews the first official report of the proceedings of one of the new Dail committees - proceedings which three TDs described as farce.

Embarrassed by complaints about the Dail's inefficiency and irrrelevance, the TDs this year began a system of Dail Committees which, it was hoped, would improve things. The published verbatim report of the first meeting of the Joint Committee on Legislation is not encouraging.

September 6, 3.02pm. Some memmbers are present, mostly Fianna Fail. They begin, the Committee's Clerk acting as Chairperson. Des O'Malley is nominated for the Chair. They decide to lock the door, in order to keep out the Fine Gaelers. There is no key. And the Clerk's assistant is sent to stand at the door and do bouncer. 3.04pm, eleven Fine Gael TDs and Senators come charging in. The report notes that at this stage there were [Interruptions.] This means that so many people are shouting and bawling that the official reporter can't keep up with them.

Senator Alexis FitzGerald: I presume there are no published Standing Orders for this committee. There was never any suggestion that the doors should be locked. I do not see how members can suddenly call on themselves to lock out other people on the committtee. That is an outrageous suggestion.

Denis Gallagher TD: We are in the process of taking a vote. The people present have decided on how they want the decision to be. What happens when nine or ten people walk in afterrwards? They cannot be allowed to participate in the vote. It is just not on.

David Molony TD: Why cannot we participate in a vote?

Sean Calleary TD: You cannot partiicipate in a vote in the Dail once a certain stage is reached. We had well reached that stage. If you do not hear the bell ringing at that stage you cannot vote.

Molony: The whole thing is a farce. It would be just as well to walk out.

They didn't.

FitzGerald: Is there a vote taking place at the moment? If you want a vote we will vote.

Ger Connolly TD: The door was locked.

Des O'Malley TD: The vote 0 bviously has to be confined to those who are present at the time. That is so in either House.

[Interruptions.}

Alan Shatter TD: Will we have the position in this committee that every time somebody calls for a vote they are going to go to the door and lock it in case somebody else walks in? Can we not deal with this in a mature and sensible way?

Mervyn Taylor TD: Is it seriously being suggested that members of this committee present here are to be debarred from voting? Is that the suggestion of the Fianna Fail Party? We should know that.

O'Malley: Nobody who is present when the vote is called will be deebarred from voting.

There was some more chat and some more (Interruptions).

Maurice Manning TD: How can the meeting be called to order if there is no chairman? This is a farce at the very outset. As I understand it, there has been an agreement between the various parties that the chairs of committees will rotate and there will be sharing of the chairs between the various parties. If there is an agreeement between the Government and the Opposition that this is to be a Government chaired committee, surely Fianna Fail are going to accept that. That is my understanding. Unless there has been a lack of communication--

[Interruptions]

Manning suggested a fifteen minute adjournment to cool things off

O'Malley: In the circumstances we are in, Acting Chairman, it might be very foolish to adjourn. If you do so, the whole problem that has arisen will be re-opened again. At least, you are now aware of who was here at the time the voting started and who was not here. If the meeting breaks up for even a short period, for all we know other members may turn up and some of the members who are here now may not come back. One does not know. For that reason it is important that you should dispose of this matter now.

Manning: I think all the members are present now.

This kind of thing went on for some time.

O'Malley: I set out the sequence of events to the Acting Chairman and he confirms my recollection of it. It follows from that that we must prooceed in accordance with that.

Molony: I submit, Mr. Acting Chairrman, that you do not have the right to deny us, the people who are on this committee and attending this meeting now the right to vote.

O'Malley: I do not think, in fairness to the Acting Chairman, that he is denying anyone a vote. He has to enforce the decision of the committee. He is anxious to do that.

Acting Chairman: I have already outtlined the position. The committee as a J oint Committee is subject to the Standing Orders of both Houses. In the taking of divisions in select commmittee the Seanad Standing' Order requires that the door be locked, the corresponding Dail Standing Order does not. The committee decided that the doors should be locked and we were proceeding to take a division on that basis.

Shatter: The door was not locked.

Acting Chairman: It was barred by one of the officials who informed the members on their entry of the position.

Mary Flaherty TD: If we are getting down to whether or not the door was locked, in a Dail or Seanad vote if one arrives before the doors are actually locked one is allowed to enter. If we are down to that level of farce in deciding whether we will be entitled to vote, we gained entry before you had effectively locked the door and before the taking of the vote had actually commenced. In practical terms we are physically entitled to vote as we arrived before we were barred physically. Perhaps we will have to arrange for adequate locks to be supplied.

After some argy-bargy Senator Sean O'Leary asked a pertinent question.

O'Leary: Under what authority did you accept a proposition, if you did accept a proposition, to establish Standing Orders of this committee without having that item on the agenda? Under what authority did you do that?

Connolly: Under the authority of the members who were here.

O'Leary: It was never put to the committee that we were actually adopting a set of Standing Orders. That was never put to the people present. A committee cannot unilaaterally decide, without notification to members who were absent, to adopt Standing Orders. That is not reasonnable or legal or legitimate. I must ask in those circumstances for a clear ruling that whatever was done was not the adoption of a Standing Order because that could not be done withhout notification. I ask for a ruling on that.

Acting Chairman: There is a provision that the rules of procedure of the Houses apply to procedure in select or special committees.

FitzGerald: Nobody barred my wife and 1.

Yes, indeed. A moment later, Des O'Malley put the boot in.

O'Malley: There is a motion before the committee by Deputy Molony that we now proceed with the vote. I suggest that we do that now. I suggest we do it on the basis on which we had already proceeded to vote. The process commenced.

Shatter: The logical basis is that cerrtain members of the Fianna Fail Party in this committee room at ten seconds past three bolted the door and voted whatever they wanted.

(Interruptions.}

There were a lot more (Interruptions) but O'Malley kept at it.

O'Malley: I suggest we proceed.

And ...

O'Malley: Procedures were called out by the acting chairman and I suggest we follow them through now.

O'Sullivan: There is a lot of legislaation and it is in the interests of our country to proceed and try to get this through as quickly as possible.

Shatter: I would ask Deputy O'Malley to remember that there are anumber of items on which agreement will have to be reached. The danger of this squabble today is that there will be a total breakdown. This is completely unnecessary. I put it that agreement has been reached between the Whips.

O'Malley: I have not been informed.

(Interruptions.)

Fianna Fail's Ger Connolly best to sort things out.

Connolly: We seem to be deadlocked on this. I very much regret this. I would like to know from Deputy Mervyn Taylor whether there was an agreement between him and the Whips of the Fine Gael Party and our Whip.

Taylor: I understand that there were discussions - I was not present -

Connolly: I do not want to put you in an embarrassing position. I am led to believe that there was no agreement between the Whips. There may have been an agreement between the Labour Party and the Fine Gael Party. I know nothing of an agreement and none of my colleagues knew anything about an agreement. I will go out and see what the position is.

O'Malley: I think it is inappropriate that the meeting should adjourn in the light of the rather unusual cirrcumstances.

After a lot more of this kind of thing Ger Connolly, sound man that he is, returned with the information that Charlie Haughey, Garret FitzGerald and Dick Spring had discussed the matter previously and agreed that a Labour member should Chair the Committee. It was just that no one -had told anyone on the Committee about this. At which point Des O'Malley, being cornered, withdrew his nomination. As a consolation prize they let him be vice-Chair. Then the Committee began some work. This is called Reform Of The Dail. •