A Year in the Dail
IT'S 10.30am ON A THURSDAY morning, any Thursday morning, in the Dail. There's a scattering of the usual Deputies around the Chamber, their eyes gleaming, teeth biting at the bit. It's their last chance to hit the headlines before they close shop for the weekend and they know it.
The bell goes; Order of Business is called. The Ceann Comhairle, Tom Fitzpatrick, looks around nervously waiting for the assault. Like a hare from the trap it's Brian Lenihan and off he goes. 'As a matter of extreme urgency in view of the serious situation at ... '
'That is not in order,' Fitzpatrick wearily interjects.
It's the end of a week, another week, in another year, like any other year in Dail Eireann.
Of the 366 days (it's a Leap Year, remember?) in 1984 the Dail has been in session for a mere one hundred of them. And at least a third of those have been half-days.
This year the Dail has been domiinated by one debate and one piece of legislation - the Criminal Justice Act, 1984. From January to the end of November the Dail has been engaged in a debate over the controversial terms of this Bill and for once the power of political discussion was actually seen to have a direct effect on the legislation in question.
Stage after stage, from January through to November, the same dozen or so names re-occur; Proinsias De Rossa (WP), Michael Woods (FF), Liam Skelly (FG), Alan Shatter (FG), Ben Briscoe (FF), David Andrews (FF), David Molony (FG), Monica Barnes (FG), Mary Flaherty (FG), Willie O'Dea (FF), Mervyn Taylor (Lab) and Oliver J. Flanagan (FG).
In the past twelve months the Oireachtas has passed sixteen sepaarate pieces of legislation which were originated in 1984. A further thirteen 1984 Bills are being carried over into next year. The two houses also passed five other Bills, including the Criminal Justice Bill, which had been carried over from previous years and three other old Bills are being carried over into 1985. One of these pending
Bills, the Bankruptcy Bill, has been doing the rounds since 1982 and has been with the Joint Committee on Legislation for about a year.
Most of the legislation passed by the Oireachtas is of a technical rather than a policy nature. They are Acts, like the Dairy Produce (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment) Act signed on March 6, which just look after the existing structures within the system and continue ongoing policies. The Dairy Produce Act, for example, just continues to approve the government's loan guarantee to An Bord Bainne Co-operative Limited.
A similar innovative piece is the Protection of Animals kept for Farmming Purposes Act, signed 4 July, which merely ratifies the Council of Europe Convention. So while the twenty Acts and one Constitutional Amendment (to allow non-eitizens voting rights) seem initially impressive, in reality the amount of real policy-making legislation dealt with this year is extremely limited.
Legislation passed this year is as follows:
Act 1 The Housing Bill (1983), signed 7 February.
Act 2 National Social Services Board Bill (1983), signed 1 March.
Act 3 Dairy Produce (Amendment) Bill (1984), signed 6 March.
Act 4 Landlord & Tenant Bill (1983), signed 14 March.
Act 5 Social Welfare Bill (1984), signed 30 March.
Act 6 European Assembly Elections Bill (1984), signed 17 April.
Act 7 Referendum (Amendment) Bill (1984), signed 17 April.
Act 8 Irish Shipping Ltd (Amendment) Bill (1984), signed 17 April.
Act 9 Finance Bill (1984), signed 23 May.
Act 10 Postal & Telephone Service (Amendment) Bill (1984), signed 27 June.
Act 11 Wool Market Bill (1984), signed 4 July.
Act 12 Exported Livestock (Insurance) Bill (1984), signed 4 July.
Act 13 Protection Of Animals Kept For Farming Bill (1984), signed 4 July.
Act 14 Irish Steel (Ltd) Bill (1984), signed 10 July.
Act 15 Landlords & Tenants (Ground Rent) (Amendment) Bill (1984), signed 10 July
Act 16 Road Traffic (Amendment) Bill (1983),signed 18 July.
Act 17 Fund Of Suitors Bill (1984), signed 18 July.
Act 18 Misuse Of Drugs Bill (1984), signed 18 July. 9th Amendment To Constitution: 1984, signed 2 August.
Act 19 Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill (1984), signed November.
Act 20 Criminal Justice Bill (1983), signed 6 Decem ber.
DAIL DEPUTIES THEMSEL YES are increasingly frustrated by the fact that they spend ninety per cent of their time dealing with technical legisslation and are rarely ever involved in actual policy and planning. Fine Gael Backbencher, Michael Keating, explains "The vast majority of legislation we're dealing with in the Dail is years out of date already. The Dail debates themmselves consequently have no effect on legislation or policy. It's rarely that we're ever planning the future in the Dail. We spend most of our time trying to plough through the past.
"This year for example there are some exceptions. The Criminal Justice Bill debate showed that vigorous debating could actually affect policy legislation and in the National Plan debate the Dail was allowed an opporrtunity to debate long-term future policy. The overall effect however of general Dail debating and legislating is a bit like re-arranging the furniture on the Titanic. Pointless."
In the Criminal Justice Bill debate, deputies like Workers' Party TD, Proinsias De Rossa, desperately tried to re-arrange the furniture in an awareeness that they could not actually stop the ship from going down.
De Rossa spoke at every stage of the Bill frequently followed by Michael Woods and what is significant of the whole year-long debate is that those deputies who did participate were in general well prepared, interested, and attentive.
The Minister for Justice, Michael Noonan, indicated how clearly he had been influenced by the debate during a debate on Thursday 5 April. "I consider that the views expressed by the Deputies in this House are of more significance in influencing me in decision-making than those of anyybody outside the House. I might suggest that Deputies would look again at the amendments I shall be proposing next week ... they will see that many of the views expressed here have been taken on board by me."
At one point during the debate, after Michael Woods had been susspended, the Minister for Justice actually agreed with the Fianna Fail members in calling on the Ceann Comhairle to let Woods back in. The Deputy concerned he said, has made such a valuable contribution to the debate and should be here for the rest of it.
The Dail is not only bogged down with the past but is defined by it.
Michael Keating is one of the few TDs who openly admits that there is now little difference between the two major parties in Irish politics.
"There's a real need now for poliiticians to re-examine their political alignment. Our political system was founded on the civil war but the civil war is no longer an issue. Many depuuties are frustrated not only with the Dail system but with their own party. Some FF deputies would be happier in FG and some FG TDs in FF. They feel out of touch with the politics of their own party and bewildered by the gap between them and the party line. The way I see it it's either this shower or the other shower and I'm happier with this one."
This innate frustration shared by deputies tends to be expressed in the heckling and cat-calling which often passes in the Dail as debate. Prime culprits in this area include Gene Fitzgerald, Jim Tunny, Albert Reyynolds, and Brian Lenihan, although as members of the Opposition Front Bench they seem to conceive this to be their role in life. Backbenchers like Dick Dowling, Madeline Taylor-Quinn and Frank McLoughlin spend more time interrupting than debating, havving made no more than one or two speeches each in the past twelve months and even then their speeches were brief and insignificant.
The sheer similarity between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael was nowhere more apparent this year than in the debate on the National Economic and Social Plan during October. The only connflicting debate in terms of policy was provided by the two members of the Workers' Party, Tomas Mac Giolla and Proinsias De Rossa. When on the 11 October, Dick Spring proposed a motion supporting the Plan the Workers' Party quickly proposed an amendment deploring the entire conntents of the Plan. Their amendment deplored, condemned and regretted the Plan saying "and believe that the Plan is basically a restatement of unsuccessful social and economic poliicies pursued by previous governments."
Fianna Fail agreed with the WP that the Plan was indeed a rehash of previous policies including their docuument The Way Forward. As Albert Reynolds said "It contains a lot of material that was used in The Way Forward, so I should not be surprised if some of the civil servants who were involved in drawing up parts of that document were involved also in drawing up parts of this Plan."
Alan Dukes agreed: "A lot of the analysis [in The Way Forward] has much common ground with what is contained in our Plan."
So while the government and main opposition were prepared to spend the debate blaming each other for the crisis and taking the praise for the Plan the Workers' Party completely rejected the document and forced a real policy debate by outlining an alternative socialist interpretation of the economy.
JOHN KELLY, WHO WHEN HE does speak shows just how well he can do it, blankly admitted that both sides of the house were saying the same things and that only the Workers' Party was presenting a contest. "One of the few things that makes this house worth attending is the genuine debate which takes place between what I might describe as the unadjussted socialists over there, embodied in those two deputies, and the rest of us."
Without them he implied the National Plan was just another budget debate, the same "boring predictable ding-dongs. " Even Albert Reynolds was exasperated, "I am wasting my time listening to this long-playing record."
From month to month the Dail reports repeatedly suggest that the Workers' Party are the real opposition. A two-man show they are often joined by Tony Gregory. On motion after motion, in any area affecting policy, the Workers' Party propose an amenddment but one of the most common entries throughout the year is: "Ceann Comhairle: 'On that question a diviision has been challenged. Will Deputies calling for a division please rise in their seats?' Deputies Mac Giolla, De Rossa and Gregory (Independent) rose. An Ceann Comhairle: 'As fewer than ten Deputies have risen in their places in accordance with Standing Orders I declare the motion carried and the names of the Deputies dissenting will appear in the journal of the proceedings of the House."
Question Time roughly constitutes a third of the daily proceedings in the Dail and the analysis by Gene Kerrigan in Magill, August 1983 still holds true. Frank Fahey, Bobby Molloy, Ivan Yates, are still the biggest wasters in the Dail although this year their lead has been challenged by one Matthew Nolan who appears to have stepped up his constituency questions in an effort perhaps to compensate for his near total silence in debates.
On the 18 January, for example, Matthew Brennan (Sligo-Leitrim FF), asked the Minister for Finance why a parcel from the United States for a person (details supplied) in Sligo had not been delivered. Alan Dukes replied that the parcel concerned had been returned to the sender on 13 December 1983. That question cost the taxpayer £50.
Equally a good way for a publicity conscious Deputy to get the headlines is to table an adjournment debate. During this the Dail has discussed such novelties as lost sheep in the Galtee Mountains (tabled by Sean Byrne Tipperary South FF) to tree-felling in the Shankill (David Andrews - Dun Laoghaire FF). While the vast majority of these debates (there were some 50 of them this year) are on local issues, several of the debates have actually 'dealt with issues of national interest such as pollution, national treasures, travelling people and political asylum.
Private Mem ber Bills are one immportant way in which Deputies can force a debate on a particular issue and even introduce legislation. The Workers' Party are particularly strong in this area, introducing a motion prooposing a referendum on divorce earlier this year, but their lack of numbers in the House inevitably means that any of their motions are defeated. Fianna Fail, however, are in a much better position to exploit Private Mem ber Business and their motion last month condemning the Superrgrass system in the North was passed with amendment in December.
But to some Deputies no doubt all this talk of legislation, bills, debates and business will all seem insignificant when they recall the highlight of this year's Dail - their Very Important Visitor on June 4. As Kelly's "unadjussted socialists" left the House that memorable voice filled the Chamber "When I stepped off Air Force One at Shannon a few days ago, and saw Ireland, beautiful and green, and felt again the warmth of her people, something deep inside began to stir."
Even Brian Lenihan couldn't have put it better. •