The Cedar Lounge Revolution

After all this euro-excitement, and I have to be honest – politically this is a blast, at the risk of being a tad parochial it’s highly entertaining to see that the Dáil will now sit for one extra week this Summer. Cue despond in the Oireachtas. But it’s not all fun and games, because this entirely tokenistic gesture was not appreciated by the opposition. Not one bit.

Tuesday saw a debate commence on the issue and a bad-tempered, albeit hilarious, one it was. As the Irish Times reported:

In a private members’ motion, Eamon Gilmore called for the Dáil to sit towards the end of July and to return in early September, rather than to “up sticks in the second week of July and not do any public business until the end of September”… and angrily dismissed a Government plan for the Dáil to sit for one extra week, in response to his party’s insistence that it was “unthinkable” for the House to adjourn for three months over the summer.

We are told that Gilmore:

A persistent critic of the long Dáil adjournments in the summer and at Christmas, … said “the message we need going out from here is not that deputies are on holidays, but that the country faces serious problems and leave is cancelled”.

He said the economy was heading for recession and in the wake of the referendum rejecting the Lisbon Treaty, Ireland was “now probably facing the biggest diplomatic challenge since the second World War”.

He has a point. And not least when he provided the following data:

I know every year there is a discussion about the summer recess and, to a certain extent, the general arguments are well rehearsed. The Labour Party has consistently argued for a lengthening of the Dáil’s sitting year, one of the shortest in any parliament. The last year for which comparable figures are available is 2005 when Dáil Éireann sat for 92 days; the House of Commons for 133 days; the US Senate, 159 days; the US Houses of Representatives, 140 days, and the Chamber of Deputies in Italy, 159 days. Against this, the argument is made that no Deputy takes a holiday but works in his or her constituency while the work of the important Oireachtas committees continues until the end of July. I accept this is true. Any Deputy who takes a three-month holiday is unlikely to remain a Deputy for long, particularly in the highly competitive electoral environment in which we all must survive. However, the long summer recesses taken by the House invite a public odium on the way in which it does its business. Apart from the public odium it attracts, this year, more than any other, there is an unanswerable case for keeping the House in session and conducting the business of the Government in public. The message from the House must be that Deputies are not going on holiday because matters are serious and leave is cancelled.

This is the sovereign parliament that is at the heart of our state?

Still, the new realpolitic rules, as in the following:

Deputy Ciarán Cuffe: I welcome the Labour Party’s motion in so far as it draws attention to some of the issues the country faces. There is a duty on the Opposition to propose as well as oppose.

Deputy Jan O’Sullivan: We are proposing.

Deputy Ciarán Cuffe: Reading through the motion, I see scant evidence of any clear direction for the country. I see concern about unemployment, the high price of diesel and inflation which is more or less the same as the kind of conversation one would have in the pub on a Friday night. There is, however, a need for the Labour Party to put forward its alternative vision of how this country should operate in difficult economic times.

Deputy Jan O’Sullivan: We are doing that.

Deputy Ciarán Cuffe: I do not see evidence of that in the motion.

Deputy Jan O’Sullivan: The Deputy should read it.

Deputy Ciarán Cuffe: I read it several times.

I am glad to see the Green Party’s commitment to an increase in Dáil sitting times come through the House today. The Dáil will sit for an extra week in July to discuss the results of the Lisbon referendum and the prevailing economic situation. That is movement in the right direction. If we were to propose sitting for several more weeks into July, there would be discomfort on the Opposition benches.

Deputy Liz McManus: The Deputy should try us.

Deputy Jan O’Sullivan: The Deputy should support our motion.

Deputy Ciarán Cuffe: In previous times there was chatter about a wish to sit longer but Deputies opposite should not go too far.

Deputy Jan O’Sullivan: That was among the Deputy’s own people.

Deputy Ciarán Cuffe: The issues outlined in the motion are important and they require a strong hand on the tiller in a time of crisis. I am bewildered that Deputy Ó Caoláin believes the result of the Lisbon referendum has absolutely no bearing on a clear direction for the State of Ireland ship. If one reads any of the international press over the past few days, one will see that the indecision arising from the Irish result feeds into a significant difficulty for Ireland in Europe and on the world stage. What is needed is clear direction, particularly in times of economic difficulty.

The Opposition motion suggests nothing has changed and that there has been no response to some of the issues. …

The Government’s response to the Labour Party motion has been carefully considered. It is much more important to propose rather than oppose and wring one’s hands at the state of the economy.

Or as the Irish Times put it:

He added that “if we were to sit for several weeks further in July there would be discomfort on the Opposition benches”. There had always been a public call from the Opposition for the Dáil to sit longer, “but background whispers of ‘c’mon lads don’t go too far’.”

Which, while entirely correct, sort of misses the point. Surely if something is worth doing it is worth doing on its own terms, not because or in spite of a response from others. And a week doesn’t seem to really cut it as far as a serious effort at increasing sitting times. It is, admittedly some progress, just… it’s not very much and not near enough.

Oddly Leo Varadkar made a good point:

I support the Labour Party’s proposed sitting hours. We do not need to sit until 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. each night. We could finish early. Most people finish work at a reasonable time like 6 p.m. We could do that. It is very difficult for women with families to participate in politics because they are unfairly expected to be here until 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. – or 10 p.m., as it is tonight. Such sitting hours remain from the old days of gentlemen politicians or barristers who spent the day in the Law Library before coming here to talk about the grave issues of the day. Rather than having 12-hour and 15-hour sessions, why not have an eight-hour or nine-hour day, like most people? Such shorter sitting days should be spread more evenly throughout the year. We should have proper committee weeks in which committees sit but the House does not meet in plenary session. Members are aware of the rushed 90-minute committee meetings we have at present. If somebody calls a vote in the Dáil, committee meetings have to be suspended and everybody has to run to the Chamber to vote. That is no way to do business. We could have the same number of sitting weeks, as well as distinct committee weeks. We could also have party weeks. If Members do not want to be here for party political weeks, they will not have to be. Such weeks should be provided for. Political parties have very little time to meet and discuss strategies and policies. Today’s meeting of the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party took place at 5.30 p.m., at the same time as a debate in this Chamber. The meeting had to break up when a vote was called here. We do not get any credit for the crazy workaholic 13-hour days we work. The work of Parliament should be done in eight-hour days which are spread over a longer period of time. That is what is done in other countries.

It has to be said that the Oireachtas hours do seem to be hangover from a different more… well, patriarchal time, and there is a sense to me at least that the extended hours are in some quarters seen as a badge of honour rather than as an arguably dysfunctional means of running a democracy.

The debate dipped into some entertaining territory the following day. So it was we were treated to the unexpected sight of….

MJ Nolan (FF, Carlow- Kilkenny) [who] suggested there was a need to “change the way we do our business in this House”.

He said:

Many times Deputies on this side of the House stand up to vehemently oppose the Opposition motion but on this occasion I see merit in it. Since I was first elected to the Dáil in 1982 I have questioned the length of holidays which the House takes each year. It is difficult to explain ourselves to the public. However, it is important to put on the record of the House that when Members opposite are in Government they also take the same line and the House goes into recess for three months.

We are in changing times and it may be time for some Government to change the way we do our business. The result of last week’s referendum is a salutary lesson for us all. The three main political parties took a decision to go one way and the public, as is their right, decided it is time to teach us all a lesson.

But lest that example of nascent glasnost seem to be a straw in a slightly promising wind, think again:

…Minister of State for Finance Martin Mansergh said “we do have a lot of work to do all year round, bar short breaks which we like everybody else are entitled to and I don’t think we should apologise about the way we do our business”.

Some newspapers in order to boost their circulation would be trying to have some fun at the expense of members of the House. “We should stand up for ourselves and not cower before cartoons and cheap comments,” he said.

Which again, rather brilliantly – and note in passing the evident benefits of an Oxbridge education as an aid to debating tactics – evades the issue.

He rejected comparisons with the legislatures of much larger countries and administrations, which were of “limited validity”.

Why? Because they deal with matters of greater or lesser import? We are not told what yardstick he uses to arrive at that conclusion. But…

Yesterday, Deputy Gilmore referred to odium while another Opposition Deputy mentioned public relations. These are points one must take seriously in light of events last week. At the same time, if one analyses the word “odium”, it means that some newspapers, in order to boost their circulations, will try to have some fun, yet again, at the expense of Members of this House. We should stand up for ourselves and not cower before cartoons and cheap comments. If one applied the same criteria to some of the people who write these things, I dare say we would not have too much difficulty justifying our work rate. We have a lot of work to do all year round, bar short breaks to which we, like everybody else, are entitled. I do not think we should apologise for the way we do our business.

And…

The lengths of breaks have been significantly shortened compared to what they were in the 1980s. The practice of the rainbow Coalition was the same as its successors.

Hmmm… seems to me that pointing an accusing finger at the complicity of a ‘rainbow’ government now out of office for over a decade is bit weak… but great minds, etc, etc.

Seán Sherlock (Lab, Cork East) said when he was elected last year he expected that “one would be up to one’s oxters in legislation but the opposite was the case”.

Well, perhaps that’s the fault – or benefit – of the euro-legislation, or maybe it’s not. In either case he should be taking a closer look…

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore sharply criticised the Green Party who claimed credit for three additional sitting days, agreed by Government following the Labour motion.

He said: “It certainly falls well below what they promised in their manifesto. That contained a commitment to doubling the number of sitting days, which would have brought us to around 180 days. At this rate of progress – three extra days every year – the Green commitment will be met in or around 2038.”

Why yes. Which is sort of funny when one reads the following piece by Oisin Coghlan of Friends of the Earth from earlier in the year…

…the Government has committed itself to reducing overall [carbon] emissions by 3 per cent a year. Bear in mind that emissions from transport rose by 152 per cent between 1990 and 2005, and are projected to reach 265 per cent above 1990 levels by 2020 unless we act now to cut them. This at a time when the EU is proposing that we cut our emissions by 20-30 per cent by 2020.

I’d hazard a guess that at this rate we might see those figures finally dip down to acceptable levels – oh, probably around 2038… Seems to be a trend…

*****

Meanwhile, two useful pieces on the Lisbon Treaty fall-out from a variety of perspectives… here and here … …