Labour wants Dáil to work longer and harder

THE Dáil should sit for four days a week rather than three and increase its total number of sitting days by 50% a year, a comprehensive policy document on Dáil reform has argued.

The Labour Party document was unveiled by party leader Pat Rabbitte yesterday, at a time when Oireachtas members are coming under fire for taking a week-long break just a month after the Dáil returned.

With over 100 proposals, the document calls for fundamental reform of the Dáil, the procedures of which, Mr Rabbitte said, had remained largely unchanged since the first Dáil in 1919.

Among the proposals is a revocation of the arrangement hammered out between his predecessor as Labour leader, Ruairi Quinn, and Bertie Ahern, whereby the Taoiseach does not attend the Dáil on Thursdays.

While saying that he was keen that this change be implemented, Mr Rabbitte pointed out: “You cannot reduce this document down to whether or not the Taoiseach comes in on Thursday.”

The recommendations include a call for the Official Secrets Act to be appealed, the restoration of the Freedom of Information Act to its full powers, and legislation to be introduced to ensure that cabinet confidentiality cannot be used to cover up necessary investigations.

Alluding to the difficulties that opposition parties say they have in engaging Government ministers in meaningful debate, the party wants Dáil standing orders to be redrafted and ministers to be obliged to answer questions properly and fully.

In addition to sittings four days a week, Labour also proposes a summer recess of only six weeks and the weeks off at Halloween and St Patrick’s Day to be abolished.

Following the Supreme Court judgment on the Abbeylara inquiry that has effectively trammelled the work of investigating committees, Labour proposes a constitutional amendment to allow committees inquire “upon an exercise of the executive power of the State”.

The party has also come up with the novel suggestion that an Office of Parliamentary Investigator be established, to conduct the same preliminary investigations for committees as the Comptroller and Auditor General does for the Public Accounts Committee.

Mr Rabbitte acknowledged yesterday that the Abbeylara inquiry may not have been the most appropriate subject matter for a Dáil inquiry, given the serious nature of the allegations and possible findings He pointed out the document had not been inspired by this week’s controversy but had been one that had been in gestation for some months.