Every Dáil day is a Friday in our dumbed down democracy

FIRST day of the new term and about 40 of the 166 TDs had made it into the chamber to listen to Bertie Ahern read out an unremarkable pro forma speech on the ambitions of Ireland’s EU presidency.

There was the usual excuse for the paltry number. A few Oireachtas committees were sitting that day. But where were the rest? The first resolution of the New Year? Let's get back to the usual pattern of Dáil Éireann: more vacant backbenches than vacant backbenchers.

The FF party whips had clearly given out a lash or two this week, because there were two dozen of the troops there at the start well at least for the 15 minutes of Mr Ahern's speech.

All the other parties had a representational smattering that increased or decreased according to whether they were speaking or not. There were nine Fine Gaelers, four from Labour, two Progressive Democrats, two from Sinn Féin, two Greens and four Independents coming in and out.

It's easy to be cynical about TDs' holidays. But what are they coming back to? What badly needs reform isn't the length of time that Oireachtas members get off, but the quality of what passes for parliamentary discourse.

A culture has arisen over the years in the Oireachtas where you'll only get a full house for a vote or for once-off events like the Budget speech or a major crisis. Even the more lively set pieces like leaders' questions will only draw a crowd of about 50.

If the Dáil was a League of Ireland club, it would now be in administration.

'Debate' usually distills down to somebody giving a speech (if it's a minister, a mind-numbingly boring one written by officials) to an almost empty chamber. Deputies will tell you that they follow proceedings on TV while doing work in their offices. Right, just like school children do their homework in front of the telly.

The Dáil was not due to come back for another week. This week's specially convened sittings are a funny beast: no leaders' questions, no real debates, no votes . . . just a lot of speechifying. The Government had come up with this wheeze for Fridays in the run-up to Christmas, to much Opposition wailing and gnashing of teeth. Now they want to make every day a Friday, cribbed Labour leader Pat Rabbitte.

As it turned out, both Mr Rabbitte and Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny made thought-provoking contributions. Mr Kenny focused on four priority issues for the EU; even quoting the late Palestinian academic Edward Said along the way. He identified the EU constitution; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the trans-national problem of paedophilia and the recognition of Irish as those four issues.

Pity there were only four Government TDs there to hear the end of his speech. Thank God for democracy.