Government to revisit failed referendum on inquiries

THE Government is to revisit the issue of strengthening the powers of the Oireachtas this year in the belief the majority of the public would support such a move.

Despite an embarrassing referendum defeat on giving politicians extra investigative powers last year, another vote has not been ruled out.

Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin said the wording of changes to strengthen the hand of Oireachtas members could be revised and that concerns of the public would be considered.

“I think there’s a majority of people who’ll support strengthening the hand of parliament to hold inquiries,” he said.

“Obviously we have to learn from the mistakes of the last campaign and think about it. But people made a decision on that and we have to respect that.”

The amendment — narrowly defeated in October — sought to overturn a High Court ruling and give more power to politicians to investigate matters deemed to be of public importance.

Other TDs and senior figures in the Coalition are known to be keen on revisiting the referendum.

Any such move would not be decided until later this year, Mr Howlin said.

“We’re going to have a constitutional convention, whether that might be a forum to debate the consequences of it, to modify the wording, to hear what the concerns of people are.”

There were no firm proposals but the issue of reform was important, he said, adding: “[It’s an issue] close to my heart for a long time.”

He refused to blame anyone for the failed vote, including eight attorneys general who came out against it just days before.

“There’s no blaming anybody, people intelligently made their own minds up and we have to reflect on that and maybe do some analysis on why that came to pass.”

Meanwhile, the Government wants to use social media to communicate more with voters. Last month, the budget was tweeted from Merrion Street for the first time.

“We need to re-engage with citizenry in a better way than we have done. We can’t expect people to read Oireachtas reports and the odd line in national newspapers.

“We do need to have a much more structured way of doing it. I’m excited about some of the prospects that might come with new technology to engage with people more, not as an alternative to parliament but to bring parliament and parliamentary debate [to them].”

He also said any vote on EU treaty change would not be linked to any writedown of Irish debt.