I haven’t read much about it but I don’t find it very convincing. I think they’d all be afraid of exposing just how similar they are as well.
Here’s the Clifford article. It’s long but it’s an easy read.
Fly on the Dáil: what they really get up to in Leinster House
Our seat of democracy actually sits for about two-and-a-half days a week. Michael Clifford lurked around the Dáil and Seanad last week to see what, if anything, is achieved by our parliamentarians
At 2.25pm on Tuesday, the homing call begins to sound. All around the environs of Leinster House a bell tolls to summon TDs to their chamber. The boys and girls drift towards the citadel to begin their legislative week.
Leinster House has been open for business since 7.30am on Monday morning. Apart from a few committee meetings in the hours before the Dáil resumes, the main business of Leinster House – debating and passing legislation – kicks off when the working week for most people is well underway.
First up is a round of parliamentary questions. There are four government TDs present, including two ministers. The opposition benches contain 10 members. Every other one of the 166 seats is unoccupied. Upstairs in the public gallery, behind a pane of glass, around 70 members of the public are there to bear witness to the frontline of democracy. Above them, the roof of the chamber rises in a dome of glass, providing the only natural light for the chamber.
Government chief whip John Curran is answering questions from a prepared script. A number of deputies are holding their mobile phones like weapons to fight off boredom. In an environment top-heavy with rules and regulations, texting is banned in the House. Nobody pays a blind bit of notice to that rule.
The chamber begins to thicken with deputies after 4pm in anticipation of the highpoint of leader’s questions 15 minutes later. This is where the party leaders have a bit of a set-to about the issues of the day, at least, allegedly so.
Enda Kenny stands up and tries to look angry but fails miserably. Brian Cowen bats him off. Eamon Gilmore stands up and succeeds in looking angry. He asks whether Cowen knew that Anglo Irish was insolvent on the night of the bank guarantee in 2008. “No I didn’t,” Cowen replies. There are dark days ahead, but at this set piece Gilmore is chasing the soundbite on a matter of which the public has long made up its mind. The texting traffic thins out during leaders’ questions.
Within 20 minutes, the first parliamentary schemozzle gets underway. This consists of shouting, roaring and heckling before the ceann comhairle rings a bell and brings everyone to heel.
Next up is order of business, which involves talking about what the House will talk about for the rest of the day. Sinn Féin deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin gets to his feet. There is a stampede for the door. Throughout the week, the first sounds of Ó Caoláin’s mellifluous tones habitually prompts an exodus from the House.
Oireachtas an irrelevancy
There is a growing body of opinion which suggests the Oireachtas is an irrelevancy in national governance. De facto power is almost exclusively the preserve of the executive. Those who occupy the Dáil and the Seanad talk, shout and roar before bedding down as voting fodder. The system can accommodate serious debate, but those who have serious contributions to make usually save them for elsewhere. Politics, and by extension governance, has suffered greatly as a result of the system, but that’s the way the crowd in power likes it, and the next crowd will be unlikely to relinquish any power when they get their turn.
There are 463 people employed to service the Oireachtas with a wage bill of €26m a year. Between July '09 and July 2010, the Dáil sat for just 100 days.
On Wednesday morning, the financial regulator Matthew Elderfield appears before the Oireachtas Committee on Regulatory Affairs. The committees meet in the basement of Leinster House 2000, the extended wing of the main building. LH2000 is all glass and light, a sharp contrast to the existing building, which reeks of history, but lets in little light.
The committee rooms are circular affairs with low ceilings, like something out of a movie featuring the Pentagon. A number of TDs and a single senator question Elderfield about a range of issues currently to the fore. Politicians often refer to the good work done by committees, and it’s true that those who have something to offer can shine in this forum. Much information is extracted by the more astute parliamentarians. The quality of the fare is probably due to the fact that committees interact not with each other, but with citizens from beyond the Leinster House bubble.
Most of the work of the committees ends up gathering dust in reports which the cabinet discards if it doesn’t conform to the cabinet’s agenda. There were 728 Oireachtas meetings in the year to last July.
Back in the Dáil, it is leaders’ questions once more and Eamon Gilmore is angry. He is talking about e-voting machines, which were a major waste of money, and have no relevance to the current crisis, but are always good for a soundbite.
“For the next two years, every medical card holder in the country will be paying 50c per item when filling in a prescription in a pharmacy in order to pay back the €50m the government wasted in electronic voting,” he said. With that, the Labour leader sits down, managing to look both angry and smug. Cowen just looks tired and half beaten. During leaders’ questions, the texting traffic is fair to middling.
Upstairs in the public gallery, a group of schoolchildren gets up to leave while the Taoiseach is on his feet. Last year, there were 103,315 visitors to Leinster House. The majority reportedly regard the experience as very positive.
At 2.25pm, a different homing call sounds out. This one has a long toll followed by a short – a jazzed-up version of the homing call for the Dáil. And why not, because the Seanad is a jazzed-up version of the Dáil, featuring the odd intelligent debate and a better class of knockabout craic.
The Seanad didn’t sit on Tuesday last week, because, well, because the government side didn’t want to sit. The Seanad meets in what must once have been a large reception room, with high windows and a high ceiling adorned with some lovely cornices. Large leather chairs are laid out in an arc for the members. The chairs are so big, senators could easily get lost in them, or fall into a deep sleep to dream about future days in the lower house.
The sight of a reporter in the chamber must be highly unusual. Many senators approach and offer warm words of welcome. Others stare as if at an exotic creature who has just landed from the world outside. As far as media attention goes, these people are a neglected species, which is a pity, but inevitable in the system that exists.
Decor and drama
The order of business progresses in a civil manner, until Eoghan Harris spits fire at Fine Gael. “How dare you,” the Blueshirts leader, Frances Fitzgerald, cries in reply. “How dare you.” Between the decor and the drama, Oscar Wilde would have made hay in this place.
Across the corridor in the Dáil, the transport minister is answering parliamentary questions. Noel Dempsey stands and reads the answers from a script. There are three other deputies in the House. Between 3.10pm and 3.40pm, he answers at least eight questions from TDs, none of whom are present to hear his answers.
In the Dáil term in the year to July last, a total of 53,222 parliamentary questions were processed. According to the Oireachtas Commission, the Dáil ranks first in a survey of 13 national parliaments in terms of questions asked.
This implies either that TDs are highly inquisitive and knowledgeable, or else they fire in any oul’ questions at the drop of a hat. There is no data on how many questions are answered in the absence of the questioner.
Later that same evening, back in the Seanad, junior minister Conor Lenihan is sitting in on a debate on a private members’ bill. There are four members present for the debate. The minister nods sagely as points are being made. Shortly before 7pm, he is relieved by his colleague, Mary White. Lenihan gets up to leave, looking like a man who is finding it hard to tear himself away from the scintillating parliamentary fare.
Wednesday evening is usually a late sitting in the Dáil. Last week, there was a debate on a private members’ bill on health cuts. Junior minister Martin Mansergh was one of the first speakers at 7.15pm.
‘No decisions likely’
He referred to rumours of cuts in hospital services in his constituency, but concluded, “I am satisfied that no decisions are likely in the lifetime of this Dáil.” Finding solace in the failure to reach decisions on matters of policy sounds like a strange way for a legislator to do business, but that’s the way the system operates.
The debate concludes at 11.15pm. Once the House rises, about two hours are given for members to wind down or get their things together or have a jar, before the gates close.
Security in Leinster House is provided by a section working to the superintendent of the Oireachtas who oversees a complement of around 50 parliamentary ushers. These employees are multi-taskers, covering security, House attendance and visitation. In this, their role probably resembles that of a steward in a cruise liner, and they certainly run a smooth ship.
Thursday dawns with another interesting Oireachtas committee meeting. The Public Accounts Committee is examining a HSE audit about more wasted money. Down there, in the bowels of LH2000, they earn their crust. Last year, the pay for the 166 TDs came to €17m, while other costs associated with their keep and wellbeing amounted to just shy of €10m.
Over in the Dáil, Tánaiste Mary Coughlan is taking leaders’ questions. The Taoiseach doesn’t attend the Dáil on Thursdays because he has better things to be doing with his time. Sometimes, it can be great craic when the Tánaiste takes questions, but on Thursday, there wasn’t much happening.
Afterwards it’s back to the order of business. Members drift out. Fine Gael’s Bernard Durkan gets to his feet. Bernard is a top-notch heckler, but when he begins to talk on Thursday, many leave, others engage in conversation, and nobody really listens to what he is saying.
The leas ceann comhairle Brendan Howlin intervenes. “Would the House pay some attention to Deputy Durkan, please.” Reluctantly, the House hears Bernard out.
As the day drifts on, many parliamentarians head for the hills. There is rarely a vote on a Thursday afternoon, as it might impede the progress of deputies retuning to their constituencies. The Seanad finishes up at 2pm, but there’s still a few hours left in the in the Dáil for this week. Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern spends a share of the afternoon answering priority questions. At 3.30pm, he is dealing with the subject of paramilitaries. There is one other deputy in the House. Alan Shatter is asking questions. Some minutes later, the two boys are joined by Pat Rabbitte.
Matters on adjournment follow, and a few more TDs show up. One is James Bannon, who must be congratulated on his dedication to the job. Bannon represents the midlands and for such a representative to be still within the environs of Leinster House at this late hour is indeed commendable. The issue up for debate is: ‘The position regarding the national network of cycle paths’. At 5.25pm, the lights go down and the Dáil adjourns until 2.30pm next Tuesday.
Friday is a quiet day in the seat of democracy. Last Friday was open house day, in which visitors were brought on architectural tours of the building. Parliamentarians were thin on the ground. Most of them were hard at work in the other element of their job spec – representing the constituency.
Long hours are put in with clinics, funerals and displaying the patience of Job and the ear of a social worker. All of which has precious little to do with legislating in the national interest, but that’s the system, and there is no will to change it.
October 10, 2010
no way any notion of national should be entertained. the people want an election and the current dail only has a mandate til may 2012. its only a last gasp of the dying greens and ff coalition to cling to power
no way any notion of national govt should be entertained. the people want an election and the current dail only has a mandate til may 2012. its only a last gasp of the dying greens and ff coalition to cling to power
:rolleyes:
FFS
India would have 40,000 TD’s in their national parliamant if they were to follow our lead in ratios ffs.
It should be top of every agenda as every rotten decision can be traced back to our electoral system, whether it be the gombeen or the fools who elect him.
Unless we address this first up there’s actually no point in trying anything else as its only window dressing.
I don’t disagree that there’s a problem with Ireland’s parliamentary system but I don’t think it’s going to be solved in the short term and I don’t think it’s the root cause of our economic problems either. Economic reform is far from window dressing - and needs to happen regardless of the numbers of elected representatives.
It needs to happen from the top down though Rock. More cuts are needed but they will be unpalatable to me unless there’s reform at the top.
I don’t mind taking another pay cut for the good of the country but won’t do it unless the boyos creaming it give up their entitlements first. Thats the other sad reality of the situation.
You can’t continue to p1ss down someone’s back and tell them its raining.
I was all for a national government but it’s a waste of time at this stage what difference is it going to make to people?? It allegedly will only help us with the markets, we would be as well off to have an election change whatever leaders have to be changed and fuck of to Brussels cap in hand.
It’s all about bond markets and government borrowings, developers debts what about unemployment and personal debt
The support for a national government seems to be about let’s give everyone a say. Everyone though isn’t 166 TDs or whatever, it is the Irish electorate. If the Greens really wanted to act in the national interest they should withdraw from government now and force one
I don’t think the Greens will be holding on much past Christmas irrespective of this.
There’s no point in us deciding a budget by election because we’ve fucked up every election opportunity given to us in the past decade or more with our willingness to re-elect a corrupt pack of imbeciles. The horrible truth is that we’re a nation of morons and we need to hope for the best we can from this budget because we won’t be electing anyone with any great vision or intelligence anytime soon I’d wager.
Sure we may aswell give up democracy so Rocko. What other system could we chance…?
Lenihan has been duped by the bank and his strategy to save the Irish economy is in ruins. What gives him and the unelected Taoiseach the moral authority to make four year budget decisions. An election is pretty irrelevant afterwards.
Agreed about the country being full of morons. The country is a disgrace frankly rotten to it’s core and we are a shocking example to other small countries considering the money we have fucked away. Was independence actually worth it, is a republic worth it? I’ve been getting emails lately from people from home with kids who are going to uproot everything to leave. It is incredibly sad that we aren’t fit to govern our own affairs.
unlikely
That “we aren’t fit to run our affairs” argument makes me sick. Thinly veiled ‘I can’t be arsed to look for the real reasons why our society is the way it is’.
It makes you sick because it’s the truth. Irish banking is a crash course in failure, our electorate values filling pot holes more than the national interest. Bertie Ahern won three elections in a row now he is the villain. The amount of funds we got from EU structural funds to build a sustainable vibrant republic simply pissed away. The collapse of the country is down to a failure of regulation ie government as much as anything else. If that isn’t a sign we aren’t able to manage our own affairs I don’t know what is
Utter bullshit.
When was the last time you were actually around the country? Our road infrastructure is excellent considering where we came friom just ten years ago. It is a fact that is often forgotten when people go on about how we pissed away the boom.
As for the lack of a sustainable, vibrant economy, we are still standing despite taking an almighty wallop. Now I have no doubt the finger of blame of that wallop lies ultimately at the hands of the Taoiseach of our country but to say that the country has collapsed is just not true. Me, and most people I know are still maintaining a reasonable standard of living.
As for all your hyperbole above, you were the guy calling for us to let Anglo colllapse back in September 2008. Not only would this have meant our entire banking system fell, but we would have incurred the wrath of the EU, where there was a clear instruction given to prop up the banks at any cost. You’re response to this was ‘fuck them we are a republic, we can do what we want’. This at the most critical time economically in the history of our State, and this guy is calling for us to stick two fingers up to the one place which could make or break us. Christ I would hate to have seen you in charge back at that time. We would be well and truly fucked.
The make up of the current electoral system is completely wrong if you ask me. People do place emphasis on the local guy - I wouldn’t call them gombeens for that. They are ultimately wanting to elect the person who has performed best for them in the past. Most of them couldn’t give a shite about party politics, they vote for the individual. You may slag them off as much as you want for that but it is only a human reaction. I would hasten a guess that most people across the world would do the same thing, and this is not necessarily just an problem with us ‘dumb Irish’.
It certainly is a failure of government. There are too many examples of money badly spent and overspent that explain why we’re in the current mess.
Unlike KIB Man I don’t blame Lenihan all that much. I think we’d be in a hell of a mess regardless of the banks and the fact there are two problems is causing confusion - and probably confusion that is being stoked by the government.
The reports now of cutting special needs teachers and closing schools and hospital wards should not be tied into the banking crisis. The reason we have a budget deficit is because of gross mismanagement of our tax revenue (far too reliant on property in the past) and our revenue and capital expenditure.
There are obvious high profile examples like the money wasted on the M3 (that we’re now paying the toll company for because there isn’t enough traffic on the road going through the tolls which is just lunacy on a grander scale than I’ve seen before), the billion euro spent on T2 at Dublin Airport when the existing terminal is now at about 50% capacity after the building work that has gone on. The absolute waste of money renting prefabs from a cartel for schools every year when there are empty hotels and houses all over this country and a general excess of property.
All of that is a direct result of appalling management by FF. The other parties don’t get out of it that easily though because our property collapse is directly attributable to some truly dreadful planning decisions. While the banks and developers are taking most of the blame for the bursting of the property bubble it was local councils throughout the country who decided that a 2,000 unit housing estate on the edge of some rural backwater was a good thing. The speculators gambled and lost but the local regulators were criminally negligent in destroying the landscape and in facilitating construction that was unneeded, unwelcome and has left us in huge debt. That was FG as much as FF unfortunately and there are precious few councillors around the country who can divorce themselves from that.
We don’t pay enough attention to local politics as an electorate. At the next local elections we should be destroying the existing councillors for the part they paid in this disaster.
And Lenihan takes his share of the blame for the recent problems of course. The Anglo support is just ridiculous at this stage. You hear FF and the right wing economists bleating on about the “market” and “reputation” in explaining why we won’t default on bonds or even discount them. Do they not realise our reputation is fucked? We’re paying our massive premium on government bonds precisely because they’re seen as a higher risk and because the country is bankrupt by reputation. There’s no point in propping up Anglo as though we’re pretending it’s still a good thing. It’s not. People gambled. They lost. We’re paying the price for that anyway so share the fucking burden with those who took on the risk in the first place. Why the fuck would we give Anglo bondholders anything back when the shares are worth nothing and the company itself is worth nothing? Pure nonsense.
you’re an idiot so your FF right wing comical ali response is predictable. the decent public roads are privately owned - we pay a stealth tax of a toll to use them, then once CRH or whoever have creamed enough we buy them back. Wahey . The economy is not still standing :rolleyes: , we have borrowed to the hilt to keep things ticking over namely developers, unions, politicans since that is all that matters in this country not critical services for the vunerable. ah i could go on but I’ll only get myself agitated before bed
credit to you for maintaining a decent standard of living - many of those whose fingerprints are all over the biggest threat ever to Irish sovereignty also are. Some of course are blameless and still doing alright. But with 14% unemployment, suicide, emigration on the rise its safe to say that a lot of people who had nothing to do with the current situation arent having such a good time.
yes i would have let anglo go. Hey I’ve been proved right again. Any evidence that the EU clearly stated that the banks were to be saved at all costs across the EU…(check below for evidence that you are talking through your hole)
the electoral system is broken because the electorate refuse to fix it. As NCC would say too many people in Ireland are pre occupied with lines on a map drawn by the Brits and bullets fired in 1923, if the electorate refused this approach, politics would be forced to change. In some senses its difficult to blame FF - they did what they have to do to get elected and the public rewarded them for it. It is like the electorate said, hey fuck the national interest - we need a new stadium in Thurles, hospital in Kenmare - (insert your own favourite fuck the country but $$$ for the parish scheme here). Imo Irish people as a nation do not give enough of a fuck about the country that people fought and died for.
good article here - we had to save Anglo, INBS is a lie
By David McWilliams
Wednesday October 06 2010
The last time I checked there was a harp on the front of my passport, not a picture of Michael Fingleton
The other day I met a German radio presenter from ARD, the German public radio station. I’ve known her for quite a while – since a brief spell working on the German economy in the 1990s for an investment bank. She, like many other foreign correspondents, has been sent to Ireland to see what is going on here.
After a while, I wondered why she hadn’t asked me anything about the Government, or the prospect of an election or what new political constellation might emerge here. She joked and in an exaggerated German accent laughed: “David, it doesn’t matter who your next prime minister is, he will have no power – we own you now, and he will do what we tell him.”
The problem is that the joke is on us. She touched on the nub of the issue: the Irish elite is prepared to sell the sovereignty of this country to protect the likes of Roman Abramovich and other vulture investors who bought up third-rate Irish banking debt at a discount and are hoping to get paid in full.
In the world of debt, these people are referred to as ‘rogue creditors’. Typically, they are treated as rogues. They are nothing to us and should be treated as nothing. As the clever economist Karl Whelan observed, if we are happy that our tax is used to pay Frank Lampard’s wages, then that’s more of a reflection on us.
People such as Abramovich, like the other creditors, can be told to line up in an orderly queue and wait for the liquidator to give them the morsels that might remain from the broken Irish banking system. The crud Abramovich owns – an IOU from Irish Nationwide Building Society (INBS) – is not the same thing as Irish government debt.
The last time I checked there was a harp on the front of my passport, not a picture of Michael Fingleton.
Any political party that fights the election on that premise of protecting the Irish taxpayer from vulture investors will get my vote. Not only will that party be doing the right thing, but it will begin the process of giving back to the people the country that we built. This country and our future income needs to be ripped from the grip of the ‘political elite’ (a group the governor of the Central Bank identified the other day) who are selling us to the lowest, not highest, bidder.
My German friend was amazed when she saw Abramovich’s caper and she observed that the Irish parliament kept genuflecting to some crowd called bondholders. She asked me one of the most insightful questions I have heard throughout this long saga: “Do you Irish need to be loved so much that you will stand up for nothing?”
With Germanic precision and with the benefit of distance, she touched a nerve. The Irish weakness for not causing any trouble (bar a few theatrically drunken songs for the audience late at night) has led us to a situation where we are embarrassed to admit that we messed up. We don’t want to stand out. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves for serious reasons. Is it because we want to impress the foreigner and above all make life easy for him?
Is it fair to say that over the years the language of resistance has been replaced by the language of compliance?
What is clear is that some countries fight, some make nuisances of themselves, but the default position of Ireland, or at least the Irish elite, is to comply – no matter what the cost.
So take the example of euro membership. Denmark and Sweden – two great European countries whose bona fides as EU members was never in doubt – decided to keep their own currencies because they were perfectly happy with them and the euro’s case wasn’t compelling enough.
Meanwhile, what did our elite do? They went along for the ride – one which the evidence would suggest was an extremely ill-advised ride. Ireland had much greater cause for concern about joining the euro, but we hardly made a noise. Why?
Could it be – to follow my German friend’s line of enquiry – that we didn’t have the self-confidence to stand on our own two feet and do some hard analysis about the consequences of this currency or any other decision?
Did we just want to be a mute member of the club – unlike the pesky Danes, Swedes or, God forbid, Brits?
It is difficult to answer these questions. They are fraught and can lead to lots of heat and sometimes not too much light, but you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to see a pattern.
Take, for example, Abramovich owning a huge amount of INBS debt. How did he get his hands on it? Who sold it to him? Would it be too much to conclude that whoever – whichever broker – sold the debt to him, also sold it to some other mega-rich clients elsewhere?
That would stand to reason. If so, could it be that the mega-rich who are closer to home find themselves in the same position as Abramovich?
Could it be that the only people benefiting from the Government’s blind rush to impale the small guy with the debts of Fingleton et al are our own “high net worth” individuals? Could they be pulling the strings?
In all this haze, allegation and counter-allegation, can the “cui bono” question help us at all?
A clear domestic banking resolution law would clear all this up. But we have no such law. So the people are left in the lurch wondering who to believe.
We do know that, for example, the EU Commission gave its opinion on Friday at the wind-up of a Danish bank where it enthusiastically supported the principle of burden sharing.
Here’s the quotation from the EU Commission regarding bust Danish banks: “Moreover, burden sharing is ensured by excluding shareholders and subordinated debt holders of the failed bank from any benefit from the aid.”
There you have it in black and white. This is what the EU has advised Denmark to do. It clearly states that they won’t give any state money to the troubled bank until the subordinated debt holders are burnt.
So let’s get back to my German friend’s observation: is it because we need to be loved or are we protecting someone big?
The EU says burn them and move on. Logic says don’t sacrifice your sovereignty to bail out the hyper-rich, democracy says it is unfair to penalise the poor for the mistakes of the rich. What do you think?
why would anyone check whats on the front of their passport?thats odd
anyway its all good news from here on in
& ill probably give FF one of my preferences as my local TD fixed a concern i had as a cyclist about potholes in kinsealy which he is onto