DEPARTING FINE Gael TD Jim O’Keeffe (69) says he has watched a weakening of parliamentary power during his 33 years in the Dáil.
“It is obvious in many respects, not least when it comes to getting adequate responses to Dáil questions. Ministers are not as answerable to the Dáil as before.”
A prime example, he says, is the referral of health questions to the Health Service Executive or transport questions to the National Roads Authority.
“Ministers can do a Pontius Pilate, shrug their shoulders and say the issue raised is a matter for another body. You might get the answer from the relevant authority two to six months later.”
O’Keeffe says the order paper for a Dáil sitting could be stuffed with 50 questions, with only a half-dozen being reached for reply. “It amounts to a lottery.”
The Cork South-West TD is also unhappy with the increasing tendency to guillotine legislation without adequate debate.
He says he was appalled at the manner in which the Credit Institutions (Stabilisation) Bill, giving the Minister for Finance extensive powers over the banks, was rushed through the Dáil before Christmas.
“Why did we not sit Christmas week to discuss that legislation? It was a case of the executive steamrolling a measure through parliament, a practice which is undemocratic and dangerous.”
O'Keeffe is also critical of the media, arguing there is an increasing trivialisation of parliamentary coverage and politics. "There are honourable exceptions, such as The Irish Times, but there is little balance in much of the reporting. The perpetual pounding of politicians and parliament is no credit to the media."
With Fine Gael out of power for most of his Dáil career, O’Keeffe is well-acquainted with the frustration of long periods on the Opposition benches. His early days seemed full of promise under the Garret FitzGerald-led Fine Gael. First elected to the Dáil in 1977, FitzGerald appointed him minister of state for foreign affairs, with responsibility for development co-operation, in the 1981 Fine Gael-Labour coalition.
He was appointed to the same post when Fine Gael went back into government with Labour in 1982, also spending some months in the Department of Finance and the public service before the government left office in 1987.
The ministerial highlights, he recalls, include establishing overseas aid as a core principle of Irish foreign policy and helping to orchestrate a European response to the famine in Ethiopia.
The rest of his time in the Dáil was spent in opposition, where he held several portfolios.
“It is very difficult to achieve anything as an opposition spokesman. I grind my teeth in frustration at the mess made of the country, the lost opportunities and the waste of resources.”
Constituency work, he says, is an important part of the work of a TD. “I was delighted to be available to assist thousands of my constituents over the years.”
Although he has no regrets at entering politics, there was, he says, a personal price to be paid.
He left a lucrative legal practice, from which he ultimately retired, and his wife, Maeve O’Sullivan, gave up her medical practice to concentrate on rearing their eight children.
