THE SEANAD’S standing orders should be amended to allow the removal of senators from Oireachtas committees, an Independent TD and an Independent Senator said separately yesterday.
Dublin North Central TD Finian McGrath and Senator Joe O’Toole were responding to an anomaly whereby a TD can be removed from an Oireachtas committee by the Dáil, but Seanad Eireann is powerless to do the same.
The discrepancy came to light when the Government Chief Whip’s office said this week that it would facilitate a motion in the Seanad when it returns after the summer recess that would remove a Senator from the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment, and from the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Under Standing Order 118 – introduced a decade ago – the Dáil has the power to remove a member from a committee. The whip’s office moved to remove the TD for Wicklow, Joe Behan, from all committees when he resigned from Fianna Fáil. Similarly, when Mr McGrath withdrew his support from the Government in 2008, he was also stripped of committee membership.
However, the Seanad never amended its standing orders.
Yesterday Mr O’Toole said there were a number of measures that could be taken to overcome the anomaly.
Mr O’Toole said that both Mr Behan and Mr McGrath were “dumped” with despatch when they withdrew support for the Government and there was little preventing the Seanad doing the same. “It would take no more than a few minutes to have the Seanad standing orders similarly empowered and I will be proposing that the terms of reference be amended to facilitate that empowerment,” he said.
“It is a total nonsense for the Government to claim that they are hidebound by standing orders. The truth is, as we have discovered time and time again, that the standing orders are in fact creatures of Government always pliable to accommodate Government side needs,” said Mr O’Toole.
