Letters

Reforming Dáil Éireann

Plans for a “second chamber "

Wed Jul 27 2022 - 00:11

Sir, – Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl says that a second Dáil chamber may be necessary to ease its workload, citing the House of Commons as an example of where this occurs (“Dáil ‘second chamber’ mooted under proposals to make politics more family friendly”, News, July 26th).

Of all the half-baked suggestions for reform of the Oireachtas in recent decades, this certainly ranks among the most ludicrous.

Mr Ó Fearghaíl is surely aware that the House of Commons sits during normal working hours, Monday to Thursday.

The Dáil, by contrast, begins its week at 2pm on a Tuesday and concludes by 6pm on a Thursday evening, generally cramming an average of 28 hours of debate into those 2½ days by sitting until after 9pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

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Is it any wonder that Leinster House staff “have to work through the night processing legislation” when the Dáil chooses to condense its working week like this?

This truncated schedule is designed to facilitate the parish pump, allowing TDs to spend most of the week competing with each other to attend meetings in their constituencies and creating paper trails with State agencies on behalf of constituents.

The result is that as the workload of the Dáil has increased in recent decades, its role in scrutinising legislation has been reduced to a mockery, with those TDs who can be bothered to debate legislation limited to making 12-minute contributions on even the most important and far-reaching proposals.

Rather than embarking on an expensive vanity project of a second Dáil chamber, surely the Dáil should simply extend its working week to a minimum of four sitting days and sit during normal working hours to bring it into line with other European parliaments? – Yours, etc,

BARRY WALSH,

Clontarf,

Dublin 3.