Sir, – Undoubtedly, the Dáil business committee, chaired by the Ceann Comhairle last Saturday, would not have taken the decision to cancel Wednesday’s sitting lightly (“Dáil sitting next Wednesday cancelled due public sector workers’ strike”, News, October 10th). Holding a sitting in the circumstances would have presented logistical difficulties with unionised staff on the planned work stoppage.
That being said, cancelling a sitting in these circumstances is unprecedented and a step in the wrong direction.
In 2009, if I recall correctly, in similar circumstances, the Dáil sat as scheduled but on a reduced programme, served by a skeleton, non-unionised staff. The scaled-back programme allowed for the industrial dispute to be debated on the day.
Members of the Dáil are effectively office holders as duly elected members under the Constitution and while they are free to exercise their democratic mandate on the streets if they so wish, that should not mean a sitting of the Dáil should be cancelled.
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Traditionally, sittings of the Dáil are sacrosanct and in troubled times in the past, when bomb alerts were not infrequent, the sitting was never suspended, adjourned or cancelled. The sceptic or cynic might say what difference would sitting on the day of the work stoppage make, but that misses the point of principle. When a coach and four is being driven through one of the largest western democracies almost on a weekly basis, parliamentary principles are important and should not be set aside so readily. – Yours, etc,
KIERAN COUGHLAN,
Former clerk of the Dáil,
Foxrock,
Dublin 18.
