Just Mary (6 page)
Authors: Mary O'Rourke
3
| MARLBOROUGH STREET |
I
got into the Dáil as a td in November 1982. I remember clearly now how it rained for the entire three weeks of the election campaign. Each
evening I would come home, soaked to the skin. Enda had set up a great
HQ
at our house, and every night there would be people there, checking off the registers and so on. No
matter the weather, however — we had a very successful campaign and achieved a great result for me. In broader terms, we were now in Opposition to a Fine Gael–Labour coalition
government, which was of course not so positive, but at least I felt that I would now be in a strong position to play an active part in strengthening the Fianna Fáil hand.
The three men in my life — Enda, Feargal and Aengus — came with me for my first day in the Dáil on 14 December 1982. We drove through the gates of Leinster House and went in,
and they were all three in the gallery as the names of the newly elected
TDS
were called out. These were announced constituency by constituency and when it came to the turn
of Longford–Westmeath, and my name was called, I remember thinking, ‘I am a
TD
now!’ It was at once a very exciting thought and a sobering realisation. I
always took my duties of representing the people very seriously. Throughout my career, I continued to regard it as a very big responsibility, by virtue of the fact that the people had put their
faith in you and that therefore you had to keep faith with them. Maybe it was that awareness which kept me on the straight and narrow; maybe it was also partly the fact that I had been a teacher, a
role which brings with it a great sense of public responsibility.
That first day, after the formalities were over, Enda and the boys and I went into the dining room in the Dáil, which was very posh! There is a very good photograph of the four of us
outside Leinster House that day, which later appeared in an article Bruce Arnold wrote for the
Irish Independent
about the new faces in the Dáil. In the picture, Enda, Aengus and I
are smiling broadly, but Feargal, then a young man of 18, looks thoughtful and somewhat downbeat, as if he could envisage the road ahead for me and for our family and could see the kind of pitfalls
which might arise.
One of the first items on the agenda for the newly formed Dáil was a debate on the committee system. John Bruton, who had been appointed by Dr Garret FitzGerald as Leader of the House (a
post which was not continued thereafter), and who was charged with setting up the committee system, invited us all to participate in the ensuing discussion. I was sure to take the opportunity to
voice my views on this occasion, remaining true to the strategy suggested in that
Cosmo
article of so many years previously, which had worked so well for me in the past — that if you
speak early, you will lose your terror and be able to speak more easily the next time.
Here follows the complete transcript of that first speech I made in the Dáil, on 27 January 1983. Reading it back again almost 30 years later, I am struck by the extent to which much of
what I was saying is still so highly relevant to political life today.
First of all, I am very pleased that it is on such a topic as Dáil reform that I have the opportunity to make my first speech in this assembly. Like many of the
speakers from all sides of the House, most of whom I listened to yesterday, I am of the opinion that the present Minister has done a service, not alone to the House but to the nation at large,
in bringing this very important topic to the floor of the House. In my span of public service at local authority level, at Seanad level and now at Dáil level, I am struck by one factor:
that the public perception of people in public life is not good. However much we have contributed to that perception, however much of it has grown among the people themselves and however much
the administration and day-to-day running of both the Seanad and Dáil institutions have contributed to it, they have all [had] their input, but we must play our part in rectifying this
situation.
In my other life, when I was a secondary school teacher, I had occasion from time to time to bring groups of young people to this Chamber. When we would be travelling back home by bus or
train, I was always struck by one factor. These young people never saw the Dáil as having any relevance to their lives. These would be girls of the age group of 16, 17 and 18 years,
approaching voting age and the time when they would become citizens of their country in their full right. These pupils would leave school with ‘A’ and ‘B’ levels and the
trappings that are taken as making a successful person nowadays — I would have my own remarks about that in another context — yet they would have no idea of how the Dáil
system worked. Their visit here would not have given them any confidence in that system. They would go home without any further enlightenment. They saw the Dáil as a place where people
came in and talked to an empty Chamber about unintelligible things which had no relevance to everyday life.
I see this debate as the start of making this Dáil assembly, with all its great importance in our history and its pivotal importance in our lives — and it must remain of pivotal
importance — highly relevant to us. We can no longer afford the luxury of the present-day system in the Dáil. If we continue as we are, we have only ourselves to blame, if we
become like the characters in
Alice in Wonderland
.
Much of the discussion document which the Minister presented to us yesterday is practical and, given the broad acceptance which this debate has achieved already, many of the points can be
implemented without undue delay. I refer first of all to the points which seem to have been accepted among the speakers who spoke yesterday and today. The broadcasting of the debates in the
Chamber would achieve much more care by speakers in their contributions in the Dáil. It would lead to much more thought being put into those contributions because one will know that at
any given time, one can be heard over the airwaves. It would lead to a tightness in contributions.
This leads me to the second point, which the Minister touched upon in an underlying way. I refer to the length of the contributions. I do not want to appear presumptuous in my first speech,
but as a result of my Seanad experience, I feel that too often people get to their feet to talk on and on, perhaps experiencing vicarious satisfaction, and of course there is always local
consumption of what is presented in the media, but to continue to talk for the sake of doing so is ridiculous. I do not know whether the Minister envisages a cut-off point for contributions in
debates, but I think it would be highly desirable. Apart from doing away with irrelevancies, it would allow many more people to contribute. Often I have sat in the Seanad, and probably it will
be the same in the Dáil, hoping and hoping to get in while the debate went on and on. Therefore, a cut-off point would be highly important.
The committee system is the salient factor of this discussion document. I have read and re-read what the Minister has said about it, and I have read also about the experiences of the
parliamentary system pertaining in Westminster. Generally speaking, the committee system appears to be a more effective way of running the nation’s day-to-day business than the sometimes
long-winded debates in the Dáil. I would like to enter a caveat on this point. There has been much talk of consensus politics and having the committee system whereby important issues of
the day, particularly social structures and planning and also financial planning, would be discussed by Members of the House on all sides. This is highly important. I do not want to carp but I
want to make the point that in a democracy, healthy tensions are very important. Naturally there must always be a Government, but also there must be an alternative Government with a coherent,
planned Opposition policy. I would like to see a balance kept always and that the committee system would not be seen as everything being agreed upon. Listening to the speakers yesterday would
give the impression that life would be very happy, and everybody would live very happily when the committee system would have had its say and we would all come in with set formulae to answer
the problems of the day. Of course, life is not really like that, and perhaps that is just as well. It is important that the healthy tensions between Opposition and Government be always
maintained, although not in a destructive sense. With other speakers I abhor utterly constant adversary politics, whereby because Minister Bruton would say something, Deputy Mary O’Rourke
would say ‘No, I do not agree with that’. That is silly and to the young people, it is outmoded and outdated. The normal, differing ideologies and intentions of the political
parties and their different sets of policies should be allowed expression and the debate should take place following on the committee system. This is very important for democracy and we should
keep it very firmly in our minds.
The second point, an underlying philosophical one, arising out of the discussion document presented by the Minister, is that if we discuss Dáil reform, we are in effect discussing
Deputy reform: we are talking about ourselves. There has been much comment recently on radio and television that Dáil Deputies should be legislators, that they are getting their roles
mixed and that we are being seen primarily as people who just go out to get things for people who would normally [not] get them, that we should be legislating and thinking of it. Both points of
view are right. That is what I intend to do in, I hope, my long Dáil career, but I also believe that if we immune ourselves in the Dáil Chamber and we sit on committees and find
ourselves talking to one another for ever, there is a slightly unreal atmosphere in that. When we find ourselves in this Chamber, in the corridors around this House and in committee rooms, we
can grow in on one another and think that this is life, that life is Dublin, Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann. Life is part of this, but it is also down the country among
your people, hearing their points of view.
How can I effectively contribute to a committee on education, in which I am interested, or on the environment and housing, which is my greatest interest, unless I have been listening to
people, hearing what has gone wrong with their entitlements and what they want to see in house grants, loans, building, construction and roads? Each Deputy must get the feedback from people
before he or she can come into this Chamber or go into a committee system and give their views. It is only by intermingling with people that one can do this. I would like this point to be on
record. The Minister has not said anything about this but it arises out of his discussion document, which is the underlying philosophy of the role of a
TD
as perceived
by the people, the media, but, most of all, as perceived by ourselves. If we ignore the highly relevant everyday life of people for what is, too, highly relevant, the committee system and the
Dáil system, and we do not merge the two things, we will have lost an essential element of what must go into it. We must be practical in our legislation and we must not be in a cloud up
in the sky.
Another point I want to make is in relation to the very valid point brought up yesterday about holidays ... [Deputy Séamus Brennan] said he would like to see the Dáil holidays
broken up into sections so that we would not appear to be away from our jobs for a long time, which is wrong if we are to govern the country and to be seen to govern it. The Minister spoke
about the Estimates and about how it is ridiculous that we talk about the money when it has already been allocated. That is like a housewife going out to do her shopping when the money is gone
and she cannot say what she can put into the supermarket trolley on that particular Friday. The same is true about the Estimates.
He brought up the point about the New Zealand example, where members of the House of Parliament can interject, not in an argumentative sense, but having five minutes on a discussion point,
which can be taken up by another member and by the Minister and brought back when the point is clarified, so that the member who originally made the point could then stand up and contribute to
it again. This is an ongoing debate where the member can [have] his or her input into that debate. This is very good because very often when one stands up and contributes to a debate, a very
relevant point comes up later in the debate and one cannot get in again and answer that, because one has already spoken. The rules of the debate which state that you can only speak once and you
cannot speak again [apply to] many of the debates which take place here.
I am in agreement with more time for Private Members’ Questions, where matters of very important interest can be dealt with on a more relevant day-to-day basis. The Member would then
have the satisfaction of having what was to him or her a very important matter discussed at that point.
With regard to future legislation and the committee system, I believe the Minister means that we would have at our disposal experts in various fields, who would come to the committees and
give us their points of view. That is important because very few of us are experts in any particular field. It is important to call on the expertise of people who have spent many years in
management, health services, the environment and many other fields. That can be very good for legislators. Existing legislation very often needs revamping. The Minister should look into this
matter to see if it is possible, along with his hoped-for committee system for future legislation, to have a rethink on past legislation whereby it could be amended and brought again to the
floor of the House to keep pace with what has occurred in the meantime. We are [in] a very fast-moving society and we appear to be two steps behind everyday life.
I must now take my own words to heart and not go on and on. The salient points of my speech are that the healthy tensions must remain between the Government and the Opposition. I welcome the
committee system and the broadcasting of the debates. I am very glad as a new Member to have made my first speech on what I will be glad to say to my electorate, half of whom are young people,
which is the case in all constituencies: ‘Yes, I am your
TD
, I came to the Dáil as your messenger to relay what you have said to me.’ The most
important message I got from my constituency of Longford–Westmeath is this: ‘Make your job more relevant: tune it, sharpen it, bring it to the point and make it more in touch with
everyday life.’
I welcome the Minister’s report.