Want real reform? Just move the Seanad into the Dáil
DID you hear about the politicians being moved to a museum? It sounds like the beginning of a very bad Christmas cracker joke but, as we know, it’s true. The Houses of the Oireachtas management has decided the senators should be temporarily moved to the National Museum of Ireland, when the Seanad facilities are being renovated in September.
But there was a better plan for the august members; it was suggested the Dáil chamber could be put to some extra use. The Dáil and Seanad would share the chamber and work to five-day schedules.
The Seanad is housed in a historically important part of Leinster House, which was built in the early 1700s. In the old Anglo-Irish house it was the ballroom in which the ruling classes danced. But the beautiful old room is crumbling and needs to be fixed up. A document for the temporary relocation of senators listed 14 options including the Mansion House, Trinity College and the RDS. But straight in at number one was ‘Dáil Éireann Chamber, Leinster House’.
The idea was that the Dáil and Seanad would move to a five-day schedule and rotate use of the specially modified parliamentary chamber, meaning TDs and senators would have to turn up for five days a week just like workers in the normal world. The chamber could then be allocated to either group as it would be required. Pros and cons were given. This solution had eight pros and just two cons. The only downsides, according to the document, were that the Dáil and the Seanad schedules would be affected. Kerry senator Mark Daly, one of those who said this idea made sense, said each could use the Dáil chamber for about two-and-a-half days.
HOWEVER, in a surprising move, the Oireachtas authorities decided to move the Seanad to the Ceramics Room of the adjacent National Museum at a higher cost. Senators told me the civil service staff resisted the Dáil Chamber option because it wouldn’t suit their hours of work. And there is the deep suspicion that TDs and senators also resisted the idea because it would end the arrangement that sees them sit three days a week.
The Dáil and Seanad sittings open at 2pm on a Tuesday. The Seanad closes on Thursday afternoon, the Dáil on Thursday evening. TDs and senators spend the rest of their time at committee meetings, party meetings, on constituents’ representations and attending a huge variety of meetings with local and business interests. And there are the media duties. TDs and senators are often accused of not working hard, which is unfair. They do work hard – but often at the wrong things.
The three-day sitting week is a hangover from the early years of independence. Parliamentary hours were set to accommodate politicians who, in many cases, were farmers or country solicitors. They travelled around Ireland. It is of a slower time and the civil service has worked to these rhythms since.
Politicians, with exorbitant pay and pensions, have suffered some retribution at the ballot box since 2008 but efforts to have TDs sittings on a Friday during the 2011-2016 Dáil were abandoned.
Yet the civil service, which did not exactly shine during our economic crisis, remained virtually unscathed. There were no compulsory redundancies throughout those devastating years. Pay cuts, of course, proportionally hit low-paid civil servants far harder. Kevin Cardiff was second secretary general of the Department of Finance from 2006 to 2010. He took notes on the night of the Bank Guarantee on September 29, 2008. He wrote a book last year called Recap: Inside Ireland’s Financial Crisis. Unsurprisingly, he emerged from that account well. It was a fascinating behind-the-scenes account. I couldn’t help thinking of spoof TV star Alan Partridge’s autobiography Bouncing Back. Partridge used the phrase ‘needless to say, I had the last laugh’ 14 times.
Cardiff, who some tried to scapegoat, had the last laugh. Despite his central role in the crash, he was promoted to secretary general of the Department of Finance in 2010, and the Fine Gael-led government appointed him to the European Court of Auditors in March 2012. Members of the Court of Auditors earn at least €19,100 a month over a six-year term, with further payments for relocation costs.
After civil service pay cuts, modest targets were set for volun- tary redundancies in 2013. Under that government’s proposals, public service numbers would fall from 291,000 to 282,500 by the end of 2014. In 2015, Enda Kenny and Brendan Howlin established the Accountability Board for the Civil Service. Kenny said its aim was ‘to strengthen accountability and performance across the civil service’.
The board’s work continues. Sources close to the committee tell me all efforts to impose private sector-level accountability have been stiffly resisted by mandarins. Accountability would mean sackings civil servants not up to it.
And now Enda Kenny’s weak leadership is causing a dysfunctional government, with votes being lost, and significant policy decisions made impossible without weeks of arguments over pedantry with Fianna Fáil.
Of course it is difficult for the civil service to move when there is little leadership from the political classes. But its resistance to change, to the imposition of the rules of the private sector, indicates that the civil service does not want to step up.
Relative to the size of our country, the Department of Finance oversaw the greatest banking collapse in history. All the key players remained in positions or moved on with gold-plated pensions.
Last week at the Finance Committee, the new breed appeared. John McCarthy, the chief economist, spoke about the department’s preparations for Brexit. The department said there were ‘three or four staff’ in the special unit set up to drive Ireland’s response to Brexit.
Fianna Fáil TD Michael McGrath said he was shocked by the ‘threadbare’ resources handed to the unit, given ‘the extremely serious threat posed to our economy by the hard Brexit scenario that is now emerging’. We are entering the greatest period of turmoil since the Bailout, and the civil service has learned nothing.
When it was announced that the Ceramics Room was to be the new Seanad home (it must, however, still pass planning rules) Pat Wallace, the former director of the museum, spoke out.
‘I have met three senior curators with postgraduate qualifications weeping at the idea of violating a space that has belonged to the National Museum since 1890, the old British days, that was put up to cure Home Rule,’ he said.
It was difficult not to laugh, but there will be far more tears over the official response to Brexit.