Unanswered ministers’ Dáil questions ‘a secret’
Ceann Comhairle won’t release his rulings on cabinet failing to answer off icial inquiries
AN ELECTION promise to ensure that ministers answer parliamentary questions has been dismissed as ‘a load of rubbish’ after this newspaper was refused permission to review Dáil chairman Seán Barrett’s adjudications on whether the Government have lived up to it.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny recently told the Dáil that under a new standing order of Dáil, number 40a, Ceann Comhairle Barrett has made a number of rulings that found ministers have not appropriately answered parliamentary questions.
Dáil questions are one of the few ways that TDs can force the government to release information on policy or the workings of the state.
But when asked by this newspaper for the details of which questions Mr Barrett had reviewed and his decisions in each case, both he and Oireachtas spin doctors refused, and said they could only be obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. And now the FOI unit of the Oireachtas has also refused to release them.
Standing order 40a – newly instituted in this Dáil – allows public representatives to write to the Ceann Comhairle if they consider a question was not answered in a satisfactory manner.
The Ceann Comhairle then decides whether or not the question was answered fully, and if not, makes a written request to the minister to add the information required to the public record. According to the Oire- achtas press office, there were 44 requests made under Standing Order 40a last year with 21 of these being upheld, meaning the Ceann Comhairle deemed the question was not answered fully.
Twenty requests were declined, one was withdrawn, and two of these were received outside the deadline.
Requests made to Standing Order 40a must be made no later than two days after the question is put.
But these requests to the Ceann Comhairle are not published anywhere, meaning it is impossible to assess how Mr Barrett is handling complaints about ministers’ refusals to answer questions.
In rejecting the MoS FOI request to access the records, the Oireachtas said they were ‘correspondence/ communications to and from the Ceann Comhairle, his office and his staff… relating to Dáil Standing Order 40a… such records are exempt from release’.
Fianna Fáil TD Willie O’Dea, who had recently discussed use of the legislation in the Dáil, told the MoS: ‘Well, that’s a load of rubbish… what the standing order should be about is that if somebody can get the Ceann Comhairle to rule that the minister didn’t give the proper answer, to answer properly. The only way we’ll know if this system is working or not working is if they’re made public.’
He had raised the issue last month when Mr Kenny allegedly failed to answer questions about cuts to lone parent payments and pay rises for ministerial advisers.
‘The Ceann Comhairle has already made rulings on that issue,’ responded the Taoiseach.
Mr O’Dea said: ‘I cannot remember it being invoked. This morning, when the Taoiseach was answering questions about lone parents, provided a classic example of where it should have been.’