LEINSTER House continues to strive towards greater efficiency. It is now suggested that the Dail sit for only three weeks each month and that the fourth week be devoted to committees. The idea was discussed by the whips this week but a decision on such a radical departure is still a long way off. Of more immediacy was the main item on the agenda - Oireachtas committees.
Currently there are 21 committees, but a report from consultant Michael Laver of TCD suggests they be reduced to 12. There is cross-party agreement on the proposal because neither members nor media can service so many and often irrelevant debates are getting attention in the Dail while important legislation is being processed at poorly attended committee meetings. Where there is disagreement among the parties, however, is on their composition. The Government is a minority one and this will be reflected in committee representation. There are 14 deputies in the group known as the technicals - the Independents, plus DL, the Greens and Sinn Fein - and fitting them into committees is a major problem.
Without a majority on the four Dail legislative committees - Legislation and Security, Enterprise and Economic Strategy, Finance and General Affairs and Social Affairs - the Government cannot function. Consequently the chief whip, Seamus Brennan, is continuing to delay until a mechanism is worked out whereby the Government has, if not a majority, at least equality. It appears there will be no committees until a formula is arrived at and this week's meeting was inconclusive. In the meantime, deputies continue to beseech the whips' office for particular places. Two of the plum jobs are already more or less spoken for - the high profile chair of Public Accounts always goes to the Opposition and Jim Mitchell is earmarked for this, unless of course Mary Banotti makes the Park and he replaces her in Europe; Des O'Malley is to get the chair of Foreign Affairs.