Constitutional structures put in place in the 1930s were beginning to creak in "an increasingly wealthy, sophisticated and complex society", Ombudsman and Information Commissioner Emily O'Reilly has said.
She was speaking at the launch in Dublin yesterday of Power to the People? Assessing Democracy in Ireland, a report from TASC, the independent think tank for social change.
"While our Constitution quite clearly lays down the delegation of executive control and function within that democracy much of it seems almost quaintly out of synch with the reality," she said.
"We elect 166 legislators, in reality it is the Cabinet who decides which laws will be enacted. The power of the Opposition, or even of the Government backbencher, to play a significant sustained role in this process is minimal.
"While the increased power of the executive over parliament has been a feature of most parliamentary democracies in the 20th and indeed 21st century, it seems that in Ireland this balance shift has been more extreme than elsewhere."
Ms O'Reilly described a recent unsatisfactory experience with the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance and the Public Service. The committee was considering whether certain non-disclosure or secrecy provisions in legislation should be made subservient to the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act; that is, that the secrecy rule would not apply if release under FOI were possible.
"I submitted a very detailed report to the committee and appeared before it. Ultimately there were 36 instances of secrecy clauses in which it was now the view that the FOI Act should be the determining consideration, but where the relevant Minister was opposed to this approach.
" It was down to the joint committee to decide whose view should prevail although - of course - their views would not be binding on the Ministers.
"It was clear to me that the committee members - across the party-political divide - agreed with me on at least a majority of the recommendations. Yet, in the end, for the first time ever, the issue went to a vote and the committee split along party lines, the Government majority supporting the relevant Minister in every single instance.
Ms O'Reilly added: "There is something inherently dangerous in paying lip service to a constitutionally-determined set of arrangements while with clear knowledge and full consent, acting in a way which undermines those arrangements."
