Who gets to lead Oireachtas committees?

Sir, – The manner of the replacement of Brian Stanley as chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) highlights the deeply unsatisfactory way in which chairs of Oireachtas committees are chosen, being brought about as it was not by a decision of the PAC or of the Dáil but by a diktat from Sinn Féin HQ. For decades prior to the economic crash, Oireachtas committee chairs were essentially government appointments, an extraordinary position given that one of their functions is to scrutinise the performance of the government. The sole exception was the PAC which followed the convention of its Westminster equivalent by always being chaired by a nominee of the largest opposition party. In 2011, the system was changed so that committee chairs would be divvied up among all political parties under the so-called “D’Hondt” method based on their strength in the Dáil. However, like all of the so-called “new politics” reforms of that period, this simply gave a veneer of reform with very little changing in practice.

By placing the appointment of committee chairs in the hands of party leaders – and not the Dáil or the committees themselves – backbench critics of the Government, or of the leadership of their own parties in Opposition, are effectively disqualified from holding the positions. This is the system which allowed Mr Stanley to be swiftly removed as chair of the PAC without the Dáil or the committee even having a chance to express a view on the matter.

This arrangement also allows the press offices of political parties to routinely announce that such-and-such has been “appointed” as chair of a Dáil committee by the leader of their party, something which would be utterly unthinkable in virtually every other parliament in the world.

In the House of Commons, for example, the chairs of all 20 select committees are elected by a secret ballot of MPs, which means that experienced figures with cross-party respect, and critics of the leaders of their own parties, are regularly elected as committee chairs. It would be unthinkable in any other parliament for a representative in their first term to become the chair of its most powerful committee. – Yours, etc,