Independents supporting the formation of the next government should insist on a relaxation of Ireland’s party whip system and the implementation of Seanad reform, according to Independent Senator Michael McDowell.
Mr McDowell said the current political whip system operated by the main political parties was among the most severe in Europe while Seanad reform is no closer despite two major government commission reports advocating universal suffrage in the vote to elect senators.
“We are now, apparently, in the run up to another general election in which opinion polls predict that a likely outcome is the formation of a government supported by independent TDs,” said Mr McDowell when delivering the Daniel O’Connell lecture in Cahersiveen in Co Kerry.
“If the next Dáil is elected with that outcome, those independent TDs should insist on a relaxation of Ireland’s savage whip culture” and the delivery of promised Seanad reform.
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Speaking at the opening day of the 11th annual Daniel O’Connell Summer School, Mr McDowell argued the Oireachtas was in many ways failing in its role as the legislature of the Independent Irish State and he pointed to the defeat of the two referendums earlier this year to support his case.
He said the people voting against expanding the constitutional definition of the family and changing a reference to women’s life within the home was evidence that “the parliamentary process that both bills before the Irish people for their judgment was totally flawed”.
Both the bills proposing changes to the Constitution were guillotined through the two Houses of the Oireachtas, allowing no scope for detailed debate and no chance for amendment or for Oireachtas members to tease out the implications of the proposed constitutional changes.
No pre-legislative scrutiny of the proposals was permitted and this stemmed from a malaise at the heart of Irish political life which was rooted in the dominance of the Irish executive, the Government, over the democratically elected members of our national parliament.
“This dominance takes the form of a whip system which in Ireland is one of the strictest and most unforgiving to be found in any liberal parliamentary democracy anywhere in the free world,” said the former attorney general who writes a regular column for The Irish Times.
Mr McDowell said that although he supported and campaigned for the Repeal of the Eighth Amendment to allow for abortion in certain circumstances, he was appalled at how members of political parties who did not support the referendum were treated by their parties.
“I ... regard with a certain degree of distaste and shame the manner in which members of Dáil Éireann who in conscience held the opposite view from mine were driven out of their parties and had political careers ended simply for standing up for their heartfelt beliefs.
“Why couldn’t conscientious objectors stand by their beliefs and principles without sacrificing their political careers? It was not even as if they had been elected on a platform to repeal the Eighth Amendment.
“This raises the wider question as to why the independence of party members is so radically constrained in Ireland compared to the Westminster parliament or the Bundestag. The German constitution ... prohibits the coercion of parliamentarians to vote against their conscience.”
He said he fully accepted there must be a good degree of party discipline and coherence if effective government requires a daily “acquiescence by a majority of Dáil Éireann” but why could not great respect be afforded to the individual consciences of Irish parliamentarians?”
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