Madam, - Your Editorial comments (March 13th) on the practice of using a guillotine to prematurely end debates in the Dáil and the Seanad is long overdue.
The Finance Bill 2008 (like the Lisbon Treaty) consists almost entirely of sections which textually amend previous legislation. This means that most of its provisions make little sense when read on their own. In view of the complex way in which laws are, by necessity, drafted, they do not make for attractive reading. This problem is exacerbated by the dearth of consolidation and restatement of existing laws.
From my observation, I would estimate that the guillotine was used more frequently in the last Dáil than in any other - the then Minister for Justice had a particular penchant for it.
The important role which the Houses of the Oireachtas were intended to serve in our democracy is being diminished in many other ways too, including by the increasing tendency of Ministers to establish statutory bodies and to abdicate all accountability and responsibility on certain matters to those bodies.
A further example is the European Communities Act 2007, which allows Ministers to legislate alone by way of statutory instrument rather than by way of an Act.
While your Editorial is critical of the Opposition for not showing more concern, I suspect that the sidelining of the Houses of the Oireachtas is something which concerns members of the Opposition and many Government backbenchers alike. However, it must be remembered that the Opposition is constrained by the fact that the Government has an overall majority in both Houses. In circumstances where the Government does not have a desire to achieve consensus on the approach to be taken, Government backbenchers and the Opposition have little choice but to grin and bear it.
Of course matters are not helped by the silent public, a significant portion of which views the Houses with cynicism and without due regard to the importance of the legislative process.
- Yours, etc,
Dr BRIAN HUNT, Head of Public Affairs, Mason Hayes & Curran Solicitors, Barrow Street, Dublin 4.
