The Speaker must enjoy the full confidence of the majority of members in any parliament. Where that is lacking and the speaker’s authority is seriously challenged, the speaker cannot continue and must resign. Ceann Comhairle, John O’ Donoghue is no exception. His position became untenable and his resignation inevitable after last weekend. It should have come sooner than Tuesday next, when he proposes to step down.
Quite clearly he had lost the confidence of the Dáil – not to mention the general public – even before the Labour Party threatened to table a motion of no confidence in him.
The manner of his departure from high constitutional office raises many serious questions. The Green Party leader John Gormley suggested yesterday that Mr O’Donoghue sought to inquire, via the Taoiseach, what support he might secure in any Dáil vote. If Mr O’Donoghue did make an indirect intervention in a motion for a Dáil debate that would discuss and decide his future, it was improper and quite wrong. Such an action diminished the office and compromised the office-holder. However, it may be that the Taoiseach was inquiring about Mr Gormley’s position on his own behalf. This issue, which is fundamental to the standing of the Ceann Comhairle as an independent and impartial arbiter of Dáil proceedings, needs to be clarified.
The performance of the Opposition parties in forcing Mr O’Donoghue’s resignation remains somewhat unconvincing. From a position where the parties seemed willing to wound but afraid to strike, their subsequent eagerness to clamour for the Ceann Comhairle’s head reflected a remarkable change of heart in a very short space of time. Mr O’Donoghue, it seems, has become something of a ritual scapegoat in an act of collective atonement by Dáil members. However, further acts of atonement by Oireachtas members will be required to help restore public confidence in aspects of our parliamentary democracy.
Politicians are servants and not masters of those who elected them. The public pay their wages and expect them to defend the public interest. They do not expect them to advance their own interest at the public’s expense by excessive spending on questionable foreign visits that – in the case of Mr O’Donoghue – too often revolved around race meetings. A pattern of extravagant spending as Minister for arts, sports and tourism was replicated as Ceann Comhairle. It proved to be his downfall.
The questions raised by Mr O’Donoghue’s extravagant expenses, in particular as Ceann Comhairle, are those the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission has yet to address. It is worth noting that the information about his spending habits, which so many Oireachtas members have been so ready to condemn, arose from a Freedom of Information query by a newspaper – not from scrutiny by the responsible Oireachtas body. The reasons for the resignation of Tom O’Higgins, chairman of the commission’s audit committee, can only add to the disquiet.