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TAOISEACH ENDA KENNY has ruled out any prospect of loosening the strict party whip system that the government applies to votes in the Dáil and Seanad, warning of the instability it would cause politically and economically.
In an unusual move, the Taoiseach was present on behalf of the government to take questions from his own backbenchers on Dáil reform as part of a Topical Issues debate yesterday evening.
Eight backbench Fine Gael TDs, who are part of the so-called ‘five-a-side club’, called on the Taoiseach to implement reforms including loosening the party whip, having a week solely dedicated to committee work and allowing backbenchers more time to question the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste.
Kenny appeared open to some of the ideas saying the deputies raised “valid points” but was firm on the party whip system and not changing it.
He said: “I have been in governments where there was a minority situation, or very close to it. One cannot have instability. What might be one person’s crisis of conscience is another’s political crisis.”
Kenny did say that there would be an opportunity in the pre-legislative stages of bills for TDs to give their views “irrespective of whether it is in accordance with government philosophy or not”.
But he said the issue of stability is important for international investors and there needs to be certainty about the government being able to continue in office.
He continued: “In a tight future election outcome, for example, people may ask whether the Government will be able to continue in office. Without stability, one cannot have investment.”
Dublin South-East TD Eoghan Murphy said that he did not necessarily agree with the Taoiseach and said it was about the principle of parliament being able to hold the government to account.
He said: “I believe we should have a non-whip vote on the Order of Business in regard to the taking of legislation and the amount of time allocated in that regard.”
But Kenny responded: “A country in which there is instability loses that trust in terms of growing its economy. These are issues about which we must be, and will be, serious in the time ahead.”
Murphy along with Fine Gael backbenchers Sean Kyne, Paul Connnaughton, Brendan Griffin, Pat Deering, Noel Harrington, Anthony Lawlor, and Sean Conlan had raised the matter at Topical Issues.
They have previously been outspoken on a number of matters including Dáil reform, public sector pay and increments, and the need to continue austerity and implement the full €3.1 billion adjustment in next week’s Budget. They have been labelled ‘austerity hawks’ by Labour backbenchers.
In a statement last night, Fianna Fáil criticised the debate involving the Taoiseach and his own backbenchers as “farcical”.
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Instability comes from bad decisions being pushed through.
Instability does not come from legislation being properly questioned nor from the executive being held to account. On Kenny’s ideas we shouldn’t have elections. They’re a great driver of instability.
You sum it up Hugh.
If there is instability caused by wrong policy it deserves to be unstable.
Enda clearly is not capable of governing with proper debate from a strong intelligent leader- so must use the whip system to remain in power.
The whip system is corrupt and must be abolished – let’s have a referendum on that Enda
Yeah legislating for the X case and for a Supreme Court judgement after 20 years was a “bad decision being pushed through” …..
So in short everyone in the party must obey his lord and master Enda otherwise you’re kicked out of the party. So explain differences between dictatorship and democracy again to me? Which one are we?
All the parties here operate such a whip system and they all throw you out if you don’t toe the line.
When you vote for a candidate to represent you in the Dail you’ll probably notice that the signs for each of the candidates will have a huge banner for whichever party they represent be it FF, FG, Labour, SF or Independent. Further to this I would imagine that most people have a political party that they align themselves with, probably not as hard and fast as it is in the states with the dual party system but I don’t think many people change colours that often. When you vote for someone that is part of a political party you believe that there beliefs are aligned with those of the party and you may well have been elected purely because of the party that you are a member of. To decide after piggybacking on the party to get elected that you no longer agree with the party is for me a clear enough indication that you should probably leave the party. If the party makes such a large error that a large proportion of their party voted against them the Government would most likely collapse so there’s still room for democracy to work with the whip system. Also further to that nothing would ever get voted through if there was a free vote on everything, every politician would only vote for something that would benefit his local constituency.
It still doesn’t make it right. If the government is bring in something that will benefit the people then of course everyone is going to get behind it and rightly so but a person is an individual representing the people that voted them in and should vote according to the wishes of those people.
Does that mean that stuff wouldn’t get through? Maybe but then the question should be why didn’t it get through, what was wrong with it, why didn’t the people want it?
The government is there to represent the people and the people’s interest not the other way around.
Tony, what happens when the party goes against their election commitments?
Is the TDs loyalty to the party or to his/her personal & party commitments made during their election campaigns?
If I wanted to enter politics and, let’s say Labours policies appealed to me, so I run as a Labour candidate, during my campaign I make personal commitments to my electorate along party lines. Election comes and I and my party are voted in. The party leader then decides to change the commitments made to the electorate.
Is it my duty to toe the party line or vote against the government?
Jim are you actually suggesting that it would be a good thing for TD’s to vote based only on what is in the narrow interests of their constituents rather than what is in the interests of the nation generally?
This would be a recipe for pork-barrel politics on a scale that we haven’t seen even in this country. You would have a Dáil full of John O’Donoghues crowing about how they got such-and-such a sports-hall or rowing clubhouse grant-funded in their backyard.
Tone it down, Ted. I don’t think anyone here has any time for you and your rational discourse largely based in reality. What you seem to naively over estimate is how much people care about the reality of the parliamentary system and how it works. In the wonderful world of internet comments, populated largely by unemployed and unemployable people who don’t vote, there is no interest in opportunity cost or the unanticipated consequences of a commenter’s proposals- and by “unanticipated consequences”, I mean every consequence other than that single item that the commenter has in his/her mind at any specific moment. Why can’t you just get on the band wagon, Ted?!
And if you start poking holes in the radical reform we’re proposing for the Seanad… well, the “down thumbs” will rain down on you like a plague of frogs.
“One can not have democracy”
Or debate in Enda’s case.
so far up his own arse he ‘s even addressing himself in the third person !
Well, he makes it clear: the only people he’s answerable to are investors, they are the only people with an opinion worth listening to apparently.
I agree stability is a good thing, I don’t think that international investors care how it is achieved.
However this ruthless single-mindedness of Enda’s must surely breed dissent.
Could he not even do the schmoozing politician thing, and pretend that he’s listening while really ignoring people?
Instead he openly says, “no, things will just be one way, whatever I say, from these notes prepared by my civil servants, end of”.
Could we just have one leader, once in my lifetime, who isn’t prepared to sell out the Irish people, or at least, who doesn’t intentionally appear to do that?
Brid. We will never get the leader you crave if we continue to vote for political parties. Vote for people not parties. How fianna fail are the leading opposition party is incomprehensible, they should have been voted out of existence but they have supporters who vote for them regardless of the mess they left behind
The fact FF is the leading opposition party just shows we do not have any alternatives to the established parties at the moment. It’s also a pretty poor reflection on the government parties as well.
I presume ‘one’ means himself.
He’s a funny little queen.
Throughout the referendum campaign, we had the Taoiseach telling us that it’s the Dáil that holds the Government to account, that’s it’s a TDs job to make the executive accountable. And he’s right, it is their job. That is their primary Constitutional responsibility.
Yet when some of his own party members ask for the system to change to let them do that, he smacks them back down. Apparently, the Government is actually accountable to the markets.
I’m glad we voted to keep the Seanad, because it’s clear this Government has no intention of bringing in meaningful Dáil reform. While it will be an uphill battle, there’s at least a chance the Seanad can be reformed to ensure that a Government doesn’t automatically have a stranglehold on the Oireachtas.
Brian, have you actually read the Constitution or are you just imagining it?
Can you point out the section that talks about a TD’s primary Constitutional responsibility?
Article 28/4/1: The Government shall be responsible to Dáil Éireann.
And in case there’s any confusion, the Government is the 7 – 15 members of the Oireachtas appointed by the President as members of the Government. That’s Article 13/1/2.
Any other Constitutional questions I can help you with?
Yeah – the bit about a TD’s Constitutional obligations and responsibilities – the bit I asked you about.
What part of Article 28/4/1 confuses you?
The bit that doesn’t mention obligations and responsibilities of TDs.
You can’t project onto the Constitution. It has to be there in b&w.
Many things about the Constitution are based on interpretations. For example, the right to privacy is mentioned nowhere in there, yet it’s taken as one of our basic rights.
I don’t know how someone can look at the Article above and think TDs don’t have the responsibility and obligation to hold the Government to account. Even Enda thinks so. But don’t take my word (or his) for it. Here’s what a lecturer in Irish politics in Queen’s University said in his paper for the Constitutional Convention when they were looking at the electoral system:
“Another key task for Dáil Éireann is the oversight of the Executive it has elected – this is a
critical function designed to ensure the separation of powers between legislature and
executive. The relevant Article here is 28.4.1, which simply states that ‘The Government
shall be responsible to Dáil Éireann’.”
“So members of Dáil Éireann have a duty to hold the government to account.”
https://www.constitution.ie/AttachmentDownload.ashx?mid=8bfb7136-1ac2-e211-a5a0-005056a32ee4
Look at the words there: Key task. Critical function. Duty. They certainly say obligation and responsibility to me.
It is a common feature of parliamentary democracies that it is the parliament who keep the Government in check. That’s the whole point of parliaments- otherwise, we might as well directly elect a Government, and do away with having TDs at all.
Unless the Supreme Court have found it to be so, or it isn’t expressly stated, constitutionally, it doesn’t exist.
TDs are free to never vote any way they want, every time. If they decide to vote with or against their party, that is their decision.
You simply do not understand the whip system and it’s wholly voluntary nature. In fairness, you’re not the only one.
Is this the new Enda trying to act all brave in taking on questions. Ha ha. Will give it 2 weeks.
How much you want to beat the questions were prepared in advanced and he was coached in his answers?
Begrudge
That long?
We still talking about Enda ? ; )
Rumour has it he’s introducing the whip system for the country after last week.
It just gets worser and worser for our fearless, ahem, leader.
Just look at the mess in the US at the moment without an effective whip system. End of argument right there.
Are you serious? Do you even know how a whip system works? The situation in the US has *nothing* to do with whether they have a whip system or not. In fact, the current situation in the US would’ve happened regardless: it’s the *Republicans* as a *party* who caused the shutdown. The real issue in the US is that in this country or any other with a parliamentary system of government, this issue would’ve lead to elections for a new parliament to break the deadlock, but that can’t happen under the US congressional system of government.
Touchy since we all live in Ireland lets stay focused on our own country, let the Americans deal with America.
Ciat I don’t understand your explanation of how “the situation in the US has *nothing* to do with whether they have a whip system or not”.
Presumably if the Republican leadership in the house could employ the whip for important votes (with, as here, the threat of serious consequences for disobeying the whip), then there would not be so much hassle with the extremist tea-party wing of the party.
Spot on Denito. The absence of the whip in the States has given the Tea Party free reign to vote as they please. They in effect hold the balance of power. In the Republican Party, the tail is wagging the dog and the will of the moderate majority is being drowned out. Nothing Democratic about that.
The US parties have whip systems, but it’s a weaker whip than here. TouchyMcFeely was making out that the current set of issues the US is having with the shutdown are due to the *lack* of a whip, but I pointed out that the shutdown is due to actions on the part of virtually all of the Republican party. If anything, the shutdown in the US is due to people adhering to the whip rather than the lack of a whip.
TouchyMcFeely: what you’ve described there is essentially that the Tea Party dictate the Republican party whip. And you’re wrong about US parties not having whips. The current Republican party whip is Kevin McCarthy and the current Democratic whip is Steny Hoyer.
Ciat- when I refer to the whip, I’m refer to the whip system, not its personification. And the reality is, Senators et al are not in REAL terms COMPELLED to vote with their party. Hence RINO’s and the like. My point re: the Tea Party is that they are a small faction which in our system would be smacked down pretty quickly by leadership and told to toe the line. Instead you have Boehner afraid of them & their capacity to oust him as Speaker and moderate Republicans afraid to stand up to them in case they challenge them for their seat. So you have a small bunch of zealots dictating Republican Party policy and strategy & paralysing Government.
The whip system isn’t democratic and impedes democracy. We vote our candidates in to work on our behalf and with the whip system they have to vote with their party! Why bother canvassing and pretending to want to work on behalf of your constituents when clearly with the whip system that’s not the case!! Get rid of that little dictator and let’s get democracy working in this country again, it might just get things moving!
Pierce Doherty was on vin b last night and said that he would not remove the whip system for sinn fein as each member must vote with the party to show loyalty. What about loyalty to your country and its people?
They are all the same. Tell the people what they want to hear before elections. Then once they’re in power bring out the whip excuse
Richard it’s an easy excuse for TD’s “I must obey the whip” or I’m in the Dail I’m not required to think for myself.
They should immediately cease payments for party whips and the extra payments for the ceann Comhairle and heads of committees. Why are we paying them twice?
He should start growing a toothbrush moustache.
thats an insult to dictators with moustaches.
Kenny can’t gain respect ,so as a bully he demands it
God forbid somebody having a conscience and actually thinking for themselves Enda…
I not he hasn’t mentioned how he’s going to reimburse the Irish people for his €14 fiasco of a referendum ego-trip. It’s not good enough to say “the people have spoken” but it behoves the government to explain how he got away with this ego run and force the people into a position where “they had to speak”.
Youll see the reembursement in next weeks budget and subsequently in your wages
P.s. it wont be a rise.
Agreed, But I wonder if there is any way we could take a class action to make him and his deluded cronies pay up. They really do deserve to be punished for foisting that fiasco on us at such expense. Spin and vacuous reasons can’t be allowed to wash.
That 14 million would have helped a lot of families whose homes are falling down around them because of the pyrite problem. Three such families described their living hell on Liveline yesterday and nobody in government is doing anything to help them.
There is no stability in a government that always strives to create inequality.
Ireland says no….
Didn’t you hear it’s a whip system, we don’t get a choice!
People do get a choice, they made it when they voted for the FG mandate for government.
Colin
FG did not get voted in.
FF got voted out and FG got the protest vote.
And even then they couldn’t form a majority.
The fella is clueless. He’s being led like a puppet by his advisors and by Europe. He hasn’t the nouse to even realise it. 40 years a t.d. and still clueless. Wonder what he was like before being a t.d.?
@Leslie, a spineless, snivelling, boring ass geography teacher that had paper and spit balls shot at him from biros while he prattled on. I wouldn’t say he was a favourite teacher ever by anyone. It’s always the ones who feel powerless that turn into dictatorial little assho#es!
Ever notice all the clueless twit western world leaders like Bush , Reagan, and now Abbott in Aus etc were conservative arsewipes controlled by unseen handlers.
Kenny is a puppet , and not even a good one at that
He setup the 8 stooges, let 3 of them waffle and then gave them a Wallop.
If we don’t have a whip system then weak individuals have no chance of being leader ever.
And as we all know, countries like Germany whose basic law explicitly outlaws the whip system are a hive of political instability. Oh, wait… yeah… Enda’s full of crap.
Everybody can have their own opinion, as long as it’s mine!
In an unusual move the Taoiseach was present on behalf of the Government…….. Correct me if I’m wrong but that should be the least a Taoiseach should do ???? Be present on behalf of the government,,,,, why is that unusual …………..
If TDs are not allowed to vote against the Party, without being kicked out, why isn’t every constituency just given a choice of Parties to vote for – no actual candidates ? Whichever Party wins the constituency can then insert whichever person that wish as TD and change them when convenient……..after all, the people voted for a Party, not a person who happened to be wearing Party colours. Makes about as much sense as the current system which does make something of a mockery of democracy. Or maybe that should be demockeracy.
Think about what might have happened if the UK Parliament had been “Whipped” on the issue of Syria. Where would we be now ?
Some countries do operate a list system like the one you describe for electing some of their MPs.
Enda always reminds me of that teacher that sticks rigidly to the curriculum and cannot stand if someone starts questioning what is said in the book.
He is closed minded and cannot accept new ways of thinking. This is why he does not debate and why he is not a leader, he is custodian who just follows instructions.
The whip system = Control.
It couldn`t be any simpler.
He is man hear him roar
miau miau (german for meow)!!!!
What’s the point of having 50 members of FG in the the dail representing us when all they do is what Dictator Enda tells them… doesn’t sound like a democracy to free state to me. How backward is it not to be able to question anything in the dail? Science and reason says to question everything even if you think you’re right. Ireland says, be a good boy and do what you’re told? Its infuriating!
‘One is an effing moron’
Look at the big Gumby head in it.
We have three line whips on almost everything and it sets us apart from the rest of Europe. Much needed debate on the factors leading to the crash was thereby suppressed in Leinster House. David Cameron didn’t expel the 70 Tory MPs who voted against going into Syria.
Our time would best be served focussing on Eamon Gilmore. Kenny is already holed below the waterline, but Gilmores presence on the political scene is what keeps Kenny in power. There is nothing a comment here can do to harm Enda Kenny any more than his own mouth does.
If people really want to see change, get rid of Gilmore.
And then he wonders why we didn’t abolish the Seanad. We have Paul Kehoe saying he wants to work on getting rid of the party whip after the next election and Enda saying this. Political reform and measure’s to strengthen democracy are few and far between.
The whis is merely something the members of a parliamentary party agree to be bound by. If the members of the party wanted to, they could vote to relax the whip – but they don’t – the majority want to keep the whip as it is.
That’s how political parties work. People vote for things.
There is nothing stopping anyone starting a party with a loose or no whip and seeing if the electorate want to vote for them.
The only thing that would be undemocratic would be banning the whip.
It the whip was only used for internal party politics, then it would be fine. I have no issue with a party expelling a member from their party for voting against a party proposal.
The issue is that the Dáil is set up in such a way to favour those in political parties. Which means that once the whip is applied and a party member expelled, its that much more difficult for them to fulfil their Constitutional obligations; the same ones Enda assured us are what keeps his Government in check.
I see the practical benefits of the party system and the whip, but Constitutional obligations can’t be sacrificed for expediency. A TD’s obligations are to represent his/her constituency and to hold the Government to account. Party affiliations are secondary.
Brian, perhaps you could quote the section of the Constitution that refers to these Constitutional Obligations? The ones that are unfulfilled by the whip system?
People have the choice in every election to vote for candidates who are not bound by the whip system, but they generally chose not to. They know they are voting for candidates bound by a party whip.
Again, I repeat, the only thing that would be undemocratic would be banning the whip system.
They don’t vote for the relaxation of the whip because they are ambitious little slugs and if they voted against the whip they’re fearless twit of a leader wouldn’t promote them
In practice political parties are controlled by a clique of political families descending from the founders of FF and FG who foist their agenda on the rest of the party. You can say they agree to be bound by it, but there is no other way of being a candidate so its not really a voluntary decision.
That’s a nice theory Eamonn but it’s not bought out by the reality of the vicious party infighting and lack of continuity that actually goes on.
That is not to day that there aren’t political dynasties – of course there are.
One cannot have a proper democratic state with laws governing what people say in the oireachtas
Look at the face of that twerp–looks like it got with a ball!!!
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