THERE WAS a “class ceiling” as distinct from a “glass ceiling” in Irish politics, which meant a “very significant” number of Irish people were not reflected in the composition of the Dáil, Minister for Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs Pat Carey has said.
He told the MacGill Summer School yesterday that our parliament continued to be “the preserve of the elite few”, the legal profession, teachers and a few business people.
People from other backgrounds were elected from time to time but generally did not last long. This would not change “until all parties have the courage to bring in a wider array of representatives”.
Change was essential: “What we have at the moment isn’t fit for purpose here in Ireland.”
Mr Carey said he “got there quite by accident” when, having been involved in local politics and community activism, he was elected to the Dáil on his third attempt “at the ripe old age of 50”.
There were two types of TDs, the Minister said. The first included young, energetic TDs such as Brian Hayes and Leo Varadkar, “who want to change the world tomorrow”.
He added: “They make a great contribution. They come into a system that they find it difficult to cope with and they talk themselves out of it, and then they maybe get appointed as judges or something like that.”
There was a second type, people like himself who came in later in life and “just maybe have the greater personal security to be able, without being big-headed about it, to take the wiser decisions”.
“When I look at the people of the maturity of for example, Pat Rabbitte, Ruairi Quinn, Michael Noonan, Mary Harney, Mary O’Rourke, I would say very strongly that they are the people who probably are making the wisest and the strongest contribution,” the Minister said.
Reflecting on his time as chief whip, he said Leader’s Questions, where the Taoiseach answers unannounced queries, seemed like a big breakthrough but it had become “a very staid affair, the content is by and large now dictated by the colour writers of the morning papers, by the agenda of the two main news programmes on RTÉ and Newstalk.
“And I even see experienced politicians looking up and winking up at the gallery when they think they have made a hit which is likely to make the ‘One O’Clock News’ or the ‘Pat Kenny programme’, or whatever it is. And I think it is a great pity that that is the approach that has been taken: that’s the way it has developed,” Mr Carey said.
Academic and journalist Dr Elaine Byrne said: “I am very struck when Pat Carey makes remarks about two politicians who he says talked themselves out of it.” Later, he talked about a glass or class ceiling: “I would suggest it is a generational ceiling. When you make [such] remarks, that’s a signal to people my age: ‘Sit down there now and let us get on with it’. That’s not good enough any more.”
She added: “Most of our people in leadership positions, politics, unions, are of a particular generation and my generation which is mired in debt has to pay for the mistakes of your generation.”
She added: “This is a young country, but those who seek to reform, to change are often punished for it. There are lots of different ways of letting people know what their place is.”
Dr Maurice Manning, president of the Human Rights Commission and chancellor of the National University of Ireland said: “We only ask five main things from our parliament: to provide stable government; keep it accountable; scrutinise laws; protect legitimate interests and that it be a talking shop.”
He added: “The word parliament comes from the word ‘parler’. One of the big failures of the Dáil and Seanad is that it doesn’t talk enough in a meaningful way. We expect it to talk about the issues in a meaningful and prophetic way.”
He said the failure of the Oireachtas to discharge its core responsibility was “scandalous” and that Bills were guillotined regularly.
