Reforming the Dáil is a bit like draining the Shannon: improvements in one area do not necessarily translate into a better overall performance. The Executive’s determination to retain control of the agenda is a major factor in that. Dáil arrangements, such as divisions of speaking time and the whip system, discourage activity by new members and fundamental change.
In that context, interventions by ordinary TDs in committee discussions or Dáil debates is a crude measurement of their parliamentary effectiveness, simply because their opportunities are deliberately restricted. The number of written questions submitted by TDs on behalf of constituents could, on the other hand, be regarded as a useful publicity exercise or a waste of public money.
Speaking time rights, along with membership of Oireachtas committees and access to priority questions, are jealously guarded on all sides. The Technical Group objected strenuously last year when Lucinda Creighton and her Reform Alliance members applied for membership and associated speaking rights. Sinn Féin complained it was being discriminated against in favour of the Technical Group. Earlier, Fine Gael's newly elected Eoghan Murphy wanted all backbenchers to be treated equally and given improved access to Dáil business. He criticised a system under which legislative debates now consist of individual statements on the record, rather than a deliberative process.
Because of the rigidity of control over Dáil business, ministers come first in the pecking order. Much of the remaining speaking time and opportunity for questions go to opposition spokesmen and party leaders. Backbenchers are debarred from engaging in priority questions while their more senior colleagues tend to receive precedence from the whips in the allocation of speaking time.
Such practices will continue under a whip system that props up the Executive and dilutes the Constitutional concept that governments are responsible to parliament.