THE CHANCES are that if you’re a Today FM listener, or a regular visitor to this website, you may have seen a tweet yesterday, posted by Niall ‘Brezzie’ Breslin of The Voice of Ireland and The Blizzards fame.
Brezzie has more recently turned his attention to advocating for better mental health services with his ‘A Lust for Life’ campaign, and was watching yesterday’s events in Leinster House as the zombie, government-less Dáil debated the state of Ireland’s mental health services.
Brezzie was, justifiably, not impressed with what he saw:
This is the Dail right now for mental Health debate. Remember this view if we have another election #IAmAReason pic.twitter.com/zVNPk9zp7X
— Niall Breslin (@nbrez) April 26, 2016
Politicians discuss #mentalhealth crisis in empty #Dail now. Where are all our TDs?! Not good enough. #IAmAReason pic.twitter.com/1Oue0XcihC
— A Lust For Life (@lustforlife) April 26, 2016
There have been plenty of headlines written in the last 24 hours about the poor turnout and, as a result, the dismal regard in which the mental health problem is held by TDs.
My former colleagues at TheJournal.ie have done an excellent FactCheck that outlines the full truth of how many TDs actually attended the debate.
Dan Mac Guill has gone through the full videotape to see who was caught on camera in the chamber, and has identified 64 TDs – just over two-fifths of the full population.
He’s also counted a total of 33 speakers (just under a fifth of all TDs) who contributed to the debate, which went on for just over three hours.
I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether that’s a good or bad turnout or not – but, as someone who watches more Dáil than most, it’s worth pointing out that this is a higher turnout than the Dáil would get for pretty much any item of business.
In fact, the only times the Dáil is full is during the rare occasions where a new Taoiseach is being elected, or on Budget Day. Beyond this, the busiest time in the chamber is during the daily batch of Leaders’ Questions. (Those events are the ones which are most likely to be carried on live TV or to make it into a news bulletin. Funny, that...)
In my years watching the Dáil, a debate on a matter of national interest rarely gets an attendance as high as 64 – and it’s unusual to get a three-hour debate in which 33 people get to speak.
That’s not meant as a defence of the Dáil – it’s simply to offer some context about how few people tend to show up to debates in the first place. That’s not entirely the fault of TDs themselves either.
You might think of a debate as a forum where someone can walk in, put up their hand and say, ‘Can I make a point here?’. For better or worse, the Dáíl doesn’t work that way.
Yesterday’s Dáil business began with the Chief Whip, Paul Kehoe, making the following proposal, which was accepted by the House as a whole:
...the statements of a Minister or a Minister of State and the main spokespersons for Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin, the Labour Party, the AAA-PBP, Independents 4 Change, the Social Democrats, the Green Party or a Member nominated in their stead and a non-party Deputy who shall be called upon in that order shall not exceed ten minutes in each case and such Members may share their time; the statement of each other Member called upon shall not exceed ten minutes and such Members may share their time; and a Minister or a Minister of State shall be called upon to make a statement in reply that shall not exceed five minutes.
What does that mean? It means that the lion’s share of a three-hour debate is already gobbled up by rota. The Minister for Health, Leo Varadkar, gets to start with a ten-minute speech. Then ten minutes go to Fianna Fáil’s health spokesman Billy Kelleher; then another ten to his Sinn Féin counterpart Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin; and then to spokespersons from the smaller parties.
As Dan Mac Guill wrote last night:
Typically, deputies drift in and out, delivering their remarks, supporting colleagues and opposing those on the other side of the house, and then leaving again.
The actual number of TDs in the house ebbs and flows over the course of a long debate.
Brezzie argued in response that simply attending, giving a scripted speech, and leaving again doesn’t make for much of a debate.
A debate in any capacity requires dialogue and interaction, not a "I said my piece and I am leaving". https://t.co/gGRkHVpt2O
— Niall Breslin (@nbrez) April 27, 2016
But, whether we like it or not, the watching-from-afar excuse does carry some water.
While everyone wants to see a full house of TDs debating the matters of the day, the reality is that in the Dáil, only one person can speak at a time – and while one person speaks, the rest of the house is (at best) listening earnestly, (regularly) preparing a heckle, or (at worst) daydreaming.
The unfortunate truth is that most of the time, a TD sitting in the chamber isn’t making great use of their time – they’re unable to make or take phone calls; they can’t deal with correspondence or attend other meetings; and unless they’ve been lined up to speak, they’re unable to contribute to the Dáíl debate either.
We’d all like to think a TD is working 9-5 (or longer) dealing with queries on behalf of their constituents – but the sad reality is that being in the Dáil chamber itself is a poor use of their time.
Every room in Leinster House has an internal TV system where staff can watch or listen to debates from the Dáil or Seanad chamber - and if TDs can go about their business, while also listening in to what their colleagues are saying, it's arguably a better use of their time.
(The same applies to journalists. You might sometimes hear a TD remark that the press gallery is empty for an important debate, like it may well have been for the one last night. But the rules of the House forbid journalists from bringing anything onto the press gallery, other than a pen and paper – so we can bring no phones, no laptops, no iPads, nothing. If you’re a radio journalist who needs a sound box to record audio, and you’re fond of posting a tweet or two, the press gallery is ironically the last place where you can do your job.)
But, on the other hand, that in itself is a poor state of affairs.
The Dail is not designed as a true debating forum – it’s not like sitting in a cafe or pub, where someone can interrupt with a valid point, which then moves the conservation in a different direction.
With the approval of its own members, it’s a much more structured place. As I explained above, blocs of time are assigned to individual parties, ten minutes at a time, with no scope for real interactions between TDs.
(In fact, if you look at the official schedule, you will rarely see mention of a ‘debate’ on issues – yesterday’s discussion on mental health was actually just a series of ‘Statements’, which is the most common form of Dáil discussion.)
The inability of Leinster House to host a more open, collaborative discussion is something that will take longer to fix. A special committee on Dáil Reform has been set up to look at it, and is considering some measures to try and create that atmosphere.
In a normal parliament with a functioning government, a discussion in the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health would probably be a better venue, as its conservations are less regimented than those of the Dáil as a whole. But, without a full Seanad and without a long-term Minister for Health to preside, that option is off the table.
It’s just another reason why we could use a government sooner rather than later.
~~
PS: A lot of people have been using THIS picture as a method of illustrating the poor priorities of TDs.
It's fake. The bottom photo was actually taken on the Dáíl's first sitting in March, as TDs waited for the first ballots on electing a Taoiseach.
@HMcEntee we will make judgements because the Minister for Health wasn't there!! This pic says it all! pic.twitter.com/6OV6j3aC6a
— Shaunagh (@ShaunaghG) April 26, 2016
