Aontú Calls for the Dail to Return to its Full Schedule Immediately
Aontú Leader and Meath West TD Peadar Tóibín has called for the immediate return of the Dáil to a full schedule and workload, so that the people of Ireland can be represented fully and the government can be properly scrutinised by the Opposition.
An Teachta Tóibín:
“Aontú is calling for the Dail to return to its full schedule immediately. Throughout the Covid Crisis the Dáil has been increasingly bypassed by the government. The Dáil has been operating on a part-time basis for the whole of 2021 so far. That there has not been one full Dáil sitting for the last four months at this time of crisis is wrong. Given the much lower levels of the illness in the community and the much lower numbers of patients in Hospital and ICU there is no excuse for this Part Time Dáil to continue”.
“This reduced sitting directly effects the ability of TDs to represent constituents, workers and small businesses business. Taoiseach’s questions, Ministers questions, Opposition opportunity to table Bills and Private Members Bills are all being reduced due to the part time nature of the current Dáil. Given the scale of the health, economic and societal crisis that exists, a fully functioning democracy is more important now than ever. Ireland has been an outlier in the length and severity of the lockdown imposed on this country. Policy on vacancies roll out has flip flopped over and over again in just that last 2 months. Yet there is little opportunity for the opposition to scrutinise and challenge the government approach and to propose solutions”.
“How can we give proper representation to our constituents in a functioning democracy when the Dáil is sitting part time? Its ironic that the Aontú Bill to cut TDs salaries by 25% in Level 3,4 and 5 Lockdown cannot get the Dáil time to proceed due to Dail sittings to being cut by 33%. There is no reasonable argument against a full schedule in the Convention Centre. It was good enough at the end of 2020, there is no reason it is not good enough now. A reduced legislature endangers our democracy itself. The Dáil cannot be relegated to a bystander in this time of crisis and emergency.”
