TDs take the mickey with Christmas holidays

I know it is the season of goodwill but I am sure you will agree that the goodwill should not be confined to Christmas.

I also know that there may very well be less goodwill around now than there was during the rest of the year. Especially after the Budget. But visit any garda station and they will probably tell you that there are more likely to be more domestic rows leading to court cases at Christmas time than at any other time of the year.
Which brings me to the rows and lack of goodwill that broke out in the Dáil as the House adjourned for the Christmas recess. By the way, have you noticed that they never talk about those long breaks throughout the year as Christmas, Easter or summer holidays? They are all referred to as recesses, as if to emphasise that, while the Dáil might not be sitting, the TDs would be working away for our benefit.
Anyway, these rows break out every time the Dáil breaks up for whatever length of time it breaks up. The Government proposes the adjournment of the House and announces the date it will reconvene. Invariably the Opposition opposes. No matter which party or parties are in power and no matter which party or parties are in opposition. It is a charade and I doubt if it fools anybody by now.
This time the Dáil has adjourned for five weeks, until January 19. The opposition argued that this was too long a break. Of course, the Opposition is correct. Of course it is too long. Two weeks holidays at Christmas should be more than enough for anybody.
As a matter of fact, most people – who count themselves lucky to still have a job of any kind – finish up on Christmas Eve and will be back at work next Monday or Tuesday.
Politicians, who voted recently to cut the pay of public servants, argued, for example, that teachers’ holidays were too long. The cheek of them! Teachers don’t have anything like the holidays that TDs have. They certainly don’t have five-week breaks at Christmas.
And teachers work five days a week. The Dáil sits only two-and-a-half days a week from Tuesday afternoon until Thursday.
So, before they start telling the rest of us how we should live our lives, they should try to get their own House in order.
Dáil Eireann’s procedures are very similar to those of the British House of Commons. Actually, it is almost a carbon copy. But whereas there has been no fundamental change in the procedures of the Dáil over the years, the House of Commons has made some efforts to keep up with the times. It sits five days a week and takes shorter holidays than the Dáil.
But the Dáil continues to operate like back in the days when politics was a hobby rather than a full-time occupation – as it is supposed to be today.
In the old days, members of Parliament were landed gentry, liberal lawyers and such like with a certain amount of time on their hands. The House of Commons sat at convenient times to suit the members. But those times have changed. The Dáil should be sitting five days a week from Monday to Friday in line with most office hours to accommodate full-time politicians.
The strange thing about all this is that, while the Dáil sits only part-time, the members are now paid far more than the vast majority of full-time office workers. So they have the best of all worlds.
By the time the Dáil resumes on January 19, for most of us Christmas will only be a memory. The Christmas tree will have long been disposed of, the holly and the ivy will have withered away. Our thoughts will be on spring and on the stretch in the days while our TDs and Senators will still be celebrating Christmas.
But the gates of Leinster House will not be locked. Members will be able to do their Christmas or after-Christmas sales shopping in fashionable Grafton Street while availing of free and secure parking in nearby Leinster House.
The rest of us will be cursing the traffic and unable to have a Christmas drink in town while TDs and Senators and even ex-TDs and Senators can get sloshed, knowing that their cars will be safe and well overnight behind the secure gates of the Dáil.
And the five weeks’ holidays gives them an opportunity to get away to the sun for a few days at our expense during the dark days of January.
I knew a TD who used to travel up to the Dáil from a distant part of the country in early January, sign the Dáil register and fly out the same day to the Canaries. The following week, or two weeks later, he would fly back to Dublin, again sign the Dáil register and drive home. He was able to claim enough expenses for travel and overnight in Dublin to pay for two weeks holidays in the sun-drenched Canaries.
That carry-on, I am told, was widespread in the old days and I cannot say for certain if it still goes on. But the TD in question is still a member of the Dáil. It might be interesting to see where he goes for his holidays in the New Year.
There has been a lot of talk, especially in recent weeks, about reform of the public service in general. But any such reform should have as a priority reform of the Dáil.
I have written before about reform of the Seanad but as any regular reader should be well aware, I have not written merely about reform of the Seanad, I have called for the abolition of the Upper House because it serves no useful purpose.
But I have to say that I go along with the suggestion of Senator Shane Ross that if there is to be a public enquiry into the near collapse of Irish banking, that enquiry should be carried out by the Seanad. It might help to ensure the future not alone of Irish banking but also the future of the Seanad itself.
Meanwhile, have a very happy Christmas.