User:Jnestorius/Parliamentary opposition in Ireland

Books

 * (discusses Opposition resources in 1920s and 30s)
 * (Oireachtas reports on Opposition allowance in 20s and 30s)
 * refers to these two:
 * Joint Committee appointed to reconsider the general question of the remuneration of Ministers and the allowances payable to members of the Dáil and of the Seanad December 1929
 * Joint Committee appointed to reconsider the general question of the remuneration of Ministers and the allowances payable to members of the Dáil and of the Seanad December 1929

1937 report
90. Paragraph 4 of our terms of reference is sufficiently wide to enable us to deal with any matter which we may consider to be associated with the particular points covered in the preceding paragraphs of the Report. Aspects that have been stressed throughout the consideration of the question of Ministerial remuneration have been the desirability of making a political career as free as possible from serious financial stress and hardships, and the importance of retaining in public life persons who had formerly held governmental office. Arising from these considerations our attention was directed to the responsible position in public affairs which is held by the Leader of the Opposition. This question was dealt with by the Joint Committee which sat in 1929, and it may be of interest to quote the remarks made on the subject by that Committee in the course of their Report :—
 * pp.35-37 — LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION:


 * "The Committee considered the question of recommending a special allowance to the Leader of the Opposition. It realises that the amount of work which the Leader of the Opposition, or of any large Party continuously in opposition, has to perform to enable him to deal adequately with the various matters which come before the Legislature is exceedingly heavy, and all the more so by reason of the fact that he has not access to technical advisers, nor the use of an official executive staff, such as are at the service of Ministers. While generally agreed as to the desirability of provision being made by the State for the Deputy holding this onerous and responsible position, the Committee finds itself unable to make a definite recommendation owing to the practical difficulties involved. Chief of these difficulties is that of devising a method, applicable to the various circumstances which might arise, of determining the person who should be regarded as the 'Leader of the Opposition' in a House elected under the system of Proportional Représentation. It is thought that the matter might await further experience of our Parliamentary development."

91. We are in agreement with the views expressed above, but we consider that the experience gained in the meantime has proved conclusively that some provision should be made for the Leader of the Opposition. One of the witnesses who appeared before us suggested that members of the Parliamentary staff should be made available to assist the Leader of the Opposition. We consider, however, that such an arrangement would not be feasible as that staff is composed of civil servants and, by reason of their position, it is unlikely that they would be able to afford assistance, in the fullest sense, to the Leader of the Opposition who is, perforce, opposed to the Government of the day. Moreover, such staff might have to be provided for the Leader of more than one Party in Dáil Eireann, and these Parties might be as much in opposition to one another as to the Government.

92. The provision made from public funds for the Leader of a Party in opposition to the Government should not be in the nature of a salary but would be an allowance of a sufficient amount to enable such a person to defray secretarial and other expenses. There may be more than one Opposition Party but we consider that generally it will be found that one of the Opposition Parties will have a considerably greater numerical strength than any of the others. The Leader of such a Party will be involved in considerable expense if he is to perform his duties in an adequate manner and we recommend that the allowance payable to him be at the rate of £800 a year. For the Leader of the second largest Party in opposition we consider that an allowance at the rate of £500 a year should be provided, subject to the condition that the numerical strength of that Party be not less than seven. We have considered whether any additional allowances should be provided for the Leaders of other Opposition Parties and we have come to the conclusion that it would be impossible to defend the payment of more than two such allowances. One of our number (Mr. Counihan) considered, however, that an allowance should be payable to the Leader of a third Party, if the number of Deputies in that Party was seven or more. The allowances which we have recommended, being in the nature of recoupment of expenses, should be exempt from taxation and would be payable in addition to the ordinary Parliamentary allowance and to any Ministerial pension to which the Leader of the Opposition might be entitled. It is also suggested that arrangements should be made to provide accommodation in the Oireachtas buildings for secretarial staff which the Leaders of Opposition will be enabled to employ if the allowances recommended above are made available. It must be clearly understood that in recommending the payment of allowances to Leaders of Opposition, we do not intend that these allowances should be regarded or utilised as in any sense personal remuneration or solely as a grant towards the personal expenses of the Leaders, but that they should be used by those Leaders for the purpose of providing effective secretarial and other assistance not only for themselves but for the general conduct of the Opposition in Dáil Eireann. Two of our number (Messrs. Moore and Sweetman) have found themselves unable to join in the recommendations contained in this paragraph of our Report.

I dissent also from the recommendation in Paragraph 92 of the Report that grants or allowances should be made to the leaders of political parties other than the Government Party. While fully appreciative of the important rôle of the Opposition in an Assembly conducted on democratic lines, I consider this departure would be full of danger and is not really necessary. The work of the statistical and other Departments of the Civil Service is so efficient and the facilities for obtaining information in a complete form so ample, that the provision of a special service for the further preparation of such information to meet the requirements of political leaders, cannot be regarded as an urgent need. If once established it may be expected that the service will grow: there will inevitably be complaints after a year or so that the amount provided is not sufficient. Indeed, it seems certain, that the different groups or parties in the Senate to be elected will agitate for an extension of the service to them, and will have some case at least to justify them if the recommendations of this Committee be accepted.
 * pp.40-41 — RESERVATIONS BY MR. S. MOORE, T.D.:

Even in the immediate future, the political life of the country may show six or seven parties and Government by a coalition of tvo or more. There may be difficulty, in fact, in determining what party is the main Opposition. It would be quite unreasonable to have perhaps four of such parties enjoying separate allowances to enable them to provide services which would be almost identical in all cases and could as well be done collectively.

Scholar
Google Scholar ("leader of the opposition" taoiseach)


 * A Siaroff - International Political Science Review, 2003 Varieties of parliamentarianism in the advanced industrial democracies
 * Ireland (due to its use of a single transferable vote [STV] in multimember constituencies and lack of a leader of the opposition).


 * B Chubb - Political Studies 'GOING ABOUT PERSECUTING CIVIL SERVANTS': THE ROLE OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATIVE
 * The present leader of the Opposition, for example, has defended the right of Deputies to correspond directly with


 * Catching up with the leaders: the Irish hare P Honohan, B Walsh - Brookings papers on economic activity, 2002
 * Additionally, the leader of the opposition committed the main opposition party to supporting the government's fiscal stabilization (in the socalled Tallaght


 * 'Bishops, knights—and Pawns? Traditional thought and the Irish abortion referendum debate of 1983' JP O'Carroll - Irish Political Studies, 1991
 * This wording was welcomed by the Irish bishops' Conference of the Catholic church and by the leader of the opposition


 * 'The 1992 general election in the Republic of Ireland' P Mitchell - Irish Political Studies, 1993
 * fierce attacks by Fianna Fail on the Labour Party were probably also to the detriment of Fine Gael in that they served to further highlight Dick Spring as the real leader of the opposition at the


 * The politics of sexual knowledge: the origins of Ireland's containment culture and the Carrigan Report (1931) JM Smith - Journal of the History of Sexuality, 2004
 * There ensued a series of communications between Geoghegan and Cosgrave, now leader of the opposition, to ensure that


 * Locating TDs in policy spaces: the computational text analysis of Dáil speeches M Laver, K Benoit - Irish Political Studies, 2002
 * The speech of the .ine Gael leader of the day and leader of the opposition, John Bruton, was assumed


 * From mainstream to minor and back: the Irish Labour Party, 1987–1992 S McDaid, K Rekawek - Irish Political Studies, 2010
 * As a result, Spring ‘grew in stature, people began to see – “hey, this guy can do it”’ (interview with Ruairi Quinn, 17 November 2008), and came to be regarded as de facto leader of the opposition.


 * Where's the harm in tax competition?: Lessons from US multinationals in Ireland S Killian - Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 2006
 * In the national parliament, the leader of the opposition, Enda Kenny questioned the government leader, Bertie Ahern on this point


 * 'The politics of abortion: Ireland in comparative perspective' V Randall - The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 1992
 * the campaign had secured the pledge of Charles Haughey as Taoiseach and Garret FitzGerald, then leader of the opposition, to hold


 * "To the administrative panel the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition can each nominate two ..." I don't think the leader of the opposition is mentioned in the relevant Act Seanad Electoral (Panel Members) Act, 1937; rather sec 26(1)(b) says "any person (other than the Taoiseach for the time being) who has previously held the office of Taoiseach or the office of President of the Executive Council of Saorstát Eireann" which would apply to W. T. Cosgrave but not his post-1944 successor Richard Mulcahy. Seanad Electoral (Panel Members) Act, 1947 has no corresponding provision.

Oireachtas
When govt changes, Government and Opposition parties swap sides. 1994:
 * Leas-Cheann Comhairle Joe Jacob: In accordance with precedent, when the Dáil resumes Members on my left will please take their seats on my right and Members on my right will please take their seats on my left.
 * Mary Harney: On a point of order, Sir, I do not wish to be on this side, I wish to be somewhere in the centre.

Seanad independent group is seen as Opposition, even if it includes some Taoiseach's nominees, e.g. Jillian van Turnhout in 2011-16, as per Leas-Cathaoirleach Denis O'Donovan "Even though she is seated on this side .. she is seen as in opposition ... That is the grouping system ... The Opposition speaker was Senator van Turnhout, who is in a grouping that has been there for four years."

Standing orders
Dáil standing orders: 2011 ed
 * 27. [...] 2013 mods
 * (b) During the time allowed for Leaders‘ Questions, the Ceann Comhairle may permit, at his or her discretion, a brief question not exceeding two minutes from each Leader in Opposition to the Taoiseach about a matter of topical public importance [...]
 * (d) In this Standing Order, 'Leader in Opposition' means the leader of a group as defined in Standing Order 120(1)
 * 64. In making references to members of the Dáil, the following rules shall apply—
 * (a) A member of the Government shall (as the case may require) be referred to as the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, or the Minister for ................................. and a Minister of State shall be referred to as the Minister of State at .............................
 * (b) A private member of the Dáil shall be referred to as Deputy..........................................
 * 120.(1) [...] a group shall mean—
 * (a) any Party which had not less than seven members elected to the Dáil at the previous General Election or which, if it had less than seven, attained the number of seven members as a result of a subsequent bye-election, or
 * (b) a majority of the members of the Dáil who are not members of a group as defined in paragraph (1)(a), being not less than seven in number, who request formal recognition as a group in writing to the Ceann Comhairle

Seanad standing orders 2011 ed
 * 16. The Leader of the House (Deputy Leader or another Senator authorised by the Government for the purpose of this Standing Order) acting on behalf of the Government in the Seanad, shall propose at the commencement of public business, the business for each sitting day and the order in which it shall be taken. The Leader of the House shall be an ex officio member of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges.
 * 80.(1) In the absence of a member nominated to serve on a Select or Special Committee, a substitute may be nominated to take part in the proceedings in accordance with the following provisions of this paragraph and shall be entitled to vote in the absent member’s stead and to move motions and amendments in his or her own name:— [...]
 * (b) where the absent member is a member of a non-Government party or group (within the meaning of Standing Order 115), that party or group may nominate a substitute from any non-Government party or group;
 * 96. deleted 2012
 * (1) There shall stand established at the commencement of every Seanad a Standing Committee which shall be joined with a similar Committee of the Dáil to constitute the Joint Administration Committee. [...]
 * (6) The Standing Committee shall consist of nine members of Seanad Éireann and shall include the Party/Group Leaders or Whips, where feasible.
 * 115. [...] (4) A group shall be a group so recognised by the Cathaoirleach and consisting of not less than five Senators.

Other
IT 1959: The return from holidays in 1959 was marked mainly by the election of a new leader of Fine Gael, James Dillon, who replaced not one but two people, Gen Richard Mulcahy, who was leader of the party, and John A Costello, who was leader of the Opposition. Dillon’s election was going on off-stage as the Dáil resumed, leaving the House in the doldrums. ... "There was Gen Mulcahy, the man of the hour, occupying the seat reserved for the leader of the Opposition for the first time in 11 years."

In May 2012, Taoiseach Enda Kenny justified refusing Gerry Adams's challenge to a televised debate on the European Fiscal Compact referendum:
 * There has never been a tradition of head-to-head referendum debates in this country. And I’m not going to be shoved around by Sinn Fein or anyone else. I was never going to confer the position of leader of the opposition on Deputy Adams. I have debated with Deputy Adams for the last six weeks in the Dail on the matter.

"de facto"/"real"/"true" leader of the opposition is not the leader of the largest party:
 * IT: Labour went from 12 to 15 Dail seats in the 1989 general and, from the first day the new Dail met, Dick Spring set about establishing himself as the real leader of the Opposition. He scored regularly in the Dail against the government, and against the main opposition party, Fine Gael. ... Nobody had expected as impressive a result in 1992, and Spring's public stature was seen as the decisive factor.
 * Mark Hennessy, IT 2002: For the next few years, Finlay will strive to bring Labour back to the halcyon days, when Spring was the acknowledged Leader of the Opposition in the months before the 1992 general election.
 * Conor Cruise O'Brien 2002: Pat Rabbitte is now de facto leader of the opposition.
 * Colm Toibin 2002: The Fine Gael vote has gone to the smaller parties, the Greens, the PDs, the Independents, and this means that the next Dail will not have a strong leader of the opposition.
 * John Drennan 2003: Already Rabbitte has repeated Dick Spring's achievement in becoming the real leader of the Opposition in the Dail.
 * Indo 2003: The Taoiseach's ill judged attack resulted in a major boost for their leader Pat Rabbitte, bestowing on him the mantle of leader of the Opposition. [the attack appears to be 21 May 2003 Leaders' Questions. "If one is disadvantaged, living on the margins and on welfare, the Labour Party and Fine Gael do not care two hells about one."]
 * Shane Coleman 2014: This time four years ago he was the most popular politician in the State, the no-nonsense, 'call it as it is', real leader of the opposition.

Prospective: Labour could have pushed Fine Gael into a minority government, where they would have relied on the support of some independents and of Fianna Fáil, at least in the short term. Eamon Gilmore could have been leader of the opposition, and Labour at last, would have been in a position to lead a quantum change in Irish politics.
 * Tony Gregory 2002: Also, many independents, along with the Greens and Sinn Fein, could form a broader alliance which would outnumber Fine Gael and claim the right to be the main opposition grouping, he said. He said Ruairi Quinn could then be advanced as the actual leader of the opposition and offer a real
 * Gerard Howlin 2015 looks back on 2011: alternative on policy.
 * Irish Times 2015: Sharing government with Fine Gael would break traditional taboos but, more importantly, it would leave Sinn Féin as leader of the opposition

Gerry Adams ambition to be leader of the opposition:
 * Ronan Fanning 2011: the role to which Gerry Adams clearly aspires -- leader of the opposition.
 * Pat Fitzpatrick 2012: AT one level you can see what Gerry Adams is up to. The more he gets mentioned in the same breath as Enda Kenny, the more he is seen by some as the natural leader of the opposition.

leaders' allowance 2016: Meanwhile, Mr Martin has defended his decision to give himself a €30,000 salary top-up through the leaders’ allowance scheme. The sum brought his salary up to the levels enjoyed by junior ministers. Mr Martin said the top-up is fully taxable, is provided for legislation and was published in April 2014. “It’s in respect of the extra duties that the leader of the Opposition has,” he said.

Charlie Haughey negative tactics:
 * Charlie McCreevy: Charlie McCreevy showed his mettle in December 1981 as a Fianna Fáil backbencher when he denounced Charlie Haughey’s tactics as leader of the opposition. “We seem to be against everything and for nothing,” he complained. “We are so hell bent in assuming power that we are prepared to do anything for it.”
 * 1985, Alan Goodison, the British ambassador: He put forward no positive and realistic ideas, and, although he would clearly prefer power, he obviously enjoys the negative role of a leader of the opposition

Toughest job in politics:
 * Stephen Collins It is a truism of democratic politics the world over that being leader of the opposition is the toughest job going
 * John Bruton 2014: “Leader of the opposition” is, in normal times, a virtually impossible job, and a type of contradiction in terms. The opposition has little chance to lead on anything, and often allows itself to spend too much of its time reacting to government initiatives and temporary media obsessions. Ivan Yates helped to buck that trend between 1987 and 1994 by producing excellent policy papers, of a quality and boldness far beyond the normal.

Miscellaneous
IT 2007: Having won eight extra seats in the general election, Fine Gael is all steamed up about its role as undisputed leader of the opposition parties

Noel Whelan Jun 12, 2015 "Time to stop politicians' 'tell them nothing' policy" In his textbook on Irish politics with John Coakley, TCD professor Michael Gallagher relates how John Bruton as leader of the opposition