Higgins claims no real republic created in Ireland

LABOUR’S MICHAEL D Higgins said he hoped he would meet his party colleagues on the presidential election campaign when he made his farewell Dáil speech.

Mr Higgins, who is retiring as TD for Galway West, recalled he first stood for election 42 years ago. He went on to serve as a TD for 25 years and spent nine years in the Seanad.

“I have already said I am very grateful for the kindness and courtesy of my colleagues in this House over the years, and I hope not to be saying a goodbye to them.

“If I succeed in getting the Labour Party nomination for the presidency I look forward to meeting them all in their constituencies in a less formal setting.’’

Mr Higgins said that when he first stood for election in 1969 he was very conscious of something that was important to him.

“I was leaving an academic world in which I had spent a great deal of time, and on which I had expended a great deal of anxiety in order to secure entry.

“People from backgrounds such as mine did not go to university, did not qualify in other universities and did not teach in universities.’’

He had left that world, he said, to participate in public life, which was part of his family’s tradition.

Mr Higgins said that in 1969 he was conscious of the great failure of a country that then called itself a republic.

“I believe no real republic has been created in Ireland,’’ he added.

There had been a failure, said Mr Higgins, to make political power republican, as well as administrative and communications failures.

He said those who wanted Ireland to be independent would have envisaged a country in which there would be far greater distribution of power; that it would not be confined solely to the exercise of parliamentary democracy.

Mr Higgins said it was quite extraordinary so much attention had focused on changing the electoral system and so little on the structure of Cabinet power.

“There is no constitutional basis for the hegemony of the Department of Finance; it was a practice that flowed seamlessly from the British treasury and adopted without question.

“If one wanted to effect radical change one would break the connection between the monopoly enjoyed by the government of the day and parliament.’’

One would allow, said Mr Higgins, the establishment of a committee system with the right to initiate and change legislation. One could go further, as in the Scandinavian model, and allow committees to have limited budgetary powers.