However modifications to the Irish committee system in 1997 and 2002 meant that like Britain, Irish committees would now mirror government departments, although there would now only be 13 committees (15 including public accounts) the Irish committee system was now much more effective. A common factor in both the Irish and British committee system is perhaps due to the fact the government will always have the majority. For example, committees in Britain reflect the political makeup of the Commons and therefore the government will always get its way, meaning both government and opposition MP’s will lack motivation to contribute to committees as effectively as they could and it is also suggests that MPs are ‘whipped’ by their parties. “MP’s are told to say nothing and spend their committee time writing their Christmas cards” – Tony Wright, Labour, 1997. While in the Irish committees, there are four paid positions within each and TD’s are appointed to these positions by the Taoiseach, likely leaving them included to the point of view of the executive, as TD’s won’t “ bite the hand that feeds them”. Also as there are strong party loyalties in Ireland, it means that members of the majority party are less likely to scrutinize the government. The one-sidedness’s of committees in Ireland and Britain shows that committees are always in Government control and therefore they will not fulfil their role of holding the government to account and due to this, there has been very few times in which committees have successfully held the government to account, e.g. in 1999, an Irish committee held the government to account over tax irregularities. Another common factor between the Irish and British committee system is due to the fact that MP’s and TD’s have a lot of other important responsibilities and work to be doing, therefore working on committees can add a lot of stress and pressure, which will likely have a negative impact on the work they produce. For example due to the voting system in Ireland (STV), a lot of TD’s workload is heavily tilted towards constituency work due to the demands of the electorate, and neglecting their consistency to do committee work would be considered electorate suicide, as unlike Britain the biggest threat a TD can have, may come from their own party, therefore TD’s will have less time and interest in committee meetings. For example in 2002, 37% of current or past ministers in the Dail stated they had no interest in effective committee systems. While in Britain, the stress and pressure of committees along with their other reposnbsiblites showed to have a negative effect on Ministers, civil servants and MP’s through a departmental select committee in 2003 on Foreign Affairs into the government’s decision to invade Iraq as media coverage revealed the limitations and weakness of the committees as it demonstrated their “lack of legal assistance, the inability to carry out research and the tendency of committee members to make party-political points” - Anthony Sampson, the Observer, August 2003.
Although the Irish Committee system is more effective than it was before 1997 and has some powers in which the British committee does not, it is not as well established or powerful. Irish committees lack resources and ministers and TD’s do not see them as being crucial to their career therefore attendance is usually poor, even though their Public Accounts committee is one of the best ways in which the opposition can scrutinize the government, while the British Committee system is considered to be well developed with great potential. Although in order to improve its effectiveness, Britain will need to provide its committees with more power and human resources.
