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The Reform Alliance members outside Buswells Hotel today.
Reform Alliance
"Our priorities are the country's priorities" - Reform Alliance
Direct election of the Ceann Comhairle, automatic addition to the electoral register and Attorney General certification for guillotined bills top the agenda for the Fine Gael rebels.
THE GROUP OF former Fine Gael TDs and senators today presented the reforms they wish to see carried out.
The group known as the Reform Alliance, TDs Lucinda Creighton, Billy Timmins, Terence Flanagan, Dennis Naughten and Peter Mathews and senators Paul Bradford and Fidelma Healy-Eames, met in Dublin today to trash out their vision for the future.
Despite Mathews being adamant that the alliance was not a new political party, the group posed for pictures together and released a joint statement in which they said that they wanted to play a “positive and constructive” role in matters.
The statement continued:
“The group believes that reform, new ideas and fresh thinking are necessary to tackle on-going problems in areas such as job creation, youth unemployment and emigration, mortgages and personal debt, healthcare and education.
The Alliance is committed to bringing policies based on conviction and courage to the upcoming Dáil and Seanad sessions, and looks forward to working with government and opposition parties in the national interest.
Among the reforms that the group is calling for are the direct election of the Ceann Comhairle by secret ballot, new procedures on the guillotining of bills by the Government and the automatic inclusion of all those aged 18 or over on the electoral register.
Read: Rebels meet today but Peter Mathews insists: ‘There’s no new party. I’m a Fine Gael member’
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