Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank my colleagues in Sinn Féin for introducing this motion, which is timely, as it is almost 12 months since the referendum which sought to amend the Constitution and abolish the Seanad, a referendum supported by Fine Gael, the Labour Party and Sinn Féin. We have put forward amendments to the motion and I urge the Government to consider those amendments seriously.

It is interesting to hear the Minister talk about the commitment to reform politics and the Seanad and to hear him talk about reports by various committees and groupings within the Houses in the intervening period. However, all of that counts for nothing since the Government proposal in regard to the amendment to the Constitution was defeated. The hollow talk of reform in the meantime beggars belief. Despite the fact that the Taoiseach got a "wallop" from the electorate on that issue, it seems the wallop was not sufficient for him to come forward with real and meaningful proposals to address the way people voted on that occasion or the way they rejected outright the effort to grab power on the part of the Government by attempting to abolish Seanad Éireann.

The only proposal put forward by the Taoiseach after that failed bid falls far short of what is really needed. Simply pandering to university graduates, as much as they are entitled to vote, is not what the people would have expected, considering the wallop they gave him.

The Minister talked about political reform, new politics and the democratic revolution evident in himself and his colleagues since taking office. Unfortunately, this is against a backdrop of a serious failure by the Government to introduce real political reform across the board as regards how we do politics. The Government's record has been a smokescreen, with changes making for a greater centralisation of power in fewer and fewer hands. In Dáil Éireann, for example, the Government has completely broken its promises of new politics, which is a damning indictment of its stated intention to bring about reform. The record will show that it continues to systematically break the pledge in the programme for Government that it would not guillotine the debates on Bills. The debates on some 63% of all legislation which has passed through this Dáil to date have been guillotined. Nowhere is this more obvious and more pertinent than when one considers the guillotining last December of the debate on the legislation that was rammed through the House to give effect to the setting up of Irish Water and how we have suffered as a result of that direction from the Government. As the Minister's colleague, Deputy Fergus O'Dowd, said recently, that whole sorry process has proved to be nothing short of an "unmitigated disaster".

It is not only backbenchers who now see the folly and realise they should not have taken the direction that was foisted on them last December, when they were denied the opportunity, as we were, to properly and adequately scrutinise the legislation before the House and the implications of what was contained within it. We now wonder why it is there are so many outstanding questions that cannot be answered by Irish Water. We wonder how the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Ministers for the Environment, Community and Local Government, past and present, can try to deflect the obvious and say there is a communications issue within Irish Water in not selling its message to the people. These four people and their colleagues in government, as well as backbenchers, are the very ones who walked through the lobbies but who had failed to adequately and effectively question and scrutinise the legislation. They might have had the opportunity, as many others would have had, to allow us to improve on it and not to leave us in the predicament we are in today.

That is the sum total in just one case in respect of the new politics, the democratic revolution, the new way of doing business and allowing committees to play a greater role in how politics is done and how government can become more effective. I am a member of the environment committee, as was the Minister of State, Deputy Paudie Coffey. We have sought in the past two or three months to have the officials and executives of Irish Water come before the committee but to no avail. Despite this, I picked up the newspaper this morning to read that they were with the Labour Party last week and Fine Gael two weeks previously. Even having had these executives before them, however, they could not extract the information that bonuses were being paid. The Taoiseach said the opposite on 7 October. That is the reform we have had under the Government in how we do politics, how legislation is scrutinised and how Members who are representatives of the public and have the privilege to scrutinise legislation are not being allowed to do so.

The Government has failed to implement its programme for Government commitment to allow a period of two weeks between Bill Stages in the case of 78% of the Bills that have been brought forward. The Topical Issues debate has been completely undermined by the failure of relevant Ministers to turn up, which has proven to be the case in 40% of cases. As we all know, the Friday sitting is a farce and mere window-dressing to bolster the number of sitting days, without any real debate and votes being allowed on the day on which Bills or motions are brought forward. The Government continues to engage in cronyism in State board appointments, ignoring the open public process it promised to introduce. It cannot hide behind the facts which in that instance are that just one in five appointments has been made through the public process, to which the recent controversy bears testament. The recent raft of Dáil measures taken without consultation will, in reality, disempower the Opposition and give more time to the Government for back-slapping by its own backbenchers who only now, 12 months on, realise the folly of their actions in the case of Irish Water.

It is time for real and meaningful reform. It is time to wake up and face the reality of the result of the referendum last October. We are committed to finding common ground in developing a consensual approach to reform of the Upper House. We have had the Democracy Matters proposals, while Senators Feargal Quinn and Katherine Zappone, as well as Senator John Crown, have put forward separate Bills on how to revamp Seanad Éireann. It is imperative, at this late stage, that the Government use this as the starting point for introducing genuine reform, not just the severely restricted Bill it has published on broadening university graduate voting rights. Reform must encompass a broader approach to all tiers of the State in order to reshape the structure of politics to make it fit for purpose in the 21st century. As I said, we have published detailed documents on reforming the Dáil and the system of local government. This holistic reform is critical if we are to genuinely change how we do business.

In regard to the Seanad, I will read what we advocated during the course of the debate that led to the referendum result. I do this in the hope it will be taken seriously and that the Government might take seriously its own responsibility, having lost its wish to grab power and take it from the Seanad. We propose that the seats of Taoiseach's nominees be set aside for minority groups and that the vote on the university seats should be open to all third level graduates. There should be 43 vocational seats, the vote on which should be opened up to the entire electorate, not just councillors, thereby enabling the people to have a strong voice. We should broaden the electorate, even from that base, to encompass the Diaspora and Irish citizens living in the North of Ireland.

We have said any group of 500 citizens should be allowed to make nominations to be a candidate for the Seanad. Obviously, there should be spending limits for elections, along the same lines as those in place for all other elections. In the case of nominations for replacements, they should be filled by the next unelected candidate in the original count, not just the person selected by the Government, as is currently the case.

We look for a gender quota system to be agreed between all parties and included in such proposals. Such a system would have our support.

The people's rejection of the ill-thought-out Seanad referendum that was supported by all other political parties underlines the need for new political reform by the Government which has continually failed to deliver on its promised package of holistic political reforms. Fianna Fáil published legislation that put forward a series of measures the Government could immediately implement to empower the Seanad and which would not require a referendum. They could be put in place in a legislative format. They would give all citizens a vote, which must be the foundation for any such reform, and broaden representation across minority groups, which is most important. A overhaul of the political system is needed if we are to tackle the problems in government. This is the time for real reform and the Government can start by engaging with proposals for change, the proposals put forward in the motion by Sinn Féin and the amendments proposed by Fianna Fáil, and beginning a process whereby it would take account of the wallop, the people's wishes and the fact that they did not want to abolish the Seanad. They wanted it to be reformed. The Government has failed to respond to this decision since, but it is never too late and I hope it will grasp the two main points that emanated from it - that the Seanad should act as a check on the Government's power and scrutinise national and EU legislation, as it should and must do. That is its primary role and what it should always be.

The Government must broaden representation to provide a voice for groups not heard in Dáil Éireann. Obviously, the electorate must be expanded to take in not only citizens living in the State but also those living in Northern Ireland, as well as the Diaspora. Every effort should be made to accommodate this. I hope to see worthwhile proposals emanating from the Minister of State who has been given the responsibility to act as a conduit for this sector. I hope he can play a role in bringing forward effective legislation to take account of the people's wishes. It was their wish to use it rather than lose it and it is up to the Government, together with Fianna Fáil, other Opposition parties and the Independents, to bring forward legislation that will do what it says on the tin. We might then be able to allow the Government to use the mantra that it has created a democratic revolution in some shape or form because it has shut down democracy in respect of 63% of Bills that have passed through this House. As I said, nothing is more evident than that which became apparent through the debacle associated with the setting up of Irish Water and the accompanying legislation.

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