Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I have appealed to colleagues on all sides on the issue. The inner and outer panels should be changed. The panel where potential Senators are nominated by Members of the Oireachtas should become an election taking in members of local authorities and the outside panel should be an election by people attached to a relevant profession. The agricultural panel would have an electorate in the people representing agricultural life, such as farmers or bodies such as the Irish Farmers Association. Partners in education would vote in the education panel, trade unionists would vote on the labour panel and business people would vote on one of the two business panels. In that way we could ensure every person in the country would have a method of voting. Some large geographical constituencies could also be picked in which people could have a vote.

I may have six votes in the Seanad elections currently, which is ridiculous. To ensure there is one person to one vote, which is a basis to democracy, a graduate should decide whether he or she is to be registered on the graduate panel, the west of Ireland panel or the agricultural panel, for example, but that person should only be able to choose one. When decisions are made along these lines, we can ensure everyone gets a vote.

There is no justification in this day and age for saying people with a third level qualification are more important than the ordinary citizen and giving them a vote that is unavailable to that ordinary citizen. It is inexcusable. Putting it all together, I agree with Senator Wilson. There are hard-working and decent people who are Members of this House - I will defend that argument - but it is an unrepresentative parliamentary Chamber. It is anti-democratic and out of its time. It seems extraordinary that the only way I could have a voice here was to stand for election as part of an exclusive panel of Members from certain universities. One cannot countenance this in this day and age. The only way one could countenance maintaining a graduate panel is if everybody else in the country also had a vote. That is the line we should take.

I recognise that what I am suggesting would create a huge problem and pose a huge threat to my colleagues who were elected under the panel system. As I have said previously, I would be happy to take that decision, but I would not implement it until the election after next to allow people time to adjust to the new system and allow certain things to be done. I strongly believe the Seanad will not be allowed to continue in its current format. The Minister, Deputy Gormley, means well, but he has been completely outmanoeuvred by Fianna Fáil on this matter. It will ensure reform will not come to pass, or if it does, it will be introduced too late to have any effect. I sat at meetings with the Minister and told him this would happen and which he said would be the last to be held on the issue and that he would have a proposal to place in front of us the following month. That was two years ago. He said he would have a proposal to place before us the Christmas before last and was then supposed to have it last spring, but I do not see it coming. I understand it is next in line after the local government consolidation Bill. The decision should and could be taken.

We need to have Members in the House who will add to the discussion. I am not saying the system to which I have referred would result in the election of such individuals. I can see colleagues in the House who have expertise in various areas. I could discuss that issue, but that is not the one we need to consider. We need to consider those who send us here. The current system is unrepresentative, undemocratic and unsustainable and the Seanad will not continue in its current form. Obviously, I have failed to convince people that that is the case, but if we do not make these changes, change will be imposed on us.

Change can be managed in a number of ways. The first question one should ask oneself is what would happen if we were to do nothing. The Seanad would die on its feet. The next thing one should do is manage change. One should ask what outcomes are needed from the process and then move in that direction. There is one guiding principle for all democrats in a republic, that every person in the State should have a vote in an election to this Chamber. In that regard, I support the Bill for the reasons I have outlined. It is not a great Bill, but I will support it. Much as I criticised Deputy Kenny for what he said about the Seanad Chamber which was uninformed and not rooted in argument, at least he started a debate, which is welcome.