Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This legislation must be opposed for a number of reasons, the first being the origin of the idea. Last week Senator Eamonn Coghlan wondered whether the idea arose over a pint or a cup of coffee, and for all we know, that is the case. Certainly the idea was landed on a surprised Fine Gael Parliamentary Party in a hotel in west Dublin before a Fine Gael dinner live on television. Therefore, Senator Eamonn Coghlan's theory has a semblance of some truth. The idea came from the Citywest Hotel in west Dublin to radically change the Constitution with dozens of amendments. I challenge anyone in the House who has not yet done so to read every single section of the Constitution that will be amended, because if not one should not vote to put the legislation through. I suggest there are very few people who have read through every line of the legislation and every line of the Constitution that will be demolished. What a kick in the teeth for Fine Gael Senators, in particular, who gave loyalty to their leader at a time when others were noticeable by their disloyalty and their opposition to that Taoiseach.

Maybe those who were disloyal and opposed the Taoiseach had a point. His behaviour last week was disgraceful when he referred to the axis of collusion. It is a theme he has continued with because he once stated that a file had been done away with or dispatched within the Department of the Taoiseach. I do not know how civil servants who are in charges of these files reacted to that. It has been rarely mentioned since that outrageous statement by the Taoiseach in relation to the files but Fianna Fáil put in a freedom of information request and found dozens of documents in the Department of the Taoiseach, and they are included in the thousands of documents the Nyberg commission examined. Instead, we have had a Taoiseach who has been willing to use his office and the Dáil to smear people, and the smearing has started to move on to his own now. I see colleagues in the House and Deputies who are shaking over what is happening within the Fine Gael Party. The loyalty the Taoiseach seeks from his members is not the loyalty he gave to Members of the Seanad who, from media reports, backed him and ensured he remained as Fine Gael leader. What is going on within that party is not fair and it relates back to the way the Taoiseach does his business.

Like Senator Marie Moloney, I am delighted I was elected to the Seanad. I was a Deputy and I make no apologies for seeking election to the Seanad. The Fianna Fáil Party got the second highest number of votes in County Meath, but due to the structure of the constituencies, we did not win any Dáil seats. It is legitimate that Fianna Fáil has a voice in County Meath, having got more votes than some of the parties who got seats. I have sought to represent the 6,000 people or so who voted for me in the general election and also the other thousands who voted for my colleagues to represent a viewpoint that is important in society.

In regard to Seanad electoral panels, there is an idea that somehow it is a doddle to get on to a panel and that one just goes in and ticks the box. That is not true, and I speak from experience.

I was initially asked by my party to consider running on the agricultural panel. The Clerk of the Seanad in her wisdom, and she was right, refused to allow me to run on the agricultural panel because my qualifications were insufficient for it. I was quite bluntly told that the cultural and educational panel was the only panel for me. If one reads the Constitution, and many do not, it includes professions such as medicine and law. As a solicitor, that was the panel for me and I was bluntly told as much. Many people consider it to be the toughest panel due to the fact that it has the lowest number of seats and the highest quota. I could do that because I had considerable experience in the law for many years before my election first to the Dáil and then to this House.

It is said that nothing happens in the Seanad. Only last week the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform did not quite accept an amendment I tabled but offered his own alternative amendment to provide for something I had proposed regarding the public service Bill. I was annoyed last week to see the Taoiseach in the Dáil blame the Seanad for the delay to the reform of commercial rates. The Valuation (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill was introduced in the Seanad by the Government and the Taoiseach was asked about its status last week on the Order of Business. He said he would have to inquire with the Seanad but that he knew it works slowly, or words to that effect. The reality is that the Bill was stopped in the Seanad because it was deeply flawed, possibly unconstitutional and harmful to business. The Bill was debated on Second Stage, when concerns were raised by the Opposition and, indeed, some Government Senators, and it is now back on the shelf, presumably being redrafted because it has not reached Committee Stage and appears to be going nowhere. Significant constitutional issues were raised about the Bill, and the mode of appeal, by people in the industry and these were raised in the Seanad, so the Bill has been stopped. It is thanks to the Seanad that it has been and it should not go to Committee Stage unless the Government puts forward significant amendments.

We have been given yet more promises about Dáil reform. All the people ask the Government to do is implement what is in the programme for Government. Huge Dáil reform is promised in the programme for Government but, in effect, nothing has been implemented. Instead, the Government has taken over the committees. There is no Opposition Member in the chair of any of the sectoral committees. In the last Dáil the two European committees were chaired by Fine Gael Deputies, the industry and commerce committee was chaired by a Labour Party Deputy, the Committee of Public Accounts is always chaired by an Opposition Deputy and I believe the committee on the Constitution was chaired by an Opposition Deputy. Vice-chairmanships in some committees were also given to the Opposition. However, the Opposition holds no vice-chairmanships in any committees at present. The Government has gone backwards.

There are more guillotines now than ever. The promise in the programme for Government that there would be two weeks between each Stage of legislation in the Dáil has been observed more by its breach. There were not even two hours between Second Stage and Committee Stage of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill this week. In promising more reform the Government is merely highlighting the failure to implement what it promised previously. The Friday sittings are a farce. So few Members attend the Friday sittings that the divisions are held on the following Tuesday. That is the reality and it speaks for itself. The Government cannot whip a division in the Dáil on a Friday because not enough Members attend. Real political reform was promised by the Government but it has not been delivered. Instead, the abolition of the Seanad has been handed up on a plate while all the other problems continue.

A fundamental overhaul of the political system is required. We need more than stunts, and this Bill is a stunt. However, I will repeat my challenge before I conclude. No Member should vote against this Bill until they have read every line of it. There is a great deal more in this Bill than in the recommendation of the Constitutional Convention. There was very little from the Constitutional Convention but this Bill amends the Constitution throughout that document. It must be read by every Member before they vote to change the Constitution in such a way. I will repeat that challenge to the public and ask people to look at every line of the legislation. The reason a number of European treaties were rejected is that Ministers admitted that they had not actually read them. Shame on them. That is happening with this legislation as well.

There is another point. The Seanad is referred to approximately 1,100 times in Irish legislation. Has anything to be done about that? Perhaps the Minister can answer that question. We are told that the Parliamentary Counsel is extremely busy and that important legislation on health reform, sectoral reform and the legal services sector is being held up because of that. Will the Parliamentary Counsel now have to amend the more than 1,000 legislative measures in which the Seanad is mentioned, aside from in the Constitution? I have not heard anything about that. It would take a huge amount of parliamentary time and a huge amount of time for civil servants.

I will ask the people to read this document and vote against it to ensure that this Government is held to account. The super majority in the Dáil is not doing that. I urge the public to look at the promises and commitments in the programme for Government relating to Dáil reform, see the evidence that they have been observed more in their breach and wonder about the promises being made now to change the way the Dáil works.