Eric Byrne (Dublin South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We have had interesting contributions to this debate. The Chairman has read Dr. Barrett's report, which is 275 pages long. I am sure every other member of the committee has read it too. I must confess that I read a seven-page synopsis. I am saying this deliberately. One will see from the minutes of the previous meeting that we discussed the eighth, ninth and twelfth reports of the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee and the decision of this committee was to note them as part of correspondence.

I see people getting excited because the people have voted to retain the Seanad. Well, if Members of the Seanad think they can do what the House of Lords is doing or whether they should be allowed to, given the fundamentally undemocratic nature of the Seanad, then I think we are barking up the wrong tree.

Why did I make public that I did not read Dr. Barrett's 275-page report? If members were honest, they would probably admit they did not read it either. It comes down to a fundamental issue that I do not think was mentioned, although, interestingly enough, around 12 months ago some previous witnesses mentioned it. I will mention it again because it is a very unpopular thing to hear from the mouth of a politician who has been very successful in using the clientelist form of politics that gets people elected to Parliament here because of the use of the single transferable vote and the immediate competition between politicians from the designated constituencies. Would Dr. Barrett agree that if one wants a particular degree of scrutiny and oversight - which we are not going to get - the report makes absolute sense, but simple things such as the resources of Members mean that one will not get an Irish parliamentarian to devote him- or herself to scrutiny and oversight to the degree that is suggested in this report, given the clientelist nature of the political process?

Has Dr. Barrett looked at other systems? He mentioned the Danish, the Swiss and the Norwegian systems. It might be interesting for this committee to look at how they do it, and we may visit, if that is not a heresy in this day and age, to see how they do it. I am absolutely convinced that they do not have a single transferable vote system. Under a list system, people who are chosen to be members of parliament from the list have specialist skills and interests in particular topics and subjects and can be more easily placed than can be done here. Deputy Durkan touched on this when he talked about the committee meeting for an hour a day seven days a week. The resources are not there to give members the serious level of backup that we would require to go into such analysis. I am involved in the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade and we have to deal with this topic. It is an interesting debate because when the Chairman hosted the German-Irish Lawyers and Business Association, one of the questions from the audience was on this very issue of oversight. Given the evolution of the role of the national Parliament vis-à-vis Europe and the strengthening position of Europe as a body of 28 member states, its powers may be of more fundamental importance to the citizens of countries than their national parliaments. I would like to think we could follow up in a serious way on some of Dr. Barrett's suggestions.

A comment would be appreciated. The Prime Minister of Ireland had to write a letter to the Irish MEPs seeking their support on the tobacco directive. Is that not a strange position for a nation to be in? This committee meets once a week. We note much stuff that comes before us, but we do not analyse it. Am I being too pessimistic? There is the issue of the banks evolving in Europe at the moment, but if that comes before us, we kick it off to the finance committee which will look after it.

Just because the people say we want to have a Seanad, we cannot devolve the responsibility to Senators. The Oireachtas structure will need to be fundamentally reformed in order to address what Dr. Barrett addresses in 275 pages.