Mr. Seán Whelan:

With regard to the question of institutional change, I will first address the points raised by Deputy Dooley about who is in charge of the European Union and the growing tendency of people to look to national leaderships and setups. This trend was inevitable because the system has designed it in that way - it is the default position. The treaties, which were agreed and in some member states approved in referendums established the primacy of national governments in all matters. This means that when the system comes under stress, people will look to their national leaders, given that national leaders have assigned to themselves the key role in driving the European Union. The leaders are the members of the European Council and the national systems that back them up. Until that system changes, we will be stuck with it. Given that constraint or reality, we need to do what is best for us within that system. That is the reason I spoke of having a defensive outlook, hardening up the State and getting tougher across every aspect of dealing with the State.

Senator Colm Burke's suggestion regarding the role of the Seanad in dealing with European affairs appears to be a good use of the resource that the Seanad represents. In Britain, the House of Lords committee dealing with European Union affairs does excellent work and is one of the best resources available for those who want to find out about developments in the European Union. One can read many of its reports to find out about the EU. I presume upper houses in other parliaments are also doing good work in this area.

It is good that Members of the European Parliament are addressing the Seanad. There is significant scope for the Upper House to develop as a type of European Union clearing house. This would not necessarily add additional complexity to the system, as Mr. O'Brien pointed out, if it acted as an early warning radar - I am obsessed with radars - picking up issues quickly before they became problems. While most of the legislation is not a problem, occasionally something may slip through. The Oireachtas must try to feed into its offensive system to try to get things done when this occurs. The faster and more efficiently we do this, the better. I recall, however, that it is Fine Gael policy and possibly Government policy to abolish the Seanad as part of its institutional reform programme. The only element of the reform of which I am aware is the proposal to abolish the Seanad.

This leads us to the issue of electoral change, which is a vast area. Members will be familiar with the background and history of the issue. The use of single transferable votes in multi-member constituencies is a perverse system. It is nuts, and it wastes too much time. However, when one suggests abolishing it one is immediately accused of seeking to abolish proportional representation. That is not the case. As members are aware, the system in place here is a very strange and curious version of proportional representation, one that is used only in national elections in Ireland, Malta and the Australian Senate.

Members are all painfully aware that it wastes too much time. Members of the Oireachtas spend far too much time campaigning for elections and not enough time in the House dealing with the kinds of issue they were elected to deal with. I was going to say it is a luxury we cannot afford, but it is not a luxury. Members suffer under this so-called luxury.