Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

Some matters arise from the Taoiseach's reply. While I understand the Taoiseach's preference is to hold the referendums on children and the EU reform treaty on the same day, do I take it that this is now unlikely to happen, given the timetable the committee has set for itself?

Second, is there still some doubt about whether a referendum is required on the EU treaty? Do I understand from the Taoiseach's comment that he has not yet received the formal advice of the Attorney General in respect of the EU treaty and that there is still some element of doubt about whether there will be a referendum on it?

I would like to ask the Taoiseach about Seanad reform. He mentioned that well over 20 years have passed since we had a referendum on the university panels. In light of the outcome of that referendum and the recent comments of the Minister, Deputy Gormley, about extending university panel voting rights to all third level graduates, is it not time to consider the idea of universal suffrage for the election of the Seanad? It seems elitist and unnecessary in the modern age to give certain voting rights exclusively to graduates of universities and their equivalents without extending those rights to the entire population. A large proportion of the population would be entitled to vote in Seanad elections if the university franchise were to be extended to all graduates, whereas a small and exclusive minority of the population went to university in 1937. Would it not be better for the health of our democracy to elect the Seanad by universal suffrage, rather than by the archaic 1930s methods currently used? As those methods draw on some of the political thinking of the 1930s, they would be more appropriately confined to the history books than retained as the way we elect one of the Houses of the Oireachtas.

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