Dáil debates

Thursday, 27 January 2011

Finance Bill 2011: Report and Final Stages

 

12:00 pm

Photo of Brian Lenihan JnrBrian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputy for withdrawing the amendment. I also wish him well in his retirement. Deputy O'Shea is one of the fair-minded Deputies whose opinions are always listened to with great care, given that they are considered opinions expressed on the record of the House about the welfare of the country and how we can progress policy in different areas. He has never been a Deputy who has sought the limelight through unthinking utterance. He has always made a significant contribution to the proceedings of the House. By saying that he has never sought the limelight through outrageous comment, I am not to be taken as saying that he has not been a consistent and dedicated parliamentary performer. He has contributed greatly to the proceedings of this House.

I as aware of the very great respect in which Deputy O'Shea has always been held by his constituents in Waterford. He was a Minister of State for a period when I came into the House and he discharged his duties in an exemplary way. I am sure he will miss the House, to some extent, but we all admired how he bore up so well in his parliamentary duties, despite a considerable illness. We all want to wish him well in his retirement.

The Deputy raised a very important point about political reform. I too have given this a lot of thought in recent times and I have had an opportunity in the context of the recent leadership contest in Fianna Fáil to express a view about it. This is a matter about which I would not have been free to express a view as Minister for Finance. I acknowledge the importance of reforming the Houses of the Oireachtas but we should be careful that reform is not simply confused with a pandering to a populist wish to abolish, to reduce, to eliminate. Much of the public discussion in recent years has suggested we need a smaller Dáil, that we do not need a Seanad and that we need fewer Ministers. It may well be the case that we need a smaller Dáil or a smaller Seanad or fewer Ministers but the case should be made on rational grounds and not on the basis that we simply believe that it will please the public.

It is a fact in the consideration of this Finance Bill that the position of the Seanad has become of value because my officials are reflecting on the Bill as it goes through and their only opportunity to advise me of the need for further amendment arises from the somewhat limited power of the Seanad to make recommendations on the Bill next Saturday which permits a final tidying up of the legislation. This is a small example, but it is an example which has arisen in the context of a severe political and economic crisis, of how the Seanad can be of value in bringing matters to a conclusion.

I believe everyone will accept that the current arrangements regarding the composition of the Seanad are unsatisfactory. I put forward the idea that it should be elected by means of a list system on the same day as the Dáil election, with higher technical qualifications in order to bring in a new stream of people into Parliament and Government. This is not to take away from the fundamental primacy and the work and the mandate of this House but the people want to see a different type of politics and they want to see a politics that is focused on the common good. One of the difficulties with the electoral system in the Dáil to which, I believe, the Irish people are unalterably attached, is that it puts a large focus on the local and the parochial at the expense of the national. We need some way of balancing this in our representative institutions.

I thank the Acting Chairman for his indulgence as I have wandered far away from the subject of the Finance Bill. I wish Deputy O'Shea well in his retirement.

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