Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

Tairgim: "Go léifear an Bille an Dara hUair anois."

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for giving me an opportunity to introduce this very important and timely legislation. I thank my colleagues in the Technical Group for their support in bringing this Bill forward. I look forward to a positive debate, which I hope will be productive. We can all agree that the recent presidential election campaign placed an enormous focus on the Office of President. Attention started to be paid to the campaign much earlier than in previous contests. It was very intensive. Reports on the campaign meandered across our television screens and newspapers. In recent years, we have started to follow elections on our computer screens as well. This level of scrutiny was not confined to the duration of the campaign itself - it went on for months on end. Following such a level of engagement, now is the time to seize the opportunity to correct some of the more obvious flaws in the current constitutional provisions regarding the Office of President. The flaws in question were brought into sharp focus during the long nomination process and the election itself.

Before I go into the substance of what I am proposing today, I would like to congratulate President Michael D. Higgins on his recent election. We can all agree we have elected a fine President. I wish him every success over the next seven years. President Higgins has a long and distinguished record of driving reform. I am bringing this Bill to the House today in the same spirit. I appeal to Government and Opposition Deputies to progress this Bill beyond Second Stage. As the President is the only office holder in Ireland who is elected by all of the people, it is vital that our Presidency continues to evolve and reflect the dynamic nature of modern Irish society. The two most recent Presidents, Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, modernised the office by interpreting their presidential roles distinctly and with great success. I propose that the Members of this House, as responsible legislators, should follow their lead by starting to modernise the constitutional architecture that surrounds the Presidency. In that way, we can honour the visionary work of President Robinson and President McAleese and ensure the office retains its relevance in our rapidly changing society.

I appreciate that a number of aspects of our Constitution require updating. We must start somewhere. Perhaps the highest office in the land is the most appropriate place to begin. This is not the first time a Bill of this nature has been proposed. In 1998, the All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution produced its third progress report, which dealt with the Office of President. The former Deputy Jim O'Keeffe of Fine Gael sponsored an amending Bill, which was not altogether dissimilar to the Bill I am proposing today. The Thirty-First Amendment of the Constitution (The President) Bill 2011 is based primarily on the recommendations that were made in the report of the all-party committee. Even in 1998, the constitutional provisions relating to the Presidency were considered to be outdated. It is an indictment of this House that such a comprehensive cross-party report has been gathering dust for 13 years. The constitutional changes that were recommended by all-party committee were proposed just a year after the election of President McAleese. Her election in 1997 marked the first time that two candidates were successfully nominated by local authorities to run for President. I participated in that nomination process at local authority level. Just one previous attempt had been made to use this process, in 1945, but it was unsuccessful.

Until 1997, no candidate from outside the main political parties had ever achieved a nomination to run, with the exception of our first President, Douglas Hyde. No candidate from outside the main political parties has ever been elected to the office. I do not suggest that any of our distinguished office holders has been anything other than scrupulously independent-minded. I am merely suggesting that we should question whether the often-repeated claim that the President is "above politics" will ever be realised, given that the political parties remain the gatekeepers to the Presidency, in effect, and only allow one of their own to pass through. As a citizen, I resent being denied the opportunity to cast a ballot when an election is due to take place. That has happened to the citizens of Ireland on six occasions, when the political parties agreed not to have a presidential election. The age of political monopolies ended in Ireland in 2011. We should make sure it never resurfaces. If it happened in other countries, we would be the first people to criticise it.

Prior to the official beginning of the most recent presidential election campaign, several candidates went through a protracted nomination process. Citizens were widely engaged in the process, by and large. Social media were extensively used for the exchange of opinion. This demonstrates the changing nature of active citizenship, particularly with regard to elections. We have to take that on board because such engagements are valid. Many, many people were dismayed by the lack of an avenue for citizens themselves to nominate a candidate and there was a real feeling of frustration that the political parties retained ownership of the process. At both national and local level, parties agreed to exercise almost total control. Thankfully, that relaxed at local government level towards the end of the campaign, but not without heavy persuasion. Indeed, the current incumbent intervened at a very late stage, to positive effect.

This Bill proposes to insert a new subsection in order to introduce a mechanism whereby a presidential candidate may be nominated on the initiative of 10,000 citizens who are entitled to vote at presidential elections. This change was recommended by the Oireachtas All-Party Committee on the Constitution in its third progress report in order to "further democratise the nomination process for presidential elections". I believe it would have the effect of allowing an increasingly diverse selection of presidential candidates to be presented to the people and would help us truly realise that facet of the office - its independence - which we so prize.

The Bill also proposes to reduce the number of Oireachtas Members required to nominate a presidential candidate from 20 to ten. This change was indeed also recommended by the Oireachtas All-Party Committee on the Constitution in 1998 in order to make the means of nominating a presidential candidate less restrictive than is the case under the current provision. It is my belief that together these proposals would address the concerns expressed by a wide section of the population throughout the recent campaign.

I have introduced this Bill here today because we simply cannot allow the opportunity to pass whereby most of the population have indicated an appetite for change. Now that people have become familiar with the current arcane process by which candidates may be nominated, it is clear that the vast majority wish it to be updated. It is because of this desire for change that I make these proposals today. Some Deputies may inquire as to why we cannot simply wait for the forthcoming constitutional convention to address these matters, but my point is that reform cannot wait any longer. My concern about leaving changes to the constitutional convention is that I have no evidence that any attempts by the Oireachtas to make serious constitutional reform have ever been acted upon, so I must question whether the forthcoming convention will be the same.

I also have pause to wonder if it is a good idea to put wide-ranging reform proposals to the electorate in one measure. Perhaps it is more advisable to place non-contentious issues before the electorate first. This would be an opportunity to achieve changes in an incremental way and retain the more contentious issues for single issue referenda. Our recent experience of referenda should gives us reasons to pause for thought.

In addition to the changes I have already highlighted, the Bill also proposes a number of other changes, which I will now outline. I propose the reduction of the presidential term of office from seven to five years. This is in order to encourage a stronger sense of engagement between the President and the people by means of more frequent electoral interaction. With a less onerous term of office, we might anticipate an increasingly diverse selection of presidential candidates.

I see no reason for specifying that a presidential candidate must be 35 years. The 1998 Oireachtas All-Party Committee on the Constitution similarly could find no logical reason for setting the age at which one becomes eligible for election to the office of President at a greater age than that at which one may exercise the right to vote in elections, namely 18 years, and I concur with the conclusion of the committee.

I propose also to remove references to the President being forbidden from holding any other "position of emolument". The purpose of this amendment is to clarify the terminology of Article 12.6.30 in order that it cannot be read to mean that the President is precluded from holding honorary offices during his or her term in office. Notwithstanding this freedom, the wording places significant restrictions on the President to ensure that he or she cannot hold offices which are inconsistent with the office of President. Again, this change was recommended by the Oireachtas All-Party Committee on the Constitution. In its third progress report, it is stated that the committee is in agreement with the authors of J.M Kelly's The Irish Constitution onthe need for such clarification.

I propose to change the oath of office which must be sworn upon entering into office. The purpose of this amendment is to provide a means by which a President-elect may, should he or she so wish, enter into office by taking and subscribing publically to the prescribed declaration without requirement to make religious references. The introduction of such an option is intended to ensure that each President elect retains his or her right to freedom of religion during the inauguration ceremony and in order to reflect the increasingly diverse nature of Irish society. This change was recommended by the Oireachtas All-Party Committee on the Constitution. It is highly unusual, even among states such as Malta and Iceland that have state religions, that an option of make a non-religious declaration is not made available to a President elect, so I am making provision for that in this Bill.

Most of us will know that Article 12 contains one of the few examples of what can be taken to be so called mistakes, the requirement for the President to be elected by means of proportional representation. As we all know, this is impossible for a single-seat office, so the purpose of this amendment is to delete text which is superfluous to the needs of Article 12.2.30. Again, this technical amendment was recommended by the Oireachtas All-Party Committee on the Constitution in its third progress report relating to the Office of the President.

We have a responsibility as legislators not to postpone decisions that should so obviously be made. I felt angry, particularly during the nomination process for the recent presidential campaign, that so many of our citizens were frustrated by being sidelined by the process. We have not provided a mechanism for people to engage in the nomination process. This Bill is intended to address those concerns. It seeks modest but meaningful changes to deal with obvious flaws. Let us not kick those decisions into the space of a constitutional convention just to postpone decisions which should so obviously be made. Let us not ignore the measured conclusions of the Oireachtas All-Party Committee. Let us not continue to sideline our citizens in this process.

See this speech in context