Eamonn Maloney (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will be voting for the abolition of the Seanad. I have held the view that the Seanad should be abolished not just in the two short years I have been here but for almost all my adult life. Those of us elected to the House are doing ourselves a disservice as there seems to be some soul searching about what we really need and the idea that we must reform the Seanad urgently. That is one of the twin arguments, with the other being that somehow democracy in the Republic will be weakened if the Seanad is closed. Both of these ideas are nothing but utter rubbish.

The Seanad has never been democratic and it was never meant to be, as it was meant to have the primary function of being elitist. From inception, when the British were about to leave us, the idea was that it would be elitist and use an awful term, the Upper House, which is nothing short of offensive to the plain man and woman of Ireland. The plain people of Ireland elect this Parliament, and that choice is one of the great gifts of democracy, with the ordinary people deciding the nature of how this country is governed. The plain people decide who comes here to govern, which is wonderful.

With the inception of the original British model of the Seanad, the elitist Upper House came about because as an independent Ireland would elect its first Parliament, there had to be a body or institution that would be an Upper House to the ordinary men and women elected to this House. These were people who were not elected, and the list of Members had Sir This, Sir That and Sir The Other. That astonishes me.

This House is dominated by people who in one guise or another declare themselves as members of republican parties, and they are entitled to this and respect it. I am not a republican but I am a democratic socialist. I was here last Thursday night when Deputy Martin, on behalf of Fianna Fáil, and Deputy Adams, on behalf of Sinn Féin, made their contributions. They proudly claim to be republicans but they defended an Upper House which is a concept of an imperial power.

Let us be frank, it was the British who first came up with the concept of an Upper House, with the elite looking over those who were democratically elected because the political establishment did not trust the ordinary people of Ireland. They got their way and a Senate was established. When we took over the country ourselves, we created our own model in the form of the Seanad.

On the point about those who are identified as being members of republican parties, a man whom I admire, principally because of his economic views, made an interesting comment. A former leader of Deputy McConalogue's party, and former Taoiseach, Mr. Seán Lemass, during a debate in 1928 on the concept of the Seanad, pulled no punches in saying the following: "It is a body created ... not to improve the machinery of administration in this country, but to give political power to a certain class that could not get that power if they had to go before the people at a free election and get the people to vote them into office". He was right. In fairness to Mr. Lemass, he cut it down the middle and what he said is true.

There has been some discussion about the move away from the original British model of the Senate into the Seanad. I am of the view that it must be elitist by its very nature. A couple of thousand graduates, a couple of hundred councillors and Deputies of this House elect its Members but the plain people have no vote on the membership of a House which is supposed to oversee the conduct of members of the Dáil. I am not on for that and the quicker it is abolished, the better. It is undemocratic and I fail to see how anyone can come in here and defend it.

I lived in England for a while and used to visit Westminster occasionally. When I read Irish newspaper reports about the Seanad I used to think that the only real difference between it and the House of Lords was that Members of the latter wore wigs while members of the former did not. They are both Upper Houses for the elite. There has been much discussion of the need to reform the Seanad but how can one reform something that has never been democratic? It was never democratic so how can one reform it? That has never happened anywhere in the world. Most of the parliaments in the world do not even have a second House.

Some Deputies have taken the view that there should not be a referendum on the issue. I cannot understand how parliamentarians can be against the holding of a referendum. Is it that they are afraid of the ordinary man and woman on the street? It is they who will decide whether or not there is a Seanad, not the Deputies in this House. If we are democrats - and there is much talk in this House about believing in and cherishing democracy - let us put this to the plain people of Ireland and let them decide. On that question, as on many others, they are ahead of us because Ireland is growing up. They are way ahead of us. The public perception of the Seanad is that it is a quango, or more correctly, a political quango. It has been used and abused by every political party that has been represented in this House. I say every political party deliberately because I do not want to have double standards on the issue.

There has been a flurry of campaigning by the former leader of the Progressive Democrats and former Tánaiste, Mr. Micheal McDowell, who appears to be the ayatollah or spiritual leader of the save the Seanad campaign. He has suggested that if the Seanad is abolished, a great pillar of democracy will be lost and all of us will be under threat. He also made some silly point about a power grab. There is no power grab because the Seanad does not have any power. Other than prolonging the legislative process, that is, dragging out Bills, the Seanad has no great power. If someone can show me where that power is, I will vote "No" but as it stands, I will be voting "Yes" and will be encouraging others to do the same. I see the wagons being circled by an elitist bunch of academics. I am not against all academics. I am sure some of them are useful people. I am amazed at the great energy being put into the campaign to save the Seanad. Some have suggested that it should be reformed rather than abolished by way of a referendum. I know why they do not want a referendum - they do not trust the ordinary people to decide on this. Some of those involved in circling the wagons should reflect on the matter some more.

I have heard many references to the great people who have served in the Seanad. I am happy to acknowledge that there were great people in the Seanad, albeit small in number. Indeed, there are still good people in the current Seanad - the few who still speak to me. There have been some good people with their own views on issues, some of them quite independent views, it must be said. One such person is Ms Mary Robinson whom I wish to quote now. She did not pull many punches about the Seanad either, despite the fact that she was a Member more than once. In 1973 she said,

Let us not fool ourselves. This House is not in the mainstream of Irish life at the moment. It is not fulfilling a role which satisfies the desire for democratic control over government policy and for participation in the legislative process.

She went on to argue that "We have borrowed the Westminster model of a parliament, based on the House of Commons and the House of Lords. However, we have failed to borrow some of the better traditions of this model". She was right. Her outlook was totally democratic and she believed there was no need for a House of Lords or a Seanad.

I will now refer to a man whom I met twice in my life and who I admired greatly, Dr. Noel Browne, another former Member of the Seanad. He had his reservations about the Seanad and made some astute observations on the issue. In 1957 he said:

We must assume a literate electorate which has considered carefully our qualifications for government, for legislation. We, to the best of our ability, have come in here, considered the points of view of the people who have elected us, and passed legislation through this House which we believe is in accordance with their will. I can see no reason why we should deliberately accept a Second House which would have a right to interfere with what is essentially the expression of the public will in relation to legislation.

This supports the point I made earlier. Why should an elite group in what is termed the Upper House have any influence over legislation drawn up by Members of this House who are elected by the people to this Parliament? It is undemocratic. The Seanad was never democratic. The House of Lords is not democratic. Whatever about the circling of the wagons and so forth, one cannot reform something that has never been democratic. It is as simple as that. The whole ethos of the Seanad, in looking down on the Lower House, as pointed out by Dr. Browne, is questionable. If we make legislation, be it good or bad, we make it to the best of our abilities. That applies to all Members of this House. We do our best but what we do should not be vetted by people who are not democratically elected.

The people who should vet what we do are the people of Ireland and they do not need a second House. I have often used the argument that the best local authority in the UK, the Greater Manchester council, governs an almost equivalent population of this Republic of 4.5 million people. It sits in a room approximately the same size as the Chamber and has financial functions. We should be careful about defending an oversight committee. The people will decide every five years on how good or how bad we are.

I have been always opposed to the Seanad. If I were a citizen of the UK I would be opposed to the House of Lords. During a dispute with a Senator on a programme, I stated that I did not predict a riot on Kildare Street or any other Irish street the day after the referendum takes place and the Seanad is abolished. Anyone waiting for a people's revolution because of the loss of the Seanad can forget it.

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