Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak to the Bill. This morning, on the Order of Business, I called on the Government to withdraw this legislation. It is proposed to hold a referendum in the autumn which, if passed, will not take effect to 2016 at the earliest. Moreover, the abolition of the Seanad will not proceed unless Fine Gael and the Labour Party can stay the course. This stand-alone referendum will cost the State approximately €14 million at a time when we can least afford it.

Numerous Deputies from both Government parties have expressed reservations about the proposal to abolish the Seanad. No one has spoken in favour of retaining the status quo and there is agreement on the need for reform. Rather than propose to reform the Seanad, the Bill takes a lazy and minimalist approach. It has been introduced because the Taoiseach wants to keep a commitment he gave at a time of great personal political turmoil prior to the previous general election when he believed it would sound good to propose the abolition of the Seanad.

Previous speakers noted that one of the points in the Fine Gael Party's five-point plan in its election manifesto was to reform of the political system. Another one, about which we do not hear much, was an undertaking to create 100,000 new jobs in the lifetime of the Government. We are almost halfway through the cycle of the Government, yet it has certainly not created half the number of jobs promised. Time after time, the various reports setting out progress on job creation have scaled down the Government's commitment on job creation.

The Government came to power with an unprecedented majority. It argued that the election amounted to a democratic revolution and promised greater transparency, accountability and so forth. We have yet to see greater transparency and accountability or any of the major reform it promised.

We are being asked here to buy a pig in a poke. The Government has suggested it will reform this House if the Seanad is abolished. However, there is no mention of the types of reforms to be introduced into the Dáil if the Seanad is abolished. This legislation has been in the making for approximately two years. I do not know why the Government did not take an holistic approach and tell us the precise reforms it plans for this House. Even the Fine Gael Party chairman yesterday said that not many people are interested in looking at what happens here because it is stage-managed like a theatre and is not relevant to what is going on in people's lives.

Earlier this month we had a week in recess and I used that opportunity to knock on people's doors. Not a single person answering the door asked when we were going to abolish the Seanad. Instead they were asking what the Government was going to do to support the retail sector. Shops in towns and villages are closing every day with no supports coming from the Government. The Government has claimed credit for the fact that the rate of unemployment has stabilised in recent months. While that is welcome it has only stabilised because an unprecedented number of our men and women - mainly young but some not so young - are taking to airplanes and ferries to leave the country in search of a better life. They are talking about the crisis in the social welfare system where people applying for a disability allowance, domiciliary care allowance or carer's allowance are waiting approximately 12 months to have their applications processed even though they are entitled to those payments. No one is in a mad rush to abolish the Seanad except for a small number of people at the helm of the Government who are involved in a power grab. A few Cabinet Ministers want to ensure they take as much power as they possibly can.

The Government established the Constitutional Convention and, to my amazement, it failed to refer to it one of the main issues that should have been referred to it, which is the abolition of the Seanad. Why did the Government not refer this legislation to that body? It has suggested that we will have a reformed Dáil, yet it has failed to outline how those reforms will work. Since the Government has come to power we have only seen token reforms. To a point the Friday sittings are welcome because they give an opportunity for an Opposition Member or a Government backbencher to introduce legislation. However, because there are no votes, no Order of Business and no Leaders' Questions to the Taoiseach or Tánaiste, nobody is in here listening or debating in regard to the Friday sittings. Why would we not extend the sittings later on a Tuesday evening when so many Deputies from the furthest parts of the country are already in the capital?

The Topical Issues Debate was supposed to be a great advance. It replaced the Adjournment Debate because it was felt it was not appropriate to have it on last thing at night. I am thankful to have had my matter selected for the Topical Issues Debate tonight. We will debate the demise of our town centres at 9 p.m. and I hope the Minister will be present because one of the commitments made when the Topical Issues Debate was introduced was that the Minister responsible for that area would come in and reply to the debate. That happened for the first four or five weeks and then it slowly eroded. First one Minister was responding to two or three issues, next the Minister of State in a Department started to respond, and then a Minister of State from another Department started coming in to read out a prepared script. That is not good enough.

We talked about reforming the committees and a number of committees were abolished and streamlined. When I was first elected, I sat on a committee that dealt with the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, and the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, which was far too big. I am now on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children, which deals with two separate and important Departments. Each Department should have its own committee, allowing appropriate time to debate the legislation and other key issues.

When the Government came to office, it was proposed that we would be allowed to submit parliamentary questions all year round, including periods of recess, but that has been forgotten about. I do not blame people being cynical towards politicians and towards the Government. It came in with an unprecedented majority and a great sense of hope, but it has all been dashed.

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