Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I would not be surprised if the Taoiseach needed to have some of his staff working on the referendum. I remind the Taoiseach that he now stands for the abolition of the Seanad but for the 30 years that I and a few others, both in this House and outside, demanded the end of that undemocratic, elitist institution, he was busily working the system to get his cronies in here and to continue the undemocratic rule of the 1%. He might lend another member of staff to the leader of Fianna Fáil to remind him of what he was saying two and a half years ago, when he was castigating that 75 year old institution for its ineffectiveness. Now, apparently, he is championing its continuance. Is it any wonder the people are cynical?

The cost is not the key plank in this. It is the question of the democratic rights of every citizen. Does the Taoiseach agree that he has no credibility whatsoever in proposing to get rid of an undemocratic institution, having submitted the Irish people to the two most undemocratic institutions in Europe, the financial markets and the troika, and having submitted to their demands that the Irish people should carry the burden of private debts of speculators, bankers and bondholders? The Taoiseach has submitted the Irish people to that huge, undemocratic attack on people's economic rights, living standards and so forth, but now he stands as a champion of democracy. When I call on people to vote "Yes" to abolish the undemocratic and elitist institution that is the Seanad, the biggest obstacle to winning that is the hypocrisy and lack of credibility of the two Government parties proposing it.

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