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

Does the Taoiseach agree that he should have carried the referendum to abolish the Seanad with a landslide vote, considering how totally undemocratic is the manner of its appointment, but that he lost it because the people did not trust him or the Labour Party, mainly because of all their broken promises? Coming to the House with one proposal, namely, to extend the franchise to graduates in colleges not currently included in the right to vote in Seanad elections, is a huge compounding of the undemocratic privilege that characterises the appointment of that body. Why should 23 year olds who have gone through a few years in college be more privileged than their parents and grandparents who have worked all their lives and paid taxes and have a lot more wisdom be allowed to vote in elections to one of the Chambers of this Parliament?

Does the Taoiseach agree that, in any Parliament which has more than one House, the Upper House could begin to claim some democratic legitimacy only if all citizens living in the state had a vote? How else can a chamber be democratic if it is not elected in that way?

I wish to put a more profound question. There has been much said about the Seanad, the Taoiseach’s reforms and bringing about a democratic revolution. Will the Taoiseach agree that this was all set at nought when the then president of the European Central Bank, Mr. Trichet, threatened to set an economic bomb underneath the Government if it had the temerity to burn some of the financial kingpins in European financial markets? When the Taoiseach capitulated to that threat, is it not the case that he sacrificed any claim to democratic legitimacy or stand for anything that could be called real democracy in this country?

See this speech in context