Colm Keaveney (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the measures proposed in the referendum. There can be little reasoned or objective opposition to it except to wonder why we did not reduce it to 18 years. The Government has taken the maxim from Animal Farmthat all animals are equal but some are more equal than others as an instruction rather than an ironic statement. The Government is very good at singling out young people when it comes to cuts in their social protection payments. The Government was quick in its crusade to attack 18 year olds, who were specifically targeted by the Labour Party in strategic attacks on young people.

However, that will not distract us from supporting the referendum. In a presidential election, it ought to be up to the electorate to determine whether the person is sufficiently mature at 18, 21 or 35 years to hold national office. Maturity is not a matter of age. I meet many 18 year olds who demonstrate more maturity than many of the Ministers who sit on the Government side of the House.

I have some questions. Is this it? Is this the extent of the democratic revolution? Is this what it is all about? Some €35 million has been put on the table to run a referendum. In the lifetime of this Government the funding of €35 million ring-fenced for mental health services has never been spent. Young people, 18 year olds, children and adolescents have been waiting years for mental health services and this is the extent of the democratic revolution. The Government has not spent one penny of the ring-fenced money and failed to honour the protection of the most vulnerable people while this is the flagship political reform. I am completely underwhelmed by the democratic revolution and I am not alone because the public are completely underwhelmed by the Government.

In various discussions in my constituency and beyond, I found broad awareness about the marriage referendum but no one knows anything about this proposal. It says a lot about the characteristic of this Government that it uses this as some form of fig leaf on political and constitutional reform. It is underwhelming and pathetic but that cannot distract us and distract this party from supporting the engagement of young people. Many people have confessed to me their views on the paucity of ambition in this Government and ask me whether this is all the Government has to offer in terms of political and constitutional reform. There was a glorious opportunity to put to the people in May a referendum on public ownership of Irish Water. When I knock on doors on Saturday afternoons and ask people to come out and vote to ensure the participation of young people, people ask me whether this is it. It is pathetic. One speaker described it as underwhelming and I must agree.

The Constitutional Convention was given a limited range of subject matter to examine and, like the Government, there was nothing too radical on the agenda. This was strategically chosen so that the status quocould be protected. Do not allow the Constitutional Convention to run away with itself, give it a limited mandate and make sure the network and the club upstairs in the ministerial offices continues as has been the case before. The democratic revolution was only words on a programme for Government and was never going to be an action. The Government managed to limit the brief of the Constitutional Convention and come up with well-reasoned arguments why it should not be ambitious. An underwhelming agenda was offered to the Constitutional Convention. Is this the best constitutional and political reform after where we have come from, given the appetite of the people of this country for wholescale reform? Is this it, reducing the participation age to 21 years?

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