Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In light of the fact that Fianna Fáil abstained on the motion for the establishment of the citizens' assembly, the party will also be abstaining in respect of this legislation. As the Minister of State identified, the purpose of this legislation is onefold. It is solely designed to enable the selection of citizens of Ireland from the electoral register in order that 99 of those citizens can be selected for membership of the citizens' assembly. Notwithstanding the fact, that Fianna Fáil is abstaining in respect of this legislation, it is appropriate that a number of comments be made in respect of how it is proposed to select the 99 individuals who will play an important part in respect of the issues that the assembly will be asked to consider.

It is stated in the motion that was approved by this House a number of minutes ago that the 99 citizens would be "randomly selected so as to be broadly representative of Irish society". As an attempt to ensure we get that broad representation, the Government seeks to rely in this legislation on the electoral register. In many respects, that is probably a wise decision since there are 3.2 million people on the register. As I said earlier, however, if we wanted a broad representation of Irish society, it would have been more appropriate if the random selection were not limited to those entitled to vote in Dáil Éireann elections, namely, citizens, but instead included every person in Ireland. We would have had a broader assessment had we included those entitled to vote in local elections.

In the aftermath of the Constitutional Convention, which took place during the term of the previous Dáil, there was some concern as to the randomness of the individuals selected to be part of that Constitutional Convention. We hope the citizens' assembly is effective notwithstanding the fact that we will be abstaining in respect of the legislation. Nonetheless, in order for it to be effective, the Government must seek to ensure that it is a random selection. I note from what the Minister of State said that it is the intention of the Government to subcontract out to a polling company the selection of the individuals who will be members of the citizens' assembly. The Minister of State's indicated that it hopes the membership of the assembly will be representative "in terms of gender, age and regional spread". I can understand how the electoral register could be used in order to ensure that there was a representative sample based on gender and regional spread. However, I do not know how the electoral register could be used to ensure that there is age representation on the citizens' assembly. It is also important to ensure that once we get 99 citizens together into the citizens' assembly, resources will be put in place to ensure that those citizens can carry out the functions - if this legislation is passed - that the Oireachtas will have asked them to perform. I do not believe it is sustainable or tenable to put 99 people into a room and ask them to discuss, for example, the most divisive and controversial issue that will be before them, namely, the eighth amendment. If it is a random selection, presumably the 99 people will have a varied amount of views on the eighth amendment. Some of them will no doubt be as reflective as the extreme views on the pro-choice and the pro-life side in Irish society. We will need to put in place resources to ensure that there will be a mediation or facilitation process in order that work can be done by this citizens' assembly in an adequate manner.

Those are some words of advice I would give to the Minister of State and the Government. If this process is to succeed, it is imperative that there be a random selection and that all parties and individuals in Ireland will be able to say that it was done fairly and randomly and that it was not slanted in any particular way to favour a particular viewpoint.

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