Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In regard to the size of the committee, I note that it has a maximum membership of 26 but it only has 22 people nominated to it. It does seem like a lot, and it is a lot, but it is actually not much greater than the number of people sitting around the Cabinet table. It may not be as huge as it seems to people, but it is a large number. The reason for that is twofold. First, every group had to have at least one representative, including the Civil Engagement group, the Independent Alliance and the Social Democrat-Green group. We did not think it was appropriate to leave out any group. Once that was done, there also had to be proportionality. Very big groups like Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin should have more members than very small groups. We then get to the figure of 20-something, whether we like it or not.

It is not unprecedented. The all-party Committee on Future Funding of Domestic Water Services, the all-party Committee on the Future of Mental Health Care and the all-party Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution had similar numbers of members and produced good outcomes in a reasonable time period, so I do not think we should underestimate the capacity of people nominated to that committee to deliver the goods. The Independent Alliance has one member, and that member is indeed the Minister, Deputy Ross. As all members of the Independent Alliance are Ministers, I imagine they had no alternative but to appoint a Minister to represent them on that committee. It is an unusual situation for all members of a group to be Ministers, but that is the situation at the moment.

Regarding Seanad reform, I very much agree with the proposal to have people in the Seanad who represent the diaspora and Irish citizens overseas. That is done to an extent with Senator Billy Lawless, who has been appointed as a Taoiseach's nominee to the Seanad. However, as they have in France, for example, I would like to see people elected from international constituencies, maybe North America, Europe and so on, representing our citizens overseas. I also very much want to see the voice of Northern Ireland represented in our Seanad. When the Free State Seanad was established, part of its original role was to represent unionist voices. Half of the members of the first Free State Seanad were indeed unionist voices, particularly Southern unionists. I definitely think that our Seanad would add to our Parliament if we had more people from Northern Ireland sitting in it. We have two now, or possibly three; I refer to the recently elected Senator Ian Marshall. However, I think we could have more. That would definitely add to our Parliament, and that is something I very much favour.

The Constitution makes all this very complicated, by the way. People may not be aware of this, but the Constitution requires that Seanad elections are carried out by postal vote. A postal vote involving perhaps a 1 million votes in Northern Ireland is not an easy operation. A postal vote involving millions of votes from all over the world - Irish people are now all over the world - is going to be logistically complicated and very expensive. Perhaps it is not even a good idea, but it would require a constitutional change to avoid it. It is also going to require that we develop a whole new register of electors. Not only would we need to register people in Northern Ireland and people all over the world, but our Constitution requires that people elect to vote on a particular panel. Changing that would require a constitutional amendment. It is not good enough that people are registered to vote; they will have to register to vote and opt to be an elector on a certain panel, and I think that is going to be very confusing for people. The panels that exist were invented in 1930s. They derive from a papal encyclical, the name of which I forget, and they probably do not reflect the way modern society breaks down.

This is not going to be a simple reform, for those reasons among others. However, the remit of the committee is not to come up with a new set of proposals. The remit of the committee is to implement the Manning report. This is an implementation group, and I expect that it will help to produce the legislation which we will then put through this House and the other House, allowing the next Seanad or the Seanad after it to be elected according to these new rules. Its terms of reference enable it to come up with alternatives if the committee finds that some of the aspects of the Manning report are impractical.

In terms of resources, the Houses are obviously run by the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission. I imagine the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has a role in approving. I am not sure how that works, but the Department perhaps has a role in approving particular posts and so on. Perhaps the solution to that is just to give the Oireachtas more autonomy within its own budget to decide at what grade people should be hired. That practice does exist. It is called delegated sanctions.

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