Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Gallagher, and I congratulate him on his excellent speech, which lucidly explained the background to this Bill. It provided some very interesting details in that regard.

Senator Ryan mentioned electronic voting, about which we had a debate yesterday. I do not see a reference to it in this Bill, however. I have faith in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and those who will work to administer the new system in an efficient manner. The type of elections to be held in June are appropriate in this regard and I hope they will help us to establish public confidence in the system. As I said yesterday, I do not think there is any scope for manipulation of the system. There is a case for getting on with it. The elections in June represent a suitable occasion to introduce electronic voting on a national basis. After they have used the new system, people will be able to decide what they think of it.

Senators have spoken about trust. We have to take many leaps of faith throughout our lives — I trust that the floor will not collapse under my feet as I speak. We have to trust that systems which could collapse, in theory, will not do so. I do not think we should decide not to proceed with the new system on the basis of a theoretical possibility.

We have been phasing out the dual mandate over recent years. I fully accept that it is not a desirable phenomenon. This Bill will ensure that its final appearance will be in 2004. I think it has lasted so long because of our domestic electoral system, which ensures that Governments rarely have ample majorities. The by-elections which would result from a single mandate system would be of great importance, therefore. In future European Parliament elections, it will be interesting to see how eager Government parties will be to select candidates who are Members of the Dáil. The Seanad is less vital to the maintenance of a Government — a Government survived without a Seanad majority between 1994 and 1997.

I agree with Senator Ryan, who said that the importance of the European Parliament is underestimated. The various MEPs who have spoken in this House, such as the former Senator Avril Doyle, brought home to us the important role of the Parliament. It started as a virtually consultative assembly with negligible powers, but it is now capable of much more co-decision making. Those we elect to the European Parliament, therefore, are very important. The number of Irish seats has been reduced to 13 and it will probably be reduced further to 12 for the next election.

I do not want to be overly partisan about this, but there is a very strong case for the electorate being encouraged to choose from the mainstream parties, including all parties in this House, which are committed to the European project. I do not see much point in electing people who are doubtful or sceptical about the European project. They will be treated as marginal in the European Parliament, because the overwhelming majority of representatives are committed to Europe. It is a question of maximising our clout as a small country in the European Parliament. In the current Parliament we have certainly done that. The President of the European Parliament is an Irish MEP and our own delegation is led by a former Minister for Foreign Affairs. We have some good representatives. It is important however, in the context of the shrinking number of representatives, that we have the best possible people who are committed to European progress and the European institutions. I do not think representatives who are there to express doubt and scepticism about the whole project will have credibility or influence among their peers from all the other countries. We do not want to convey an attitude summed up by the phrase, "Stop the train, I want to get off."

I listened with interest to the contribution of Senator Daly, in which he made the case for single-seat constituencies and a list system. If one could have all-party consensus on single-seat constituencies, perhaps there would be something to be said for it. Single-seat constituencies naturally appeal to larger parties and not, generally speaking, to smaller parties. That is a problem. I wonder whether we should consider European seats as being Dáil constituencies writ large or accept that they are a different matter and that one must give a different type of service in these constituencies.

I have some reservations about the list system. This is partly because under this system the order of election is pre-determined, presumably by party headquarters, but it would also reduce the interest of the electorate in the contest. The one merit of the present system is that for whatever constituency one considers, one might pick one or two people whom one thinks are almost certain to be re-elected, but the whole panel cannot be predicted with safety in advance. In other words, elections are real contests. The problem with list systems is that they remove much of the excitement from the contest. If we are worried about people voting in European elections, I cannot see that adoption of a list system will encourage them to come out and vote. Rather, it will discourage them.

We must consider these questions not just from the point of view of the interests of parties, members and people standing for election but from the point of view of the electorate. In Ireland, unlike most other countries, a reasonable percentage of the population can name at least some of their MEPs. Across the water, if 1% could name their MEPs they would be doing well. The turnout for European elections there is also much smaller. I am not convinced by the argument that we ought to be scrapping our system.