James Bannon (Fine Gael)

That did not happen among elected local public representatives. Reading the report on the first Seanad and the list of Members, including such well known figures as William Butler Yeats, poet and dramatist, and Oliver St. John Gogarty, surgeon, wit and author, one has a sense of history. I am proud to be part of the system, as laid down in the 1922 Constitution of the Irish Free State. One can only have admiration for an era which had the wisdom to include such figures in our Upper House.

Interestingly, it was the intention at that time that the Seanad was to be directly elected by the people but, as a transitional measure, one half of the first Seanad was nominated by the President of the Executive Council and the other by the Dáil. It is now being proposed in the report on Seanad reform that 26 senators should be directly elected.

Despite his avowed opposition to a second Chamber, Éamon de Valera included proposals for the Seanad in his new Constitution in 1937. His vision for the Senate was influenced by Pope Pius XI's support for vocationalism in his papal encyclical of that time.