Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

There are three areas I wish to cover regarding composition. I agree with the recommendation that the university seats be kept. It might be hard to defend in principle, but one is defending it in practice. There is no doubt the university Senators, to this day, make a fine contribution to our deliberations. I accept the Seanad should have been reformed long ago, given the way we voted in 1979.

My sister's godfather was a Member of this House for 25 years, former Senator W.B. Stanford, and was subsequently chancellor of Trinity College. There is no doubt the House served a function in terms of minority representation at a time when cultural divisions and historical difficulties were much greater than they are now. The Seanad was preceded by the Free State Seanad, which was even more generous, but the problem is it then got into serious conflict with the Dáil and the elected Government. One of these days I must read Donal O'Sullivan's book on the Free State Seanad. I am sure I will find it full of interest. As far as minority representation is concerned today, there is no reason why anyone should not seek it, either through the continuation of the six university seats or in any parties that have, or have had, minority representatives, not only from the Christian religion, in both Houses of the Oireachtas.

I have to express some disappointment with the proposal regarding Northern representation. The only justification for increasing the number of seats from 60 to 65 is so we can have five Northern representatives. The discussions between the Taoiseach, the Government and the Northern parties were on that basis in 1998. Although it was not part of the Good Friday Agreement, it is something that would perhaps be properly moved on as an act of completion on our part paralleling a lot of other acts of completion. It is not something I would necessarily have sought to fast forward. We have had, and still have today, some Northern representation in the Seanad. We have had that on and off since the late 1940s and fairly consistently since the early 1980s. If one were to have only two representatives who would be in any sense representative these days, one would come from Sinn Féin and one would come from a representative of the Unionist community. The reality is that there are four main parties in Northern Ireland, not two, if one is to have the spread of representation that is needed. However, we also need the type of non-party voice provided by Senator Maurice Hayes. There is a non-party, cross-party or middle ground element that may not add up to more than about 10% of the voting public in Northern Ireland but, nonetheless, it is valuable and was extremely valuable at the time of the Good Friday Agreement talks. If we are to have a constitutional referendum on Northern representation I fear the Northern parties would feel themselves sold a bit short with only two seats. I feel we need to have five. That would perhaps have consequential adjustments which I have not looked into and would have difficulty going into.

I support the notion of former Taoisigh and Tánaistí having speaking rights here, but I would limit it to that. I would not go overboard in the way Senator Bannon suggested, as that would upset the balance.

I now come to what many people might consider the main issue, namely the electoral composition. I suppose it is inevitable, and this has been reflected in the debate, if one has come through a particular system however arcane or complicated one acquires a certain vested interest in it.