Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I move:

Seanad Éireann, recognising the all-party support for the Report on Seanad Reform:

welcomes the fact that the indirect method of election by local authority members remains a core part of the new approach;

believes that every qualified citizen should be entitled to participate in Seanad General Elections and urges the Government to bring forward as soon as possible, the necessary constitutional and legislative amendments to establish this universal franchise as recommended in the Report on Seanad Reform and;

resolves to mark this, the thirtieth anniversary of the Constitutional amendment whereby the people of Ireland approved the extension of the Seanad University constituency to other institutions of higher education, by having, in the University of Limerick (UL), the first new provincial university, a special Seanad sitting during which the details of the arrangements

(i) to include the new institutions and

(ii) to create the universal franchise

will be debated.

I welcome the Minister of State. I am extraordinarily disappointed in the Government amendment to this motion. The strongest line in it is that the Seanad "resolves to request the All-Party Group" to do something, which is extraordinary. We have an opportunity to debate the Seanad. We either change it or get rid of it because it cannot continue the way it is currently operating. From a democracy point of view, we have to examine certain aspects of it and get them right. In other words, we either reform or we die, we either change or be abolished, which I believe will happen. The Government believes it controls these matters but it does not.

This House does extraordinarily good work. Major legislation it dealt with in the past year included the Adoption Bill, currently going through the House, the Charities Bill which passed through it House earlier, the Broadcasting Bill, the Civil Liability (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill and the Harbours (Amendment) Bill. Those Bills did not receive the detailed scrutiny and discussion in the Dáil that they received here. That is the strength of this House. What I say is no reflection on the personnel in this House. I do not go along with those people who say that local authority members should not have an extraordinarily important voice in the election of the Upper House. Those are not my points.

What is required is a threefold approach. First, this is a democracy. The Second House is owned and shared by all the people, therefore, the question of a universal franchise where every citizen of the State would have a vote, a voice and an input into the election and composition of the Seanad is a sine qua non, and that must be delivered on.

Second, the universities constituency has no place in a democracy as currently structured. It has only a place in a democracy where other members of that democracy, other citizens, also have a vote. Then it has a perfect place. Because of the vocational nature of the Seanad, it is completely right that a vocational group such as university graduates would be picked. There is nothing wrong with that as long as they do not get something ahead of other citizens of the State. The way to deal with that is for a person who is citizen and a graduate to decide where he or she wants to register, whether for the election in the universities constituency or in one of the constituencies outside it.

I am talking about the composition and the election of a Seanad in three main parts, or four allowing for the nominations of the Taoiseach as part one. Part two would comprise local authority members electing a significant number of Members to the Seanad, about half of the number they currently elect. Every citizen of the State would have a vote on a list system such that parties would list the candidates they want to put forward for the Seanad in order of priority and the people would be chosen off the list on the basis of the percentage of the vote they were given by the ordinary people in the list system vote. I want to focus on that element. I say to my colleagues on this and the other side of the House who feel threatened by what I am saying that this is a huge attraction to Members of this House who have no intention or ambition to go forward for election to the other House. It means they will concentrate on the inside panels being elected by the local authority members and if candidates fail to get elected to the Dáil and their parties want them to be Members of the Seanad, they would be put on the list system, therefore, they would not be in competition with each other when calling to county councillors. In that way, the field is cleared and dealt with.

The way to deal with the universities constituency is to extend the franchise to every third level college, as asked for by the Irish people 30 years ago this year. Having extended it, people who are citizens and graduates can then decide where they want to vote. They can register through their colleges or in the normal electoral process to elect a candidate to the Seanad. Surely Members would find nothing threatening in that.

I hold in high regard my colleagues who are elected through the indirect system by councillors. I am not demeaning that system in any way, all I am saying is that as it stands it is overwhelming and that is unacceptable. I am talking about more than 20 Members as opposed to more than 40 Members being elected in the indirect system, more than 20 Members being elected by the people by a direct vote, maintaining the six Members on the universities panel except it would be extended to all the colleges, and there would also be Taoiseach's nominees. Furthermore, the outgoing Cathaoirleach should be returned unopposed. Everything I have said, apart from the numbers which may be slightly different, is part of the recommendations of the Seanad reform group. We should grasp such reform and move forward.

People do not trust or have confidence in this House nor do they have a sense of ownership of it. Debate is ongoing about what it is doing — it does not know what it is doing. Journalists who report what it is doing do not have a clue. These are the people who were experts on stem cell research yesterday, the following day they will be experts on health matters, the day after they will be experts on the economy and they are also experts on the Seanad. I talked to a journalist recently about the Seanad and asked him when was the last time he checked what was happening there. For instance, the Broadcasting Bill was changed more in this House than in the other House. I could go through other such instances time and again but I do want to get into that game. However, it is the reality. Work is done here.

In a time of recession when the other House will be rightly focused on the economy, as it is currently, the work of legislation still has to go on. The nuts and bolts of the political process has to continue and this is the House where that can happen. The idea of bicameral parliament with two chambers is hugely important and it is never more important than in a recession.

People have often heard that the first casualty of war is truth. The first casualty of recession is democracy. We saw it in Germany, Italy and Spain during the hungry 1930s and 1940s when people, by election, got rid of their democracies and were left with dictatorships. The first casualty of post democracy — our journalists friends should note this — is a free press. We need only look to Zimbabwe, Russia or any other country where there is not a democracy. These are important issues that we need to examine. That is not a debate I can get into now, as time does not permit. This House does very good work. In the main the Members of this House are serious, committed people. They have work to do and are serious about their job. Nothing I say can take away from that. However, having said that even though it can be viable, vital and effective, in terms of how we are elected or selected it is exclusive, undemocratic and unrepresentative. That is not a reflection on the people. In a democracy we cannot have a system where the people do not get a voice all the way through. It is also not fair to say they have no voice at the moment. They have an indirect voice through their local authority members. It is an indirect form of democracy and there is nothing wrong with that. I disagree with some of my colleagues on these benches about that issue. That is something that has worked well in other places. My only criticism of it here is that it is overwhelming. To have 43 such Members out of 60 is too many.

The Leader knows my views on this matter. If we do not take control of that, there will be no tolerance outside of here for the point I have just offered. Most people would say at an election the people should elect the representatives, that they can elect local authority members on another day and that local authority members should not have the vote. We have seen it in the North over 40 years. It is too little too late that causes the problem. We need to look at it now, grasp it, control it, manage it and direct it. This is an opportunity to take matters forward, to change the composition, to put in place the proposals made by the latest Seanad reform group, which had the support of all parties in the Seanad at the time. It represents a way forward that will give new life to the second Chamber.

I went to New Zealand which eliminated its second Chamber and I considered the impact it had on the legislative process. I believe it was a mistake to get rid of it there. I was told that its Parliament could do its work in one Chamber. However, it ended up adding three extra stages to the legislation, including another stage after Second Stage and another stage later on. It got longer and longer, and less efficient. The idea here is that the second House gives a second view and a new perspective and makes it work that way.

I also disagree with those many people who claim this House should have more power, which is nonsense. This House has enough power. The Constitution is fine as regards the power of this House. We do not want to end up like Washington where there can be legislative gridlock with one House going against the other. The will of the people should be expressed in the Lower House and that should always carry sway.

It was reported to me that only today somebody said: "Sure what does the Seanad do only rubber-stamp?" I do not know whether those people recognise that the Government has an inbuilt majority in the other House. There is more chance of getting the Government to change its mind here than in the Lower House. For those people that is the case.

Let me get back to the basic issues here. I can no longer look straight in the face graduates of universities other than NUI and Trinity, and try to tell them that I accept that they do not get a vote 30 years after the people decided differently. I cannot accept that point, nor can I say that the vocational system works. I come to my final red flag to people. The vocational system is working not in the way it was contemplated by Eamon de Valera. At the moment there is a very low bar, which calls for knowledge and experience. There is a very low bar in the implementation of that. If we do not do as I suggest, we will find ourselves in a situation where strict reform of the House will go into far greater detail as to what is required by that.

I will give my own example. I was the chief executive of Ireland's largest educational organisation, covering the entire island, and one would imagine I would have been a model to stand on the Cultural and Educational Panel. As I am not a member of any party and am non-party, I would not have got five votes. That was not what was contemplated when the system was defined in the 1930s. Later I became president of Ireland's largest labour organisation. I am not blowing my own trumpet here, I just want to put on the record that it does not work. I should have been a model to stand for the Labour Panel, but I would not have got five votes on that panel. I had to find my way in here through the most exclusive cadre, which I found very difficult at the time. I am thankful for the decent graduates of NUI who have managed to elect me in the past seven elections over 22 years. I hope I have represented them as well as I can. In every election campaign and even before that I have said that we should reform this House. I believe we should take control of it now and do it.

The Government amendment is appalling. I got a call this evening from a representative of the University of Limerick, members of whose alumni association were talking with Members of this House and members of the Green Party in recent times and were given a clear commitment that the university franchise would be extended to all the other colleges by the end of this calendar year. I would like that to be put on the record of the House tonight.

I have listened to the debate with interest. I have only scratched the surface of it. It is a major, constitutional, democratic and structural issue. It is to do with participation in democracy and is very much to do with a lack of trust and confidence by ordinary people in the political processes. Let us put trust back into the system. Let us give the people ownership and a say in the election of Members of the Seanad.