Seanad debates

Wednesday, 11 March 2009

7:00 pm

Photo of Joe O'TooleJoe O'Toole (Independent)

That is for another day and other people rather than me. I did not put numbers into it as that would also have alienated people. I made it easy for people to support this motion but people found reasons to oppose it that were not relevant to it in the first place.

The point was made by Senator Dominic Hannigan regarding university as opposed to universal voting. He did not grasp the point I was making. University Senators and the university constituency sits very well in a scenario where every member of the community — every citizen — has a vote in the election. It is another vocational group and there is no problem doing that. As long as graduates have nothing above and beyond another ordinary citizen, it is justifiable. If it is any other way, it is not justifiable, although it may have been in the days when the system was established. That day is long gone.

An issue was touched on by Senator Dominic Hannigan that I was going to include in the motion but which I thought a step too far. As the Senator mentioned it, I will deal with the issue. In extending the vote universally and in line with the view of the Constitution that the Upper House is different, it would be a good place to experiment and give a first shot to voting rights for 16 year olds or 17 year olds. This is the reduction of the voting age for those who can vote for candidates in the Upper House in the extended panel. We could try that out as there is a view internationally that we should be looking in that direction. The matter is not in the report but we should look at it.

The panel system was referred to by Senator Boyle. It would take a constitutional amendment to do what I am suggesting and give every citizen a vote. It would not take a constitutional amendment to do something very close to that within the vocational panel. We could leave an internal panel being maintained and elected under the current form, nominated by Members of these Houses and voted on using the indirect method. The external people could be voted in using people registered as teachers for the educational panel, farmers for the agricultural panel and IBEC's crowd on the industrial panel, etc. Every Member could be brought into the process.

The point raised by Senator Ellis could be accommodated within the 1979 amendment to the Constitution, where as long as a person is a citizen, it should be possible in legislation to allow a person who graduated from a third level university in Northern Ireland to be accommodated. Graduates of Northern Ireland universities who are not Irish citizens would not be allowed in. That issue was considered at some length by the reform group. It cuts across the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement to give votes to citizens of the other jurisdiction in elections to these Houses. That is an issue we needed to look at.

We should have these debates and deal with the issues raised by Senators Bacik, Mullen and others in terms of internal reform, as well as matters raised by other speakers. We can act internally. What are we about? I am about winning back the trust and confidence of people in the political system. I am about diluting the cynicism with which people approach politics today and we can look at that issue.

There is the idea of proposing a sitting outside Dublin. I have suggested the University of Limerick, as it was the first college outside Dublin to be established that would come under this idea. It is a gesture towards contact with the community. Perhaps we are in the hallowed halls but we can do other things at another time.

I will list nine names — Catherine McGuinness, Mary Robinson, John A. Murphy, Professor Jim Dooge, Dr. Maurice Manning, Professor John Kelly, Gordon Wilson, Eamon De Buitléar and John Magnier. These are three groups of three; the last three were nominated by the Taoiseach, the second three were elected by the indirect system and the first three were elected in the university system. This illustrates how good people can come through all the systems. I value all the systems and we should hold on to them, but there is an imbalance.

In all the couple of hundred submissions we received two or three years ago, only one asked for the Seanad's abolition. The rest looked for something different. I was not a Member of this House when the debate on contraception was initiated by Mary Robinson as I was elected after that but I was a Member when we were the first House to consider the issues of AIDS, IVF, chlorofluorocarbons and climate change and stem cell research. We are having energetic debates on that on these benches and I could speak about many more issues.

The value of the House is beyond dispute. I ask people to be brave and confident about this, move it forward and get a result on the issue. We should show Irish people that we are here to serve, contribute and give political scrutiny. We are here in the spirit of the Constitution.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.