Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Áine Brady. She will be reporting on this debate to the Minister, Deputy Gormley, who had to leave.

I am glad to be associated with this motion and to have joined Senators O'Toole and Norris in proposing it. I am glad the Government is supporting it, which is very important. The cause of Seanad reform is important and we need to debate it, particularly in this House. In the brief period since I was elected, just over two years ago, this has been the third substantial debate on Seanad reform. We certainly debated it in November 2007 and March 2009.

Circumstances have changed somewhat since we last debated the issue. In March 2009, the Minister, Deputy Gormley, was more upbeat about the prospect of real reform of the Seanad. I was rather disappointed to hear a note of frustration in his speech this evening. I do not know if I am correct in that regard but believe he was frustrated by the lack of progress on achieving consensus on Seanad reform. I am disappointed about this because I attended some of the meetings of the all-party group on Seanad reform. I certainly believed consensus was emerging. A clear consensus had emerged in the weighty and considered report produced on Seanad reform in 2004. I believe I am correct in stating it had all-party support. It made recommendations on the future composition of Seanad Éireann. For the most part, they were sensible recommendations on the processes by which Senators are elected, with a view to making them more democratic, and on the business the Seanad should be conducting. They would make the Seanad's structures more efficient and effective.

Consensus was reached and the all-party group was seeking to identify practical ways to act on that consensus. From what the Minister is saying, I understand events have overtaken the group. His speech states "there is little all-party support on the major issues of reform" and "we seem to be some way off reaching cross-party consensus on the Seanad and I will be reporting this conclusion to the Government". There is a tone of defeatism and it is unlikely, from what the Minister is saying, that we will see substantive reform. I would be grateful for clarification on whether my interpretation of the Minister's speech is correct.

It will be a pity if there is stagnation. The university Senators are very keen to see reform, as is the Labour group. I speak as the only university Senator in the Labour group. The group is very keen to see significant reform of the method by which the Seanad is elected and in the business it conducts. Unless such change occurs, the role and relevance of the Seanad will continue to be questioned by the public to such an extent that convincing arguments may be made for its abolition. This is perhaps where Fine Gael is coming from. We do not support outright abolition in that we contend there is a role for a second Chamber. However, it must be reformed substantially in order to answer the arguments being made for its abolition.

The problem concerns what kinds of reforms to be made. We have the benefit of an all-party group that issued a report and made recommendations. Let me address some of the recommendations and suggest ways in which the Seanad could become more relevant, thus allowing its retention to be supported much more widely by the public. Since I have been elected, the strength of the Seanad has lain in its debates on legislation, particularly on Committee Stage, during which we tease out the technicalities. The Minister of State, Deputy Áine Brady, has been present for some of those debates. She will have noted that there is space in Seanad debates for more considered and thoughtful contributions on Bill amendments than in Dáil debates. In particular, the university Senators have demonstrated during the years a strong commitment to bringing forward amendments that might have no space to be debated in the Lower House. The debates on them often lead to the improvement of a Bill, even if the amendments are not directly accepted by the Minister, although they often are.

The Seanad has served a valuable function in providing a platform for views to be expressed which are often not expressed in the Lower House. It gives an opportunity for people to be represented in a way that they may not be in the Lower House. For example, while they may not have directly fed into legislation or have been adopted by the Government of the day, one of the Private Member's Bills from the 1970s of my predecessor from Trinity College Dublin, Mary Robinson, fed into a change in public opinion and ultimately paved the way for reform of the law on contraception, with important socially progressive legislation.