Mark Dearey (Green Party)

That is good to hear, as I am also an optimist. I accept the Minister's bona fides on the issue of Seanad reform and I am well aware of his frustration at how slowly it is happening. There are many wider issues to be considered, many of which were outlined by Senator O'Toole.

The first steps to be taken should include providing for the inclusion of the institutes of technology. This would amount to a fantastic process of democratisation and give a vote to a far wider group of people across a far greater range of social strata and classes and geographical spread. The current system is a complete anachronism. Even as an initial measure, the change to which I have referred would result in a more significant and daring system.

As a member for five years of a local authority - not a county council - which was in involved the rating and planning systems, I did not have a vote in the Seanad election and resented this. The local authority of which I was a member had an annual budget of €27 million and collected €13 million in rates, which were comparable to the figures for some of the smaller county councils. I found this frustrating and it was a source of resentment. When I became a county councillor in 2009, I suddenly had a new roomful of friends and others who were courting my affections. I looked the better for it during the Christmas period, with my new tie, fine pen and so on. However, I found the divide between what I had done prior to and did after the 2009 election to be false. There is a case to be made for the inclusion of members of rating authorities such as the one of which I was a member in Seanad elections. It would involve a very minor change, be one which would not necessarily detain us for long and should be included in the wider debate on electoral reform.

The electoral commission is established on a non-statutory basis. However, according to the programme for Government which was renegotiated last September, it will be non-statutory for a period during which research and public consultation can take place before it finally assumes a statutory function based on wise counsel which will be generated during the phase when it will be non-statutory. It is then that I suggest to Senators Cummins, Coghlan and Fitzgerald that this measure should be tested in the wider context of the reforms which the electoral commission will propose for examination and introduction. The need for electoral reform is pressing and the disengagement does not just have to do with the current economic position in which we find ourselves but has been continuing for many years. Voter turnout has been reasonably steady but is falling and will continue to fall until we find new mechanisms to enable people to feel they are stakeholders in the political process. One way by which this could happen would be for everybody in the country to have a vote in respect of the panel to which they are most affiliated. This is a wise proposal, but one which would have to be tested in the heat of debate within the electoral commission. For these reasons, I would rather postpone a decision on the proposals made today and consider them in the wider context of the reforms which will be examined by the commission. I put great store in the determination of the Minister to see Seanad reform delivered on his watch.