Alex White (Labour)

I will try to keep the wind-bagging to a minimum. I congratulate Senator O'Toole and his colleagues on tabling the motion. There is an element of this debate that is profoundly depressing because it is shot through with a terrible feeling of déjÀ vu. This is at least the third time in my short time in this Chamber - although not as short as that of Senator Dearey - when I have stood up to make pretty much the same contribution I am about to make. That is not acceptable, and it is not acceptable that the Minister, Deputy Gormley, would finish his speech to the House in January 2010 with the following conclusion:

We seem to be some way off cross-party consensus on reform of the Seanad and I will be reporting this conclusion to the Government. I intend to submit a report for discussion with my colleagues in government shortly. We will have regard to the views expressed by all parties and the commitments given in the programme for Government. We will then consider the next steps to be taken in the process. While consensus remains elusive, I have previously informed the House that the absence of consensus cannot be allowed to lead to paralysis. It is my ambition that the Government will press ahead with reforms from which successive Governments have shied away.

He is correct about successive Governments having shied away. I will take that criticism in so far as it involves parties on this side of the House. However, that is now almost one year ago. The Minister had said the same thing in the House some months earlier and the Minister of State, Deputy Áine Brady, said the same thing again today. Senator Fitzgerald was right to ask whether this proposal has been brought to Government.

We cannot fly everything on the electoral commission. Either the Government has serious proposals to bring forward or it does not. Perhaps it should just say it does not see Seanad reform as being a priority at this time. That is what I gathered from listening to the Minister of State and, although it is not what she in fact said, it was what any reasonable person would have concluded. She tipped us off when she asked what we were doing about it. I wonder what the Leader thinks about the very thinly veiled criticism of some of the procedures and practices in the House. For example, the Minister of State was unhappy today that we had two debates about the Seanad and wanted to know what reforms we were bringing forward ourselves. In so far as it goes, that is not an unreasonable point for her to make but it does not constitute a response to this debate.

I and others have raised this issue repeatedly. On the Order of Business last week, I asked the Leader to name one reform, however minimal, he had brought forward in the lifetime of this Seanad. Our of respect, I tried to maintain my practice of not interrupting when he replies to the House and although sometimes I fail, on that occasion I did not. He announced in his reply that he had brought about a change, namely, a practice had been introduced whereby Ministers who made statements in the House would take questions. That is not a reform that has been introduced since 2007 because it has been in Standing Orders for many years. Therefore, the sum total of the reform that has been introduced since we all were elected to the House in 2007 is exactly zero.

People on both sides are blue in the face talking about the economy and the grave financial situation facing the country. Why can we not have a debate that is structured differently? Why is it all about the Minister making a statement before we make set-piece statements? Why can we not have a more committee-style debate? Why can we not - perish the thought - interrupt each other sometimes, not in an attacking way but in a way which seeks to clarify what each Member is saying in order that we can add to the debate and move it forward?

I am a member of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges where these issues have arisen. I have also raised at the CPP the issue of a petitions system which the Labour Party has been pushing for years and which was, I understood, agreed at the CPP. Senator O'Toole can correct me if I am wrong.