Pearse Doherty (Sinn Fein)

I want to make a point on the decision made by the Government last night to appeal to the Supreme Court the judgment secured in the High Court on behalf of the people of Donegal South-West. I do not agree with statements today made by the Labour Party and by other Opposition parties on local radio stations that there was no choice for the Government but to appeal it to the Supreme Court. It is clear that the issues at hand were dealt with fairly and squarely by the President of the High Court. Precedents such as the McKenna judgment mean the courts have a right to step in when the rights and entitlements of citizens are being denied by the Executive. That was the finding of the President of the High Court yesterday, that my rights and the rights of 71,000 people under the Irish Constitution were being denied by the Executive. The Supreme Court stated in the McKenna case that the courts have the right to step in when the Executive denies the constitutional rights of the citizen, and that they then, and only then, should interfere with the running of the Houses of the Oireachtas. It is a disgrace that the appeal will be launched. It is clear there is only one reason the Government is doing so, which is to frustrate the attempts of my party or any other citizen to take a legal challenge on the Waterford and Dublin South by-elections in particular.

It is interesting the President of the High Court, Mr. Justice Nicholas Kearns, referred in his findings to the 90-day recommendation that came from the Oireachtas Constitution Review Group. There is now serious scope for people to seek recourse to the courts with regard to forcing both by-elections, given that the Government does not intend to hold those by-elections until mid to late April, which will mean the seats will have been vacant for more than a year. It is doubly a disgrace that the Government decided on the same day on which people woke up to learn €6 billion of cuts would be inflicted on them to spend hundreds of thousands of euro of taxpayers' money defending the case.

Yesterday, we spoke about Seanad reform and I commend Senator O'Toole on tabling the motion. I did not necessarily agree with everything that was stated, but with regard to what we can do I appeal to the Leader to restore some confidence in the Seanad - if it can be restored - by convening an all-party meeting immediately with the purpose of introducing a Bill to allow for the automatic filling of vacancies in by-elections within 90 or 180 days. Let us discuss it together. Let the Seanad state we respect the courts. Everyone states they agree the filling of casual vacancies should not be left to the Government, depending on how popular or unpopular it is. It is something positive we could do and the public would welcome the Seanad taking that initiative. I ask the Leader to do so today.