John Crown (Independent)

In reading the motion tabled by our colleagues from the Independent Group I am reminded somewhat of a condemned person reading the warrant of the court which tells him that he or she shall be led from the court, then stopping and making sure that wherever he or she is being led to, everyone will have a good chat about things, dress well and create a good appearance with acknowledging that the second part of the judge's pronouncement is that he or she shall be taken away to the place of execution and there the sentence of the court will be carried out.

The reality is that there is a very big elephant in the room. With no disrespect, our colleagues could also perhaps consider the possibility that in constructing the motion in this fashion it looks a little like we are giving the condemned person a chance to make a last speech from the dock before he or she goes rather than trying to appeal the sentence of death. The nature of the manner in which they have been appointed to the Seanad may be one which precludes some level of independence from the programme for Government. Time may prove me wrong on that.

I am now looking at the Seanad from the inside but I still feel a little bit like a political outsider. In looking at it from the outside, one finds a body which is dominated by two parties which are completely ideologically identical. We now have two groups of Independents who are not only internally ideologically inconsistent but each claims to be independent. It is a very irrational system.

In looking forward, we need to reform the entire Oireachtas. The Seanad has not been the proximate cause of the problems which confronts our country. It may have been asleep at the tiller and not have done a very good job in scrutinising the actions of the Dáil, but the sins of commission which led to the destruction of our economy and the desperate situation in which our public services will find themselves later this year result from the actions of the Lower House. With no disrespect to individual Members of the Lower House, we are seeing an urgent cri du coeur for fundamental Oireachtas reform. I do not know if we are the official or provisional Independent group, but I would ask our colleagues to join us in looking from outside the party system at the need for a major national debate, not on how we can bring people into a talking-shop within a condemned Chamber, but on how we can actually reform the Chamber to make it relevant for the future. In doing so, we should also examine reform of the Lower House. I suspect that I will be addressing these issues repeatedly over the next few years, but my own core belief is that we need to reform the way we elect Members to the Lower House in order that there is less focus on parochialism. We need bring in people who have a national perspective while at the same time not denigrating that sacred connection between the electorate and Members of Parliament. We need to have a Chamber where people are answerable to a local community but also answerable to a constituency. There would be great sense in having some version of a list system - either national or regional - employed for the election of the more powerful Lower House where most legislation originates. In addition, we could have a regionally, constituency-based, separate Upper House which would give people that sense of connection with the process of central Government.