Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister to the House, but I will take the road less travelled on the legislation and the constitutional convention. There is no point in saying something that is completely contradictory to what I have been saying over the past few months. I have a difficulty with the concept of a constitutional convention. I concede that it is the electoral register side of the convention that we are now discussing, and sadly we did not have the opportunity to have a substantial debate on the constitutional convention.

We have 60 Members in this House. There are 166 Members in the other House. We have approximately 15 or 20 Oireachtas committees. We have more than enough politics and more than enough politicians to raise every question and to engage with every single idea, but we have failed to do so. The fact that we had one hour in this House to talk about a constitutional convention which is deemed to be a huge departure and the fact that there apparently was a two-hour debate in the other House shows that the problem is within the political system itself. I would like to see the different Oireachtas committees working as mini conventions in their own right. Each of those committees should be engaging much more directly with the public. By saying that we, the politicians, cannot lead but must somehow follow means that we are making ourselves redundant. By saying that without a constitutional convention, none of these departures is possible, we are actually saying that we have an inability to lead, to think, to debate and to put choices before the public. I have a worry about that.

The Minister is a bigger student of politics than I am. When the Fine Gael and Labour Party Government was facing enormous economic challenges in the 1980s, we had a constitutional crusade. I hope it is not just ironic that in a new era of economic challenge, a similar Government will be bogged down in a constitutional convention like our friends 30 years ago were bogged down in a constitutional crusade. We have all the structures necessary in the House and within its committees to pose the big questions. I am disappointed that we seem unwilling to do so.

The electoral system for Dáil Éireann is on the list for early consideration. That is something on which the public expressed strong views. Many politicians have expressed strong views as well. The commission report on the revision of constituencies will be passed into law at some stage in the next few months. However, the constitutional convention could decide that a new electoral system and a much smaller Dáil would be required. These are serious issues but I do not think we need the structure proposed to be put in place in order to ask those questions or to answer them. However, on the basis that this Bill is going to become law, I have one or two questions for the Minister. Can the Minister provide the timeframe for the membership of the convention? How long will members serve on the constitutional convention? Some people expressed the view that once a particular question is asked and answered, a new list of members will be selected.

I am pleased that as a result of this Bill, the members of the public will be selected at random. However, if the members of the public are elected at random, then it is absolutely imperative that the Members of the Oireachtas are selected at random, if this constitutional convention is to mean anything.