Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I will try to avoid covering any part of the constitutional convention other than what is on this Bill. I could listen to Senator Bradford all day on that topic. I love the concept of random selection of politicians, but I had better not get into that right now. I am not an enthusiast for a constitutional convention. We have a democracy that has worked very well for us over 90 years, and it seems to me that we can make that work. If this will improve it, well and good. Similar processes have been established elsewhere, such as in Hungary and Switzerland. The reason I refer to these countries is to ensure we do not make mistakes and learn from others.

I am impressed by the debate material provided by the Oireachtas Library. I have some experience of public opinion polls from a commercial point of view in using them to understand what products people want, where they want to shop and so forth. I know there are professionals in this field who will organise the selection very well. We must ensure we employ them to make sure it works and we get it right. To achieve this we need balances in areas such as gender, income, social status and age.

Senator Mooney stated any discussions on reforming the electoral system for the Dáil should be done by politicians. I believe to exclude the voters from that discussion would be wrong. If we are going to have a constitutional convention, we must ensure we get it right. The steps we have taken so far are in the right direction and I believe the Bill is worthy of being passed.