David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I commend my colleague, Senator Crown, on this very professionally drafted Bill. When I read it, I suspected that fine legal minds were behind its production. I am glad the Senator referred to the work done by those to whom he referred because when he used the word "We" in framing the Bill, I was afraid people might have thought I was involved in its drafting. Although I would have taken great pride from such involvement, the legislation which emerged might have been slightly different.

It is important that we should take the Bill as a first step and that we should use it to move on. Last week I indicated to the Minister that it is quite possible to have a Seanad Bill which can then be amended. The Government acted like a dog in the manger, however, removed the relevant legislation and stated that it had something better to offer. After all, the differences involved were distinctly marginal. The differences are not marginal with the Government or, indeed, with the Minister, Deputy Hogan, whose views on the matter are fairly widely well known. There is a huge amount of prejudice in respect of this matter. The Government has prejudged it and in an act of quite extraordinary political cynicism - and for no other reason - the Taoiseach of this country has decided to offer up this second Chamber of the Oireachtas as a blood sacrifice in respect of the follies and mistakes of the Lower House.

I remind the Minister that we had nothing to do with the parlous situation into which this country was dragged by Dáil Éireann, despite the warnings from myself and many other people in this Chamber that the country was going down the road to ruin. It is cynical and hypocritical. It is an indication of the standard of morals which the Minister's Government has that he would purport this to be a reform to abolish Seanad Éireann. He knows perfectly well because he has been around this place a long time, that there has been report after report. I have spent 25 years since I was elected trying to get this House reformed because good though it is, it could be better. It was corrupted, deliberately and specifically by the Minister's party, by the Labour Party and by Fianna Fáil, in their own small-minded interests. I well remember the days when the Minister's party and the rest of them used to stand over the Senators and tell them what names to mark so do not talk to me about the corruption or the removal from reality of Seanad Éireann because the finger prints of every Government are all over it.

Time after time, I have sat on committees to reform the Seanad. All-party groups have signed up to them and time and time again, including this very session of Seanad Éireann, I have tabled, as the first item under my name, the passage of those very proposals for reform that all the Government parties agreed. How much hypocrisy are the Irish people expected to take? I want an assurance that there will be fairness and truth in the referendum and the Referendum Commission because the Government has a bad record on that one. I do not want to hear any lies or any false statements. Perhaps leading members of the Government are almost as innumerate as I am but that does not excuse the untruths they told about the cost of this House.

I commend Senator Crown because he has proposed a root and branch reform. I think it splendid that we involve people outside this country, our own emigrants, who were left out by the political circumstances. That is something that needs to be done and it is commendable. People should be able to vote from abroad. I accept that rationalisation of the university seats is long overdue but they must be kept. I will defend them to the death because I am fed up and tired of what people say about them. Another bleary-eyed academic in today's newspaper says that it impugns the democracy, that we are the least democratic seats. We are the most democratic. I have an electorate of 65,000 and I think Senator Crown has 120,000. It is a bit better than the 227 who voted in the last by-election on the panel system. I am not impugning any of the Members. In fact, I think the Taoiseach, Deputy Kenny, owes an apology to the marvellous people, the wonderful and most stellar group of Taoiseach's nominees who have ever graced this House. To deride this House as corrupt and rubbish in that way is an insult to those Members, all of whom have performed brilliantly. They are the best I have ever come across in this entire House. What an insult was paid to them.

We need an efficient Seanad and no hypocrisy. We should not be ashamed of the remuneration we receive. Instead of ¤24,000, the person writing in The Irish Timessuggested ¤10,000, less than half the minimum wage. He suggested we should get rid of our personal assistants, the people who behave so marvellously for us. We would be utterly neutered and the House would be a laughing stock. What nonsense comes out of academe.

There have been Bills and rumours of Bills all over this House. There have been solo runs predicted here, there and yon, with people included and excluded. I say to fellow Senators to get your act together if you want to save this House. Let us get behind a Bill. If this is the Bill it has to be, then so be it. Let us vote for it. Do not extinguish a voice. I would not have been allowed a voice. The Minister's party would not have allowed me a voice in the Oireachtas of this great republic. I would have been excluded. People like me never would have had a chance. However, I got my own way in.