Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Certainly it has concentrated the minds, although this is not a new development. I have spoken previously on the history of the Seanad and the fact that throughout its 90 plus years there have been endless calls for abolition and debates on retention and abolition. In the 1930s there was extensive debate on the merits of bicameral as opposed to unicameral systems and yet the Seanad has survived all of those debates and has a strong history in a number of respects and particularly in terms of Committee Stage debates on legislation. We have had strong and thoughtful debates on legislation. A Bill which springs to mind is one the Minister introduced in this House, the Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Bill where we had a strong debate and Senators on both sides can contribute without the need to be spokespersons on the entirety of the Bill as in the Dáil committee system.

The Seanad has also a strong history of introducing Private Members' Bills. I mentioned that the former Senator Mary Henry is in the Visitors Gallery. She introduced important Private Members' legislation on assisted human reproduction and Senator Feargal Quinn introduced the Construction Contracts Bill. We in the Labour Party group have introduced Private Members' Bills which have been supported. Some Bills that I introduced as an Independent were subsequently supported by different governments and have become law. Therefore, the Seanad has a strong history in that regard which is only now being mirrored in some of the Dáil processes.

If the referendum is defeated in the autumn, the call for reform will become unarguable. That is why it is important to have this Bill and Senator John Crown's Bill on the Order Paper of the Seanad so that people will see in the debate on the referendum that there is a third alternative whereby if the referendum is defeated there are workable proposals for reform present.

I turn to the Bill and some of the specific points therein. I am glad the Minister has welcomed it and that the Government is not opposing it. Some important principles are incorporated in it. Those on gender balance are commendable and I strongly support them. The principle of opening up the Seanad to a wider electorate to enable every citizen to vote would be a major improvement. As Senator Cummins has said, I wonder about the method that has been used in the Bill. There are somewhat cumbersome divisions of the register. Former Senator Mary O'Rourke's paper on Seanad reform, which had unanimous cross-party support prior to the 2007 general election, proposed a simpler structure whereby there were two registers, one for the university seats and one for the non-university seats. It appears to me that is a simpler model to use and can be done without amending the Constitution. It is welcome that all the university seats would be opened up to all the third level institutions. That is permissible within the terms of the Constitution in accordance with the 1979 amendment. A number of other positive changes are proposed in the Bill. For example, some of the functions of a reformed Seanad would be to scrutinise EU legislation, scrutinise ministerial appointments to public bodies and to conduct public interest inquiries. I strongly support the idea of votes for immigrants who vote currently for the university seats. All of us six university Senators are elected, at least partially, by the votes of emigrants of Irish citizens living abroad. The practical difficulties others have identified can easily be overcome. In the Constitutional Convention in October we will look specifically at extending voting rights to emigrants in the presidential election where the difficulty Dick Spring would not arise.

I welcome the opportunity to have this debate and commend the Independent Senators for putting the Bill to the House. It should inform an important part of the debate leading up to the referendum in the autumn.