Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

By no means am I tarring all those who voted the other way with that brush, but certainly some of them deserve to be so tarred.

To reiterate, that is an important feature of life in Finland. It is one we should contrast with the upcoming vote on the Seanad where quite a few will vote for the Seanad referendum legislation even though they do not believe the Seanad should be abolished. I include the Labour Party Chief Whip, Deputy Emmet Stagg, as one such example who has stated he does not agree the Seanad should be abolished but will vote for the legislation nonetheless.

The consequences are bad for democracy. The ability to consider issues properly and fully depends on our having a second Chamber. Each time the Government has proposed or accepted an amendment to a Bill in this Chamber, it has made an argument against its own proposal. Legislation that has started in the Dáil and continued into the Seanad has frequently been amended. Admittedly, these are almost always Government-sponsored amendments but in itself that illustrates the value of the second Chamber and the second scrutiny of legislation. What would happen if there were only one House? It would all happen far too quickly; legislation would not be considered in the same way. The reality is that when there is a Government with a strong majority, as we have now, it is very tempting for it to drive its agenda forward ruthlessly and not to answer the hard questions, as we are seeing these days. That will be more likely to happen in the event that we opt for a unicameral system.

If it were the case that the Seanad provided no value the Government would never propose any changes here because those changes would already have been made in the Dáil. If the Seanad is abolished, the Dáil will be the only place where legislation will be considered. In addition, the operation by the Government of the guillotine on Bills shows that adequate time is not being given to discussion of legislation in the Dáil. This very Bill was guillotined disgracefully in that Chamber. How can the Government argue that people would be better served by the Dáil when it did not allow its own Deputies the opportunity to comment in full on the legislation for a referendum on the abolition of the Seanad?

On a related point, the Government stated that the recent committee hearings on the abortion Bill showed the value of a committee. Regardless of one's view of that legislation, Senators and Deputies were allowed only three minutes to ventilate their questions at each individual session. It was nothing like the scrutiny that would be granted to committees in other countries to consider legislation. We simply do not have a track record of serious committee scrutiny in this country.

All of this shows the value of a properly functioning second Chamber, in addition to the Dáil, which can consider and discuss legislation. This allows the Government an additional period to reflect on legislation and propose changes in the Seanad. It is also ironic-----