Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Let us leave that aside for the moment. I have plenty of other research. The Minister of State will enjoy this.

The Seanad was abolished in 1936. This is fascinating and relevant. Why was it abolished in 1936 and restored? The Seanad was abolished in May 1936 after serious clashes with the Dáil over the Seanad's use of its powers to delay legislation, in particular, the implementation of priority legislation of the Government like the Constitution (Removal of Oath) Bill 1932, which was very close to the heart of Éamon de Valera, and the Wearing of Uniforms (Restrictions) Bill 1934. The enactment of the Bill to abolish the Seanad was also delayed. The Government did not have a majority in the Seanad at the time. Professor Tom Garvin attributed the political imbalance which resulted in the abolition of the Seanad to triennial elections. Abolition of the Seanad featured in the Fianna Fáil election manifesto in 1933, according to Professor Dermot Keogh and Dr. Andrew McCarthy in The Making of the Irish Constitution 1937 (2007). I had an audience with de Valera in Áras an Uachtaráin in 1972 with my wife who was then Mary O'Connor. He was a wonderful, inspirational man.

Although de Valera was opposed to having a Seanad, he established a commission, which the Minister should possibly look at, to look at the proposal for a second Chamber in 1936 as part of preparations for a new Constitution. It was a concession to the many people who felt that a second Chamber was desirable. The same applies now. The Commission produced three reports - a majority report and two minority reports. Each of them supported the proposal for a second Chamber but recommended different powers and compositions. The constitutional provision for the new Seanad took ideas from all three reports. To de Valera, the value of the Seanad lay in its legislative role. Introducing the draft Constitution in a Dáil debate on 11 May 1937, de Valera stated that:

My attitude is that, even though some of us may be largely indifferent to the question of whether or not there is a Seanad, if a large section of the people of the country think that there is something important in having a Seanad, then, even if we ourselves are indifferent to it, we should give way to the people who are anxious for it.

In 1937, the Constitution - Bunreacht na h-Éireann - was voted for by my and other Members' parents. To my knowledge, nobody in this House voted for it but their parents and grandparents certainly voted for it. It provided for a Seanad based on ideas of vocational representation and corporatism popular in Europe at this time and which were endorsed by the papacy in the encyclical produced in 1931 by Pope Pius XI. He was a brilliant man. This stressed, as an alternative to class conflict, an institutionalisation of sectoral divisions based essentially on groupings-----