John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. There is something seriously wrong with our system of government. The evidence for this has been apparent for the past several years. Those of us who have a visceral, emotional and fanatical devotion to the concept of absolute democracy will freely admit that, to paraphrase the old adage, democracy is a terrible system of government but it beats the hell out of all the others. There are many historical aspects to our stable democracy of which we can be very proud. I refer to the peaceful transfer of power in the early days of the State between the two rival parties whose members had actually shot at one another during the Civil War some years before, the fact that we survived the Second World War, sundry economic emergencies and armed sedition - from within and without - on the part of the forces of extremist nationalism. Those forces sully the word "republicanism", which should itself always be spelled with a small "r". However, there is still something seriously wrong with our democracy.

I say this because it is fairly obvious that most of the events surrounding the economic meltdown we experienced in recent years were not acts of God. These could have been prevented by the actions of certain men and women if they had been in the right place and made the right decisions. However, that did not happen. While we are delighted that we have a system of government which minimises, but does not entirely eliminate, the potential for despotism and which maximises, although does not completely translate into, the will of the people being reflected in the halls of Government, it does not operate optimally. How else can one explain the fact that, with the honourable exception of the Labour Party, all of the major parties helped to inflate the Celtic tiger economy and then supported the blanket bank guarantee, two actions which, as we now know, were catastrophic? How else can one explain the fact that those who are now loudest in their criticism of the actions of the then Government were proponents of such actions when they were in opposition? Nobody was prepared to put his or her hand up and say "Stop". The reason for this is that our system of government often - although not always - incentivises the election of the wrong people in the wrong way.

We hold local elections which are fought by people who basically campaign on local issues and who invoke a thin veneer of national interest from time to time. This bizarre system is brought to its apotheosis in circumstances where if one is running for election to the Dáil, one's bitterest opponent will be one's party and constituency colleague. I am not a professional politician and I do not like it when people refer to me as a politician. I like to think of myself as an advocate and that my day job is my day job and that is how it will always be. I can, therefore, consider this matter from the outside and perhaps wag my finger in a slightly accusatory manner when I say that it seems awfully bizarre that two individuals who are supposed to be buying into the same ideology and the same set of values, aspirations, goals and ambitions for their country can find themselves locked together like feral beasts during that quinquennial gladiator festival that is our general election cycle.

I intend no disrespect and I am a great believer in absolute democracy. I am also of the view that democracy should reflect the will of the people. I am not instinctively in favour of technocracy. In view of the fact that all the decisions relating to a very complicated economic situation are currently being made by three teachers - I am sure they were very good teachers - and a former union representative and that no one in the Lower House, or among the front-line officials in the Department of Finance, possessed a PhD in economics when critical decisions were being made in the late summer and autumn of 2008, one must ask whether we are putting forward to run for election the right people who possess the right expertise and national perspective. Even though I am sure there were smart people in the previous Dáil who understood that Ireland was not going to be the first country in the world which, despite the evidence of history, was going to have an infinite and ever-accelerating property bubble that would never collapse, no one stated - in the national interest and despite the fact that it might not be wise to do so from an electoral point of view - that it might be time to stop, even if doing so would precipitate the inevitable decline in property prices that eventually occurred. Had someone done so, that decline might have happened in a more controlled fashion. However, no one was prepared to speak up because all people were interested in was the next election.

That is one of the reasons I decided to run for election to the Seanad. In many ways, this House is "Dáil lite". It is a place to which people who do not want to give up their day jobs but who are prepared to sacrifice their time can come and can hopefully make some contribution to the national discourse. I would like to believe that the latter was the original intention of those who framed the 1937 Constitution. The Seanad was never supposed to be another Chamber filled with full-time politicians and functionaries of political parties. It was supposed to be a House with limited powers and a well-defined role which could augment the pure democracy of the Dáil by introducing an extra level of scrutiny and expertise without in any sense trying to foster some notion of elitism or make an attempt to subvert the Dáil's role.

However, that is not what happened. We all know what happened. Again, I am not pointing fingers. Those who are full-time politicians and who are interested in political careers and political parties will always consider ways to advance their careers in politics. The Seanad was a great big turkey waiting to be plucked. It was another prize that could be grasped by politicians and used as a place where careers could either be built or sheltered and nurtured during the rocky times of rough weather in the Dáil, and where there could be a gentle let-down towards the end of their careers. It was also seen as a place where people who did not necessarily want to be full-time politicians but who were party loyalists could obtain some degree of reward. That is what happened in the Seanad.