John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Naturally, the famous monitor.

The accusation that the Seanad deserved an unpardonable death sentence, with no possibility of a plea-bargain, in expiation for its great crime in inflating the Celtic tiger would have been extraordinary coming from anyone, but it was particularly extraordinary coming from our current Taoiseach, a former Leader of the Opposition, who, in truth, for reasons known to everyone in Irish politics, was never going to be the person who while in opposition adopted the Cassandra position, warning people that we needed to slow down the economy.

While the Seanad fell asleep at the tiller during the meltdown of our economy it was not the first, second, third or fourth most guilty entity in that meltdown. The most guilty entity was Dáil Éireann, which elected the Ministers who were insufficiently expert in economic matters to see what was happening and who in turn supervised the appointment of the senior officials and advisers who, incredibly, were not in a position to either predict a problem or to see it unravelling in real time. I have, perhaps uncharitably, said that the Taoiseach criticising the Seanad for failing to stop the tiger was perhaps about as valid as if Neville Chamberlain had decided to blame the Mexicans for failing to stop Hitler even though he had been appeasing the Nazis throughout the immediate pre-war years.

All of the arguments which will be advanced in favour of section 1 of the legislation, which gives us an abolition day are arguments which, in the case of the economic one, are utterly unsustainable, in the case of guilt of the Seanad unsustainable and in the case of the democratic deficit, in truth, remediable. I freely acknowledge the great contributions of Senators Quinn, Zappone and their supporters in formulating their Bill, about which I am sure we will here in the coming days. We articulated an alternative vision for the Seanad because we need to fix the whole darn Parliament. Within the constraints and confines of our current Constitution there is a limit to what we can realistically do. We attempted to maximise radical Seanad reform within the confines of Bunreacht na hÉireann such that it would not require any constitutional amendment and which exists within the existing Constitution, including the various amendments and legislation passed over the years.

If we abolish the Seanad as proposed in section 1 of the Bill, we will never get the chance to look at the alternative mechanism short of there being a near insurrection-like democratic coup in the country which would shake the party system to its core and install a new wholly reform-oriented entity which had as its first item on the agenda writing a new constitution. I must admit that in the odd moment of megalomania, the thought occurred to me that perhaps we should try to do that, but that is another day's work.

Today we are discussing what alternatives might be available if the abolition, as outlined, is rejected. Our Bill proposed a universally enfranchised electorate electing the Members of Seanad Éireann. They would elect all 49 non-Taoiseach nominees - a constitutional referendum would be necessary to change the selection process for the other 11. The 49 would sit on the existing constitutionally mandated panels and on the day of a Dáil general election every voter would also pick the Seanad panel electoral ballot of his or her choice and would elect to vote in any one of the panels. There would be certain restrictions in terms of who could vote on the university panels to satisfy the Constitution. However, a university graduate who voted in the university panel could not vote on the other panels so we would be preserving the principle of one vote. That is fine.

An entire constituency is currently affected by section 1. A currently enfranchised body politic of our citizenry will have rights taken from them by other citizens if section 1, which we are trying to amend into extinction, is passed. They are the graduates of the universities who currently live outside the State. At the moment they have a voice in electing Seanad Éireann. If the Seanad is abolished, they will lose their voice in having any say in electing any Member of the Oireachtas, our national Parliament. It is offensive to democracy at its most core level that one group of people within a currently enfranchised electorate are making a decision to exclude the input of a group currently enfranchised and to disenfranchise them. What other precedent do we have? It would be as if all of the men passed a vote to take the vote away from all the women without letting the women vote or if people over a certain age made a decision to take the vote away from people under a certain age or if people who paid tax made the decision to take the vote away from people who do not pay tax. It is wrong and offensive. It is very worrying that no thought has been given to this.