John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will reserve my comments on the other sections until later and will stick to section 1 for the moment. There is a kind of warm fuzzy feel-good feeling about the folks who have done this and it would have been a great loss if they had not been Members of this House.

There is, however, something else which must be acknowledged. Imagine if things go badly wrong here and in Europe over the next few years and we have further economic upheavals, which many serious commentators state is a real possibility.

If, during the mid-term of a Government, we need to inject some expertise into Parliament, the Seanad at least provides a mechanism to do that via the Taoiseach's appointees. We will lose that completely if we lose the Seanad. I put it to the Minister of State that this is something which has scarcely been used. We are all familiar with the late James Dooge who, I believe, was a very fine Senator and accomplished Minister and contributed in a very important way to the work of government in the country. We would not have had the opportunity to appoint him.

It is quite plausible to conceive of a scenario over the next year or five years somebody like Garret FitzGerald who, while stating he knows James Dooge to be a fine, gifted and intelligent man who he would like to have in government, would be unable to do so. There may be a specific skill we need. Our current Taoiseach might decide that it would be nice to have somebody like Senator Barrett at the Cabinet table who understands economics in a very technical sense and the different and conflicting advice being offered. This is a mechanism which would be lost to us in the event that we abolish the Seanad.