Diarmuid Wilson (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, back to very familiar surroundings. It is a sad afternoon that we are here discussing this Bill. I will be brief in my contribution on this section. In essence, what we are being asked to do here is to vandalise our Constitution. Shortly after coming to power in Germany, Hitler quickly set about tinkering with the constitution of that country and we all know what the end result of that was. To tinker with a constitution and with democracy is dangerous.

Over the last eight hours or so very valuable contributions have been made, mainly from this side of the House, on how the Seanad came about and the historic figures who were Members of this very proud institution, and that was worthwhile. If a contractor who is in the business of demolition is given a contract to demolish a building of any substantial size, the first thing it does is to take a look at how that building was constructed before setting about demolishing it. The contributions that have been made during the past eight hours or so have been very valuable.

I am grateful to Senator Zappone for outlining in her contribution yesterday what the term "abolish" means. It is worth considering a few of those words again. It is to nullify, to destroy, to abrogate or to do away with. That is in essence what we are being asked to do here in this legislation. Many people have put forward the case for this question being discussed at the Constitutional Convention and Senator Norris put forward a very strong argument that this should happen, but unfortunately he did not get very far. The reason he did not get very far is that the Government ensured that he could not and that he would not. While issues, important in their own right but far less important than our Constitution and our democracy, were discussed including the reduction in the voting age, the reduction in the term of the Presidency among other things, this issue should have been the No. 1 item on the agenda of the Constitutional Convention before we got to the point of asking the people for their opinion.

The effect of the abolition day, which this section is about, will have on our democracy is unthinkable. This House, as others have pointed out, has put more than 500 amendments to legislation since January of this year. If this House were not here, that legislation would now be law and by virtue of the fact that more than 500 amendment were made, it would be bad law.

Senator Ó Domhnaill alluded to the fact that the abolition of this House will result in purported savings of between €8 million and €50 million, depending on whom one listens to or what one reads. However, it has been admitted by the Minister, Deputy Howlin, that there will be no savings by abolishing this House because it will be replaced by a committee of experts who will examine the legislation and make any recommendations for amendments that they consider to be necessary. In recent weeks, we have all seen what happens to people who are members of committees who do not toe the Government line-----