Jimmy Harte (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will not interrupt if that is okay, although I have lost my train of thought. We are not voting to get rid of ourselves and if we had that power, I am sure it would not happen. People should freely admit that we are giving the public the opportunity to decide our future. It is part of democracy that people ultimately have the power. Democracy comes from the Greek for "power" and "people".

I take offence from Members and former Members - although I do not include the Minister of State - who have said this is a totally undemocratic body elected by 1% of the people. The most important position in the country is the Taoiseach and he is chosen by Members of the Dáil. I would never say the Taoiseach was undemocratically elected. Most of us are democratically elected by councillors who stood for election in 2009. I give the people who voted for such councillors more credit than others might. I was a county councillor in 2009 and the people knew at the time that a councillor would have the power to vote in a Seanad election, so the people conferred their rights to their councillors.

Let the councillor make up his or her mind on who to vote for if the Seanad election took place. We are as democratically elected as the Taoiseach and we are as democratically elected as a TD. Someone said recently that democracy is the name we give to the people when we need them. Some people say that the Seanad is not democratic whereas Members of the Dáil are elected democratically. We are elected democratically. I am a citizen of this country and the Constitution states that the Seanad is elected in a certain way by councillors, by university graduates and by the Taoiseach's nominees, but that is democracy. For anyone who says that we are an unelected Chamber, we can say the same about the Minister of State, any Minister or the Taoiseach. The people may not want the Taoiseach we get, but that is our democracy and that is how we decide it. We cannot go back to the people every six months and ask them who they want as Minister for Education and Skills.

We are given a power and, ultimately, any Minister can become a Minister without facing an election of any kind. He can be nominated to this House by the Taoiseach and be made a Minister, as occurred with the late James Dooge, who was made Minister for Foreign Affairs in the early 1980s, which was one of the most important Ministries at the time because of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The Taoiseach of the day, Garrett FitzGerald, and the Government found it in their wisdom to appoint him as our Minister for Foreign Affairs and he represented the country abroad. He did not secure one vote from any person in this country. The late James Dooge was an undemocratic member of the Government, if I am to use this language that has been thrown out by people every day, who ask what we are doing taking a salary when they did not elect us. People who say that must reflect and realise that the people of the country elected us indirectly.