Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will. It is the most peculiar coincidence that of 78 amendments, 77 were ruled out of order. We had the shenanigans last week regarding committee membership, which undermine the entire democratic fabric of the country. Regardless of who has been in government since the 1950s, I refer to the tangible direction of the changes from one Government to the next. The Progressive Democrats is the only party that can take credit for pushing politics further right that some of us were happy with. However, directionally, little has changed. That tells us the permanent government is in full control. We have all been in meetings with civil servants even at our minnow level where the boxes do not connect and, for example, we hear, "We cannot do that with the Ardvarney school bus in County Leitrim because it does not connect to this box over here."

Instead, the very function of our job here, whether it is as politicians or civil servants, is to make the boxes connect, not to decide that something cannot be done because the boxes do not connect. Our job is to connect the boxes. I would like to see a recommittal on the basis that people would be asked whether they preferred reform, along with a schedule of suggestions which would be kicked to the convention out in Malahide, with a White Paper followed by a Green Paper, or abolition. That is a real question, one worthy of a leader to put to the people. However, the notion that the Taoiseach wants to abolish the Seanad because he made a populist suggestion outside the Citywest Hotel and one of his advisers said it would capture the public imagination, - which it clearly did, as it flabbergasted the poor leader of the Fine Gael group, the then Senator Frances Fitzgerald - certainly did nothing to enhance democracy in this country.

The Fianna Fáil group will later in the week launch a reform paper in this regard. What we need is for the Oireachtas - the Dáil and Seanad - not to be subservient to the Cabinet of the day but for the Cabinet of the day to be subservient to the Parliament.