Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That would certainly be difficult. There is not a single Minister who would not celebrate the demise of the Seanad because they hate coming in here - present company excluded, I am sure - and officials hate coming in here. Does anyone think, when the Finance Bill is being dealt with in October and there are 13 officials from the Department of Finance in the ante room, they will feel they should be here? They will not. They say: "What are we doing in here, talking to these muppets? We are the people. We are the machine. They are only the tools." It ought to be the other way around.

While I do not know if many would agree with me on this, our system needs to be similar to the Congressional system, so that a Taoiseach is elected and then picks Ministers, and perhaps five of those Ministers could come from civil society. For example, Senator Mac Conghail could be the Minister responsible for the arts - we could not have a better person - and the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, might be chosen given his educational background. These Ministers would then step out of Parliament and there would be a panel of people to take their seats. The Ministers would have to come to sell their policy to the Parliament of the day. If there are contentious issues such as abortion or measures with regard to banking, people can put their genuine views on the floor of the House without fear of being removed from a committee or without fear of losing the Whip. Deputy Mathews has shown respect to this House by coming to listen to the debates when he could be on his holiday break. That is real democracy. The other democracy is more reminiscent of the Mugabes, the Imins and much worse individuals.

I know the Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, is a decent man. I have been hugely disappointed, personally, at how he has approached certain things, but it was reminiscent of countless Taoisigh before him. Believe me, I know what goes on in the Labour Parliamentary Party room or the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party room because I have watched it go on in the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party room. The line is: "If you do not like it, there is a queue at the gate to take your place." For democracy, that is simply not good enough.