Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Senator Zappone said the Seanad has the job of providing checks and balances, to engage in deliberation and to generate new ideas. I think it does so. That is why I disagree with Lord Edward Fitzgerald who said that Leinster House does not inspire the brightest ideas. I find it to be the most exciting and interesting place. It is certainly far superior to any of the committees, quangos and bodies on which Taoisigh, including John Bruton and others up to the previous Government, asked me to serve. I agree with Senator van Turnhout that we need to do more on legislation. The Taoiseach should come in here more often. I do not want to make any melodrama out of that.

Dáil reform is needed. I have spoken about the Whip system. We need the diverse voices because group-think got us into the mess that we all, the Minister of State, I and everybody here, are trying to correct. We need more diverse voices, more elected people. When we consider the disasters from 2008 to now, the political part was solved, our Fianna Fáil friends are 58 Deputies lighter as a result. The other parts have not been solved and they will be pleased because there will be a much smaller Oireachtas without the Seanad to call them to account. The people have solved the political bit and I hope that it will be solved by the people the right way around on this occasion.

Senator Noone mentioned the media. The media has turned in our favour in the recent past. The longer this discussion goes on, the more the media sees a role for this House. People said that not one Government Senator is in favour of this.

Senator Wilson referred to tinkering with the Constitution. My research assistant tells me this will change the Constitution and its schedules in 96 places. That is virtually writing a new constitution. I would like the literature given to people to include a remark to the effect that the Constitution will be altered in 96 places if this goes through. We do need transitional arrangements and I will come to those in a second. The people will decide but I have been in court cases for the citizen versus the State and the State holds all the aces. That is the fear people on our side have. I appreciate the Minister of State's assurance that it may not in this particular case.

I have to stick to the point about Northern Ireland being neglected. Indeed, the Minister of State mentioned it in his response. We will be using a Dáil electoral register to abolish the Seanad which has a different electoral register, the main difference being Northern Ireland, as the Minister of State said. Those voters are being put out of the Oireachtas by a referendum in which they have no say. That is the point I am sticking to. The Minister of State cannot give votes to my constituents in Northern Ireland because the Constitution does not allow it. If the Minister of State, and the Government, get their way they will no longer have any say in this House.

There is a most interesting article in the current issue of The Church of Ireland Gazette by Martin Mansergh, a distinguished former Member of this House. He feels that the way the two parts of Ireland relate to each other has been going wrong for a long time not least because the Parliament in Northern Ireland was already in session in the June before the talks took place in November and December to sign the Treaty. He feels that the Home Rule solution and more accommodation between the two sides would have been a better way to run things. He has always been a voice for reconciliation and was a major voice in the peace process. In his book The Legacy of History Dr. Mansergh says that we have lacked the generosity needed for the two parts of Ireland to talk to and relate to one another. They do it with me but that is a historical accident. I can draw bigger numbers at a meeting in Enniskillen and the first one I held after being elected was in Belfast. That is a historical accident. These people are scorned in the documentation the Minister of State has cited. Dr. Mansergh quotes the manifesto of the Belfast Whigs in 1790:

That the Protestant Dissenters, fully convinced of the constitutional principles of their brethren, the Roman Catholics, and of their zeal to support and defend the Liberty of their country will on all occasions support their just claim to the enjoyment of the rights and privileges of freeborn citizens entitled to fill every office and serve in whatever station their country may think proper to call them to.

Martin Mansergh goes on to write:

The generous tones of the 1780s and 1790s which in this country would have made an enormous impact in building confidence, harmony and reconciliation between the communities, have been conspicuous by their absence.

I have no doubt that this will be felt North of the Border.

James Madison, the fourth American President, one of the framers of the American Constitution, said that the founding fathers did not intend the United States Government to be partisan, the question is how to incorporate in a republic people who differ from us. That is what Arthur Griffith did when the Provost of TCD and others approached him. The undertakings were specified in a letter written to Arthur Griffith by Lloyd George. That is what Arthur Griffith agreed to. That spirit may be evident at the meeting of Young Fine Gael at the weekend. On page 75 of his book, Donal O'Sullivan writes that they argued that there should be Senate. Griffith said he was in favour of a second chamber and believed his colleagues would be. The purpose was to provide safeguards for the representation of minorities and the general protection of their interests. The TCD seats have done that. The need for that is still felt. That is why there are people demonstrating against the PSNI and the Parades Commission. Two of the Northern Ireland parties will campaign against the Government on this issue.

The Church of Ireland notes in The Irish Times on 13 July 2013 about the commemorations state: "These are valuable initiatives for they provide a voice for the small minority which is the Church of Ireland - a community which has something significant to say but whose voice could be so easily overwhelmed by the national scale of commemoration".

These valuable initiatives provide a voice for a small minority, the Church of Ireland - a community which has something significant to say but whose voice can be so easily overwhelmed by the national scale of commemoration. I refer to the Steve McDonagh book about Barack Obama's Irish connection, which documents the decline in the Protestant population in the Republic from more than 10% in 1900 to around 3% now. The goals of Arthur Griffith and company have not been realised. We need a voice for all of the different strata of Irish society. The book refers to such elements of unhappy history as the Mayo librarian controversy; an incident in which a Galway obstetrician, a graduate of TCD, was forced to surrender his appointment as professor of gynaecology at UCG and had to emigrate; the Fethard-on-Sea boycott - I remember my father going there on business to break that boycott; the TCD ban, which was in place right up to the 1970s; the threat to small rural Church of Ireland schools and the threat to the fee-paying schools of the Church of Ireland; and the treatment of the Church of Ireland College of Education and TCD itself. Now the seats here in this Parliament are to be abolished. That is very regrettable and a very sad occasion for those who believe in an Ireland of inclusiveness, as we all do.

Let me quote from Gordon Wilson when he spoke at the New Ireland Forum. He was one of the great Senators.

My being here stems from my love of this land and of its people but also from convictions nurtured from earliest days and sharpened by personal sufferings through the conflicts of the past years. I am no mere Northerner but one whose heritage, religiously, socially and culturally, has been woven into my being, the person I am. I am no foreigner in an alien land but in a land due to me and mine.

I strongly agree with Gordon Wilson's comments.

I clarify that I am against the abolition of the Seanad. I will be voting against the Bill today in the interests of consistency, because, unlike some of our colleagues, I see emblazoned in large type, "Abolition of Seanad Éireann".