Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is not a vote for anything else. It has been very helpfully included by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, for which I thank it.

It is a principle of republican government - as in the United States - that structures are needed to exist to prevent the tyranny of the majority. That is what we are getting now. The Seanad was a beacon in preventing two sectarian states in Ireland. It is a task that becomes no less urgent now than it ever was in the past.

The 90-day delay is the normal time period allowed between the Seanad and Dáil elections. It allows time for reflection. The constitutional changes are profound - 96 changes, according to some calculations, and 75 according to other calculations. This is no small alteration to the Constitution. The issue cannot be covered by the Constitutional Convention. I have vague memories of the debate the Minister of State describes. All I can plead is that I had been here as a Member for only around two weeks at that time and I was not familiar with the procedure. Senator Quinn and I went to see the Taoiseach. I am of the same view as the Americans, that the Constitution should not be changed very frequently. My goal is to go to the Seanad and to make it work. We also offered the Taoiseach some advice on the use of the electoral register as a way of ensuring that the real people were included. We actually mentioned to him that people from Belmullet would have a say and not just everybody from the same quangos in Dublin 4. The Bill to use the electoral register for the first time for that purpose was introduced in this House. My aim was to assist the Government and to make this House work. What is before the people is not an amendment of the 1937 Constitution. The proposal will fundamentally change how the business of government is performed. All these checks and balances provided by Senator Quinn, Senator Crown and all the Senators here will be gone. There will be a rigid whip system which must be obeyed, or else one cannot sit on a committee or one will be fired out of one's office or subjected to some other form of torture, because people made a pledge not to the country nor to the Constitution but to a political party. I am glad I was never a member of a political party when I hear some of those things. It seems to be an awful situation into which people lock themselves.

Governments certainly take time to reflect on referendum results. They have been reflecting on the referendum on university representation since 1979. They did not get rid of the existing university seats at midnight before the Dáil reconvened. In the case of referendums on Europe, it seems that if the result is not liked, the referendum can be run again. We have done that a couple of times. The fact that a new Government might like to reflect on the gravity of what is proposed in the Government's Bill is very well worth considering. It may even be the secret reason that amendment No. 28 survived and the other 77 were turfed out. Some amendments were proposed by 20 Senators, and they cannot all be wrong. Senators Zappone and Mary Ann O'Brien have four pages of amendments. I am speaking on their behalf by default. We could have had a far different discussion. It devolved to me because 28 is a nicer number than any other number between zero and 78.

This legislation is wrong. I respect the Minister of State, as always, but I do not think it illustrates political courage. It is foolhardy to tear in like this. More scrutiny is exhibited in these islands with the success of the new parliaments in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. Unless we change other aspects of our political system, getting rid of the Seanad will be a fatal blow to Irish democracy. Political parties should reflect on the way in which they have behaved towards dissidents in the recent past. The Seanad was the home of dissident views. That is why Arthur Griffith put it here. I wonder how a distinguished Member in the Gallery, Deputy Peter Mathews, feels about how the new system will treat dissidents.

I am very much cheered up by the vote of Young Fine Gael. I have found that young people like this House. I checked the debating list in college the other evening. Trinity College regularly debates and defeats Harvard, Yale, Oxford and Cambridge. When Senator David Norris and myself shuffle off, there will be much better debaters coming up. We are not even Old Testament prophets for the kind of people that are coming along the way. One of the Senators on the Government side asked me to find a research assistant. Seven candidates were identified and they all had brilliant degrees, including two candidates who had obtained 600 points in the leaving certificate examination. These brilliant people want to serve in this House. They are perhaps not as cynical as the Government in proposing to get rid of 60 politicians because they might have 60 far better people in mind.

It will be a turning point in the history of this country if this Bill goes through today and if this House is abolished. We will be turning our backs on Northern Ireland and turning our backs on ideas. We need ideas; they are not here. There were no dissident voices when all the money was being spent.

In 2002 I argued the case that Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly should oppose any proposal for the North to join the euro. That was my contribution to the dissident voices on that issue. There is too much groupthink in public discourse on a range of matters. That is why the Seanad is needed. When the Minister of State goes into the ballot box in Tallaght or Terenure, I hope he will think of us.

I referred on the first day of the debate to the observation by John Kells Ingram that might will sometimes conquer right. That is what I fear will happen in this case. The last poem Ingram wrote before his death seems suited to the situation in which we find ourselves:

Unhappy Erin, what a lot was thine!
Half-conquered by a greedy robber band;
Ill governed with now lax, now ruthless hand;
Misled by zealots, wresting laws divine
To sanction every dark or mad design;
Lured by false lights of pseudo-patriot league
Through crooked paths of faction and intrigue;
And drugged with selfish flattery's poisoned wine.
Yet, reading all they mournful history,
Thy children with a mystic faith sublime,
Turn to the future, confident that Fate,
Become at last thy friend, reserves for thee,
To be thy portion in the coming time,
They know not what -- but surely something great.

The Seanad can be something great. A great Upper House can assist the Government in bringing forward the necessary reforms we all support. I ask everybody here to support the amendment and to vote "No" in the referendum.