John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Fairly uniquely in this House, I ran, in the one election campaign in which I ever ran as an adult - although some would argue that one too - with a brochure that stated I would campaign for the abolition or reform of that Chamber for which I was running because its electoral system was an affront to democracy, and I still believe that. I believe this is a House that needs to be reformed. If there were no option but to keep it as it is or abolish it, I probably would reluctantly vote for abolition, but I believe there is the prospect of reform. Putting my money where my mouth is, I, together with Senators Quinn and Zappone, authored Bills which are aimed specifically at reform. I am grateful to the leadership of the House for allowing our Bill to proceed to the Stage it has so that we can with a clean conscience campaign for a "No" vote in the referendum, stating that there is an option. If we win, if the Seanad is retained, there is significant moral pressure on the Government to consider the Bills to reform the Seanad.

It is a rather breathtaking piece of historical revisionism to blame the Seanad for failing to reform itself over all the years. Certainly, I was not in the Seanad. The Taoiseach, who has been the primary auteur of the move to end the existence of the Seanad, has had a long and distinguished career in Leinster House and I have not noticed many initiatives from him over the years to reform the Seanad.

In summary, my opposition stems around a few facts. First, as someone who has screamed and roared for increased funding to be made available for the health service and other parts of the social system, I can say that the figures that were trumpeted as the potential savings associated with abolition have been shown to be wrong and have, in fact, been partly retracted by others in the Government. I would go further. I believe the saving will be zero. I believe there will be no moneys redeployed to the health service. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, the man who is responsible for saving money in the public service, in this Chamber in 2011, again on RTE and more recently in a private conversation with me, which he gave me gracious permission to quote in public, has told us that the moneys saved from the Seanad would be redeployed to Dáil committees.

There is undoubtedly a democratic deficit in the Dáil and Seanad. The democratic deficit, collectively, in Leinster House, will be larger - it will be further in the red - if the currently quasi-democratic Seanad is replaced by a wholly undemocratic politburo of experts appointed by the Taoiseach. With respect to the Taoiseach, he has shown himself in recent weeks to be not immune to the idea of using appointments which should be technical - the very kind of appointment he stated he would make for the oversight of our legislation - in removing Deputies Mathews and Denis Naughten from committees in which they had technical expertise, for reasons which had nothing whatsoever to do with their competence in the committees-----