Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I join with everybody in stating collectively that all sides of the House made a major contribution to the result at the weekend. I must confess I am a little curious about Sinn Féin's analysis of the election. It seems so certain about the reasons people voted as they did. One will never be able to understand what motivates a voter. All I have to go on is anecdotal evidence. Those I spoke to who voted "No" stated that they wanted to retain the institution, but they did not go any further than this. They felt it had been put there for a purpose. They were not all that certain the Government would continue with its reform proposals and they were not quite clear about them. The bottom line I came away with from those who voted "No" was that they wanted to retain the institution. One can interpret any other reasons they may have had for voting "No". It may be that they wanted meaningful reform of the House. Perhaps they want meaningful reform of the other House. Perhaps they are cursing all our Houses because we need to get our act together. It has presented a challenge and it is incumbent on this House to rise to it.

One cannot have reform of one House without examining the other, because this House complements the Dáil. This is why the House exists. One House cannot operate without the other under the current system. We must examine how to make both Houses more efficient and relevant to the general public and to improving the lot of the citizenry, which is the main reason we entered politics. The Taoiseach's nominations should be examined. We should move to a situation somewhat similar to that in the House of Lords, where people continue to be appointed but there are also others. A great body of expertise exists, which sometimes falls between the cracks. A person may not be electable or may not want to put himself or herself before the public for election, but could still have a contribution to make.

They make that contribution in other ways through civic society, and we see them all the time. One often wonders how they never got involved in politics, but maybe that is just not the route they want to take. I believe there should be a system of nomination that would fill in the cracks. This could include, for example, former Ministers and former leaders of civic society, be they trade unionists, those from the public sector or those from the voluntary sector who have come towards retirement age and who have a vast range of expertise. Why should we lose that? The British do not lose it; they make use of it and it works for them.

The other aspect is the vocational panels, which should also be retained. After all, the original intention of the de Valera initiative was that there would be a vocational aspect to this House, although how it works out in practice is something we need to look at. It seems to me that the step of giving the franchise to the general public within the vocational panels, as suggested by the Zappone-Quinn Bill, is the way to go in that we would retain the panels and would have people with particular expertise in each area. In fact, we should get the nominating bodies themselves to nominate people, as they do currently, but stop short of exclusively giving them the vote and instead extend the franchise.

I now have a somewhat jaundiced view of some of the nominating bodies, which I did not have prior to this referendum. I actually met people who have the right to nominate people for this House who told me they could not discuss the issue because it was too political. They said that, under their standing orders, they could not discuss the abolition or retention of this House by their executive committees, although one of them was a teaching union. I wrote to every nominating body asking them to convene a meeting of their executive committees in order that they would then direct their membership to at least retain the right of nomination to the House, even if they were somewhat sceptical about the manner in which the House operated. I got just two replies, one an acknowledgement and the other telling me that, under its standing orders, the body could not discuss the issue because it was political.

I also had the experience of meeting an individual from one of the agricultural nominating bodies who said "We are not a political body." I told him that the body had the right of nomination and asked him how nominations were processed. I asked whether there was discussion and whether the body understood it was nominating somebody to a political Chamber. He said he had not thought about it in those terms. There is a need to perhaps examine the functions, mandate, responsibilities and obligations of the nominating bodies, although I do not believe they should be wiped away.