Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----to do our business, but I do not know whether the Government would agree with that. I will certainly put it forward as a reform which this House would suggest for the other House, since the other House is making a lot of suggestions about this House. However, I do not wish to be facetious and I agree that if we come up with reforms that we wish to implement, we will need the support of the other House in terms of passing them through that House as well. There is, and will be, a need for co-operation in that regard.

The 1979 referendum extending the franchise to all graduates was mentioned on the Order of Business and was raised by a few Members in this debate. That should be acted upon. The legislation that would be required should not prevent us from doing that. A motion from this House asking the Government to implement the provisions of that referendum should be forthcoming in the next number of weeks.

As I said in my opening remarks regarding the basis for reform of the House, we have a number of reports, particularly the last all-party report and the Bills from Senators Crown, Quinn and Zappone. That should be the basis of the reform. Despite what we say about Taoiseach's nominations and so forth, changes of that nature would require another referendum and I do not believe anybody has an appetite for another referendum on this issue. I might be wrong, but that is my opinion.

We must work within the system of legislation rather than go to the people again to change the whole shebang. In that regard Senator Crown's Bill and the other Bill, plus the report chaired by the former Senator, Mary O'Rourke, are very important and we should take them on board.

I refer to other items raised. Some speakers stated the vocational panel should be retained, others the reverse. It must be retained, however, if we are not to have another referendum. It will be difficult to reach agreement between all parties present as to what is the best way to elect the Seanad. Many people will have their own seat in mind when they are thinking of this-----