Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Labour Party group I wish to be associated with the sympathy extended to the family of the late John Carty, the former Senator and Member of the other House.

I compliment Senator Katherine Zappone on last night's debate on Seanad reform which was prompted by the motion tabled by the Senator and her colleagues. It was helpful for all of us to hear from the Minister of State, Deputy Paul Kehoe, of the plan for progress on Seanad reform. While there was a vote, clearly there was a united view in the House on the need for reform and for swift progress on bringing forward reform proposals. It is helpful that we now have a clearer sense of how progress will be made, in the first instance, through the publication of the heads of the university franchise Bill, which will extend the franchise for university seats to all graduates of third level institutions in the State, and, second, through proposals to be put to the Seanad Committee on Procedure and Privileges. Those proposals on internal procedure and operational reform should come from all of us to the CPP. It is also important that all of us feed into the process of putting forward proposals for further legislative reform through the task force that the Minister of State announced would be set up.

I ask the Leader to schedule a series of debates, with a suitable gap between each, on the progress of the task force when it has been established. I am aware that at the meeting with the Taoiseach in December there was mention of the leaders of the groupings in both Houses. It might be easier if we moved first with leaders of the groupings in this House and if we were to set up a subcommittee of the task force for ourselves to put forward proposals for reform through legislation. In the Labour Party group we have already developed our proposals for legislative reform, which we have put to the parliamentary Labour party. We need to ensure we are not dragging our heels and that we are doing all we can within this House, particularly as leaders of the groupings, to try to make progress on the strategy of reform that we all agreed on last night.

I support Senator Colm Burke, who called for a debate on a dementia strategy. We saw some very troubling figures this week on projections for dementia in the State. It would be good to have a debate on how the Department of Health and the HSE are planning for that eventuality.

This weekend at the Constitutional Convention we will debate the issue of Dáil reform, which had a very narrow win over Seanad reform. My colleague Senator Aideen Hayden pointed out during the debate on Senator Katherine Zappone's motion last night that Seanad reform was an issue that many Constitutional Convention members wished to see debated. Unfortunately, there will not be time to debate it. Some of the comments and suggestions put forward last night may be raised again this weekend.