Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House, particularly to debate this important issue. I am delighted we have the opportunity to debate the general scheme of the Bill to extend the university franchise at this early stage. It is a welcome change to our normal processes and I hope we will see plenty more of this because it gives us a real opportunity to make an input and give the Minister our ideas on changes or possible amendments to the legislation.

We have been waiting 35 years for this Bill. The people voted to change the Constitution in 1979 and successive Governments have failed to deliver the reform the people voted for then. I am delighted this legislation is before us, particularly in the wake of last October’s referendum whose result is that the Seanad be maintained. I campaigned with Democracy Matters and others to retain it. I am also very proud to speak as one of the Senators elected by Dublin University graduates, an electorate of 50,000. These are Irish citizens resident in the jurisdiction of Ireland, Northern Ireland and all over the world. I think I sent my litir um thoghchán as far afield as the Pacific Islands to at least one graduate who is an Irish citizen registered there.

Many of Senator Mooney’s comments were very constructive on the complexity of this legislation, and the logistical complexity of rolling out an election to so many electors. We in the university seats already have the right to send a litir um thoghchán to each registered graduate and I hope that will continue under the new regime. In the interests of cost, however, instead of having one litir um thoghchán per candidate per graduate, we should instead have one item of correspondence to each registered elector, containing text and photographs from each candidate. This would be one composite litir um thoghchán. That would be very welcome. I regularly receive objections from people about the amount of mail they receive in every Seanad election. Some people do not like the waste of State money and of paper. We could streamline that process without losing the democratic right to communicate with potential electors. That would be very important if there are to be 800,000 electors. I am also conscious on the practical side of the huge difficulty the alumni offices in Trinity and NUI have maintaining an up-to-date register of electors. Senator Mooney addressed the very practical difficulty of rolling out this new legislation.

I have just received yet another e-mail from a constituent saying I have sent my newsletter to their parents’ address. Many graduates register on graduation at their parents’ address. Inevitably, they move on and change addresses many times and often do not update their details with the alumni offices. That will present a huge difficulty for the broader register of electors to be put in place. These are mere logistical difficulties, which can be overcome in time. The technical working group has had its first meeting to consider these practical difficulties. All of us on the university panel will be very glad to help and make observations based on our experience.

This Bill is very welcome. I am glad the Government is finally moving on it and I hope it will have cross-party support. Since I was first elected in 2007 all the university Senators have called for this reform.

All of the university Senators without exception have called for this reform to be made. There are many obvious reasons it is hugely important that we would make this reform. I want to address the merits of the Bill before mentioning one issue in particular that might change.

In response to some of the points made by Senator Norris, this is not an attempt to capture the election of university Senators by the political parties. I do not see it in that context and I do not think it should be seen in that context. Senator Norris referred in particular to the new procedure that will be set out in head 8 for replacement candidates from a replacement list as is the case with elections to the European Parliament. That applies to all MEPs elected to the European Parliament. The Independent MEP, Marian Harkin, has a replacement in the same way as MEPs from political parties. It is a sensible approach. It is a sensible recommendation given the logistics and potential cost of running a by-election. What is important is that the replacement name is put out in the public domain so that when people vote for someone they know who the replacement will be as well. That is also the case with elections to the European Parliament.

If that were the only reform to the Seanad electoral system it would represent a deeply disproportionate model whereby we would have six Senators elected by 800,000 people and the remaining 43 Senators elected by a very small number of several hundred, and 11 people to be appointed. Just because that would be disproportionate does not mean we should not welcome the reform but we should not stop there with reform. Senator Keane put it well when she said that this is the first step of reform and there are already other reforms that have been suggested. I hope that in the lifetime of this Government we will see other reforms also, in particular to the method of election for the 43 Senators elected on the vocational panels. I will address the matter in a moment. It is important that the reform is welcomed in itself. I would be disappointed if colleagues who support reform, increased democratisation and opening up the university seats would oppose the Bill simply because they feel it might be the only reform.

In terms of the merits of the Bill, the obvious benefit is that it will end the discrimination that currently exists against graduates of other universities and higher education institutes. It will open up the Seanad for the first time to much larger numbers of voters – 800,000. There is an argument about elitism in allowing only university graduates and college graduates to vote. We have in fact a very high level of participation at third level, as shown by the numbers who would be entitled to vote. The higher education institutions have made huge efforts in particular in recent years to increase diversity in the make-up of the student body.

The final point is that without changing the Constitution we cannot change the provision that requires that there would be six Senators elected by university graduates. In the context of the current constitutional framework the most democratic way to deal with the six university Senators is to ensure that we are elected by graduates of all the third level institutions. I do not see that as abolishing the TCD brand. As a Trinity graduate I am sure Trinity will be well represented. I very much hope it will be even with the new system in place. I say that in response to Senator Mooney.

The second merit of the proposed change is that it will abolish the current rule whereby a number of citizens have more than one vote for the university panels. Someone who has a degree from Trinity and a master’s degree from UCD, for example, has two votes. That seems inequitable. Third, in head 7 we see an improved nomination system in terms of 40 people who are registered. I have one difficulty with the nomination system which I will address later.

The fourth merit of the Bill is in head 8, namely, the replacement candidate system which I mentioned. In head 5, I hope I am correct in my interpretation that head 3 appears to reserve the rule that an Irish citizen resident outside the jurisdiction will still be entitled to vote in Seanad elections. That is hugely important because as Senator Barrett has said, that does enable a large number of Irish citizens resident in Northern Ireland to have a voice and representation in the Seanad. I would not like to see that changed. Head 3 appears to retain the current rule and does not require that someone is resident in this jurisdiction which is very welcome.

One particular flaw, as I see it, in the scheme of the Bill as currently drafted – I hope we will see it changed – is that in head 7(7) a deposit of €900 is currently required. Other speakers have mentioned the need to ensure that financial considerations do not put people off running for election. It is important that we make sure the deposit is not too high. I believe €900 is too high. I am grateful to the Minister’s officials for clarifying that the current deposit rate for the Dáil is €500.

The deposit for a European Parliament election is €1,800. I can see the rationale is that this is a much bigger electorate, but I am not sure, given the status of Deputies versus that of Senators, that it is justified to have a deposit double the deposit for a Dáil election. Will the Minister revisit that issue?

A deposit of €900 for the Seanad is a very high deposit and may dissuade meritorious candidates. It is also a huge departure from the current Seanad university panel model, where we do not have a deposit system, but simply ten nominees. I am all in favour of having a greater number of people who can nominate and believe the suggested figure of 40 as sensible. Ten nominations is too few. The requirement for 40 nominations should not put people off running. If people cannot get 40 people out of 800,000 to nominate them, perhaps they should not be considering candidacy. The €900 deposit does not seem fair.

The main issue with the legislation is that this should not be the only reform taking place. It would lead to a skewed system of representation in the Seanad if this was the only reform made to the Seanad electorate in the lifetime of the Government. I am glad we have already initiated a process of investigating other potential reforms. While we press ahead with this, it is essential we also introduce other reforms. As the Minister is aware, we had a meeting with the leaders of all the groups in the Dáil and Seanad with the Taoiseach and Tánaiste in December. One of the points made there was that the Senators elected to the five vocational panels should also see an expansion of their electorate, beyond the current limited number of people who can vote, drawn from the councillors, sitting Deputies and Senators.

I would like to see universal suffrage, or perhaps suffrage on a regional basis, in line with the European election constituencies. I would also like to see a further important reform that would reduce the potential costs, namely, to have the elections on the same day. I am conscious the Bills put forward by Senators Quinn, Zappone and Crown contain many of these changes, such as the universal suffrage principle and the timing of the election. The Dáil and Seanad elections should be timed for the same day and we should define postal ballot in such a way that people can cast their ballot in the polling station, along with their general election ballot. This would get rid of the current critique of people - including myself - who failed in Dáil elections running for the Seanad.