Paul Bradford (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

She left it again. She stood as an Independent candidate in the presidential election.

The debate needs to move on as soon as possible to the question of a universal election to Seanad Éireann. I have read various interventions to this debate by Ministers who seem to suggest - I am not sure whether they are deliberately attempting to misinform us or whether they have been deliberately been misinformed by someone else - that somehow it would require a further constitutional referendum to allow universal suffrage but it would not. It simply requires the political will to put in place a system where every citizen of this State can vote in a Seanad election.

The Minister will recall that 12 or 18 months before the Taoiseach announced that he was in favour of abolishing the Seanad, Fine Gael proposed that on the same day as the European Parliament and local government elections, every citizen of this country would vote to elect the panel of Senators. What was good enough for Fine Gael in 2008 should be good enough today. That proposal stacked up in that every citizen of this country would vote to elect Senators in a panel system. It would require a bit of political ingenuity, legislative work and much political courage but if it was good enough for the Fine Gael document in 2008 or 2009, it is worthy of consideration today. This could be done if there is a political will to allow every citizen to vote in the Seanad election and, as the Minister knows, it does not require a further constitutional referendum.

It was back in 1992, when Bill Clinton defeated George H. W. Bush, that the phrase "It's the economy, stupid" was coined. George H. W. Bush lost the US presidential election and Bill Clinton won it because the people's only concern is economics. We saw that in 1997 when the excellent rainbow Government was beaten by the Irish Independent headline: "It's Payback Time". We probably saw this in the last general election also that the economy was not only the primary but the sole consideration of the electorate. However, I think there has been a very dramatic sea change in public opinion over the past number of years. As the Government is attempting to rebuild the economy and as we are trying to rebuild a different sort of political way of managing our country, we must build a new type of politics. Part of that politics must include universal suffrage for each House of the Oireachtas. The means of giving every citizen a vote in a Seanad election exists; it is not complicated and does not require constitutional change. I hope that as part of the wider debate around this Bill, we will reflect on that.

Some 40% of the people voted in the referendum last October. Some people say it was only 40% but it was quite impressive compared to the traditional turnout for referendums. I appreciate what my Sinn Féin colleague said that the third option was not on the ballot paper but all of us know that on the streets, in the pubs and in the clubs, the majority of people who rejected the Government's proposal did so because they wanted a reformed Seanad and did not want things to remain as they were. All the evidence from the polls would appear to suggest that.

This is a response to a historical question from 1979 and not to the people's decision of last October. I hope that, collectively, we will try to respond to what the people said last October that they wanted a much different and much more universal Seanad where every citizen would have a vote. I wonder what the outcome would be if somebody questioned the constitutionality of allowing some citizens to vote but not others and brought that challenge all the way to Europe.