John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I have great pleasure in supporting and seconding Senator Barrett's Bill. I believe Senator Barrett, more than any of us, represents the epitome of the intention of the Seanad - that is, to bring expertise unencumbered by the discipline and requirements of political party membership into the halls of Parliament where it can be brought to bear in areas of special interest.

In truth, one has to wonder, had there had been more people like Senator Barrett tramping these corridors in the past decade or decade and a half, is there a chance we would have found ourselves with a greater critical mass of expertise in economic, financial, banking and commercial matters in the House? Would our Government have been in a stronger and better position to analyse, diagnose and correct the problems that have caused such pain to so many people in the country? It is primarily for this reason that I became vehemently supportive of the notion of Seanad reform as opposed to Seanad abolition. These were the two options I put in my election leaflet in 2011. I stated that the Seanad as currently constituted was unsustainable and that it needed to be either abolished or reformed.

As a Member of this House, it strikes me that we need to give the whole reform agenda a good go, because we have a real opportunity here. When one considers the problems and dysfunctions that have beset the Dáil, it is clear how difficult they will be to fix. By having the entirety of our generally mandated and generally enfranchised electorate electing politicians on the basis of geographical constituencies, there is an inevitable tendency for those politicians to be mostly concerned with representing their constituency, which they do very well. The system means, however, that we have a deficit of people in the Lower House who are elected with a specifically national outlook, but it is from this available group that our Ministers must be selected. As it happens, we often get very good Ministers. Sometimes, however, looking across the spectrum of people who have occupied the positions over the years, one would have to say that some of them were rather inexpert when they were appointed. I am not looking at the Minister of State when I say this. He is very expert.