Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

If today's proposal goes forward, with an electorate of 5.2 million as stated by the Minister of State, it will mean the Seanad will clash with the Dáil which has a smaller electorate. I do not want a mini-Dáil, a double sized Dáil or whatever. We are here to revise legislation. All second chambers are an artificial construction but the people voted to keep us.

In response to the important points made by Senator Hayden, the strongest vote to keep us came from working class areas. I do not know how that happened but it indicates disillusionment with party politics. In constituencies where every single Deputy wanted this House abolished as much as 68% of the people wanted it retained. That proves somebody out there has great faith in what we do but we have never really responded. What did the people vote for? They voted for some hope and acknowledged that party politics was going wrong. The Seanad referendum was the start of the Government starting to get into trouble.

People mentioned the county councillors.

Why did the county councillors not say to the abolitionists on the Government side that this was not what the grassroots public wanted? County councillors should have been more active in describing their role in electing people.
The five Independent university Senators are the last part of the vocational element, with 64 departments in my case. We try to bring that wisdom here. With regard to the minority aspect, we have unwittingly been chosen by people, especially in working-class areas in Dublin, to represent them as best we can. They rejected all the party politicians. I recall posters in Dublin West indicating that only ten or 12 people in the area ever vote in Seanad elections but thousands do so in Ballsbridge. The people turned out and voted for us to bring an element into the system that is not there currently.
The eighth amendment to the Constitution has been mentioned and I spoke with people in a Fianna Fáil Government some time ago about it. They told me that every time they tried to implement the amendment, they realised that in reforming the Seanad, they would lose as well as gain. It was not that people did nothing but rather that every time they tried to act, they realised there were costs associated with change. The whip system has also been criticised and I agree with those comments.
The Leader has spoken about minorities which we are here to represent. We had politicians from Northern Ireland in this Chamber on Friday. In the university constituency, particularly the Trinity example, there are a substantial number of people who support this House and have a vote. They have rights under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the 1937 Constitution and the Good Friday Agreement. They value these rights. On Friday and today, we discussed the possibility of more quotas for people from both communities in Northern Ireland to attend universities in the South. Inadvertently, the rate of exchange between the systems has led to a dramatic reduction in the number of people attending our universities. The Northern Irish Unionist is a minority on the island and one of the functions of this House is to ensure such a person is represented. We have tried to do so and we have had people from the Orange Order come before us. We sent a message of sympathy when the Orange halls in Newtowncunningham and Convoy were burned down and attempts were made to burn down the Presbyterian church in Newtowncunningham.
We have tried to reach out and implement many reforms but we must be very careful about the nature of a second House and why it should never be a rival to the other House. Within those constraints, particularly the reforms proposed by the Leader and the points made by the Minister of State, we can develop a role. It is a pity for this House that it has spent a year or more trying to stop its abolition rather than the daily work that may not be seen on television and which is barely reported in newspapers but which is extremely valuable nonetheless. Do Bills leave this House in better shape than when they came in? Absolutely. We never use the "R" word - resign - in here as we go through a Bill line by line. I hope the Ministers bring legislation back to the other House having had the benefit of the wisdom here. I hope we will always have that in whatever shape the Seanad takes.
People did not vote for a rival to the Dáil in the referendum and perhaps we should have studied those results. I recall an opinion poll in The Irish Timeson the Tuesday before the referendum indicating that 27% of people were in favour of retaining the House but by Friday, that became 52% of people. It caught the media and political commentators unaware but it is the feeling we experienced on the ground. We should implement measures on foot of those wishes.