Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Seanad report in 2008 did exactly what we are now welcoming as the beginning of a process of doing it all over again. What a waste of resources, time and the use of this House.

The Minister, Deputy Howlin, was whining in recent about the abolition of democratic processes with borough councils. We have had broken promises on electoral reform from this Government from beginning to end. We were promised new politics, which culminated in the pinnacle of democracy with the McNulty affair. We have had 63% of all Bills guillotined. I will wait until the Minister gets briefed on the Seanad report. A gap of two weeks between the taking of Second and Committee Stages, as promised by the Government, has not been provided for in 78% of Bills. Those were some of the political reforms that were promised. We have a scenario where often in politics people play the ball, and sometimes even the man, but as to why the Labour Party and Fine Gael sought to dig up the pitch in the ill-thought out attempt to abolish this House, I will never know. It was a disgraceful attempt to dig up the pitch. The greatest act of political delinquency was to try to abolish this House which the Minister abused as his own right to get elected to the other House. When he got elected there, he said we had to get rid of this House. He is here now wasting the public's money and his officials' time and resources talking about an electoral commission. The stones on the road know what needs to be done. He has the Seanad report of 2008. I am sure there is a room full of other reports that highlight the same things.

I will be supporting the amendment to the motion tabled by the Independents which proposes that the commission should be set up by December. There is no need for all the old rhetoric such as what we had for 50 years about the draining of the River Shannon and having another Sinnott report. We will still be here ten generations from now talking about an electoral reform commission. The reality is whoever comprises the Government of the day wants to do whatever suits them and to be able to do it without having to put it to the people, the Houses of the Oireachtas or anybody else.