Fiach MacConghail (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Yes. I welcome our distinguished guests and I welcome the report. As a Taoiseach's nominee I am proud to be a Senator and I am proud to fulfil my constitutional remit in terms of debating legislation and other matters in this Chamber. I am proud to do that without a Whip. I say that for the benefit of the Fianna Fáil Party which is losing its Whips by the day. I am also proud that, with my Independent colleagues and Taoiseach's nominees, we introduced reform into the Seanad's business particularly through the Seanad public consultation process and also inviting in key speakers. We are proud to work with the Leader. In fairness to the Leader, I acknowledge his reforming zeal and energy in the recent past.

I welcome the report. There is absolutely nothing radical in it at all. All of it feels familiar but I hope that Dr. Maurice Manning and Mr. Joe O'Toole along with Mr. Pat Magner and the rest of the distinguished individuals have more weight and authority than we have had in the Seanad. I am coming into my fifth year and I feel that I could achieve much more on the Abbey stage in doing productions than I can here, particularly around this reform. The Government promised radical, electoral and political reform. The Government has yet to install an electoral commission, for God's sake, the bread and butter of political reform. There will not be an electoral commission in place before the next general election. That is a fact. The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, has put that on the record. I have a feeling of frustration around any form of imitation. I ask former Senator, Dr. Maurice Manning, and former Senator, Mr. Joe O'Toole, if they have had any feedback from Government in terms of the mood music around the setting up of the implementation body. We are running out of time. I welcome the Bill without seeing it - how is that for democracy? - because I trust Dr. Maurice Manning and Mr. Joe O'Toole and indeed Mr. Magner in terms of its content. Although there are things in it with which I can quibble, the principle is that we need to ensure that the majority of Senators are elected by the majority of the public in terms of one person one vote.

Before handing over to Senator Jillian van Turnhout, I wish to back up a point made by Senator Ivana Bacik, which was raised by Professor Farrell in a recent blog, around preventing the imbalance between the directly elected functional constituencies and how that might be clarified so that there is not be a last minute shift of a vote from a university to a particular panel or sub-panel. In respect of Senator Denis O'Donovan, I think we can get around the archaic postal vote obstacle. I sat here with the then Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Mr. Phil Hogan, who is now in Brussels debating with him how we would get a postal vote deadline reduced from four weeks of a general election to eight days because we have modern and safe technology. He was talking about downloading postal votes. We all do our bank transactions online.It is a red herring but I recognise the expertise of the cybersecurity section in UCD which reconfirmed that.