Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the former Senators Dr. Maurice Manning and Mr. Joe O'Toole, as well as former Senator Pat Magner, and commend them for producing this excellent report. My colleagues and I have sought an opportunity to debate it and issues arising from it. I am delighted to learn that a Bill is ready today. As the Leader, Senator Maurice Cummins, has pointed out, we will have an opportunity to debate that Bill further once we study its contents.

The report contains a number of detailed proposals. Having made a submission to the working group on behalf of Labour Party Senators, I welcome the opportunity to engage on these proposals. Of the 69 submissions made to the working group, just eight were from serving or former Senators. I do not think the group met any sitting Senator in the course of its work. While I am conscious that a number of members of the group have inside knowledge of how the Seanad works, the Leader, Senator Maurice Cummins, outlined some of the innovations introduced by this Seanad, including the Seanad Public Consultation Committee and a series of debates with MEPs. Perhaps these significant changes might have been given greater acknowledgement in the report.

I emphasise that my comments are intended to be constructively critical and that I warmly welcome the report in general. I especially welcome the proposals on universal suffrage and giving a vote to people in Northern Ireland and the diaspora. Logistical issues certainly arise, as Senator Denis O'Donovan noted, but the report engages with these issues.

Other reforms we have made to the Seanad under the leadership of Senator Maurice Cummins include a change to sitting times to enable us to engage better with committees. The report might also have acknowledged our sectoral engagement through joint committees. Arguably, for example, the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Women's Rights is a better forum than the Seanad to scrutinise justice and home affairs directives from the European Union. It might be worth debating in more detail the specific bodies in the Oireachtas that are best placed to scrutinise EU matters.

A technical or logistical issue arises in respect of the online registration of voters and the issuance of ballot papers. I disagree with Senator Denis O'Donovan on the constitutionality of this proposal. I note that Mr. Michael McDowell states in the second appendix that the Constitution requires ballot papers to be returned by post. I agree with him that there is no impediment to allowing ballot papers to be distributed online for downloading.Certainly the Constitution requires ballot papers must be returned by post. Having read the Constitution, I agree there is no impediment to having the downloading of ballot papers online. That would deal with the cost issue, especially the huge waste in respect of the university seats and the number returned ballot papers with "addressee unknown" on them. Those are welcome changes which the working group is recommending.

I welcome the recommendation on universal suffrage. It was one of the issues the Labour Party Senators addressed in its submission. The report somewhat glosses over how this would work in practice. The witnesses say it would be a matter for the implementation committee, and certainly it would. There are, however, some key questions that need to be addressed specifically and I presume they will be addressed in the Bill. For example, if all the university graduates chose to opt for one vocational panel, that would skew the electorate for that panel. Similarly, on the nomination process, I was slightly disappointed that they seem to recommend retention of the current nomination process, which is controlled by the political parties. Maybe I have misread that. In our submission, we make some more radical recommendations for change.

Some of the changes the Labour Party Senators put forward, in the same spirit as the recommendations in the working group report, are slightly different. We thought the Convention on the Constitution should reconvene to consider what substantive changes could be made through constitutional amendments, such as changes to the Taoiseach’s power to nominate 11 Senators. I am conscious, however, that is beyond the remit of the witnesses’ group.

We made four points about changes that could be made without a constitutional amendment. The first was the expansion of the electorate for the university panel, which is in hand because the general scheme of the Government Bill has been published. We note the logistical difficulties raised when between 500,000 and 700,000 graduates would be entitled to vote on the new six-person panel. In principle, we absolutely agree with that. Second, we dealt with universal suffrage for election to the five vocational panels. We recommended that all those entitled to be on the local election register should also be entitled to vote in the Seanad elections. The witnesses confine it to Irish citizens. We thought the local election register would be better because that is a broader franchise and is in keeping with the link with local representation and local government. That is perhaps a minor detail.

We also said that rather than have one person, one vote, each person entitled to vote would have a separate vote for candidates on each of the five panels, like a multi-seat constituency, and that university graduates could opt for a vote on the university panel instead of one of the panels - we recommended the national language, culture and literature panel. Similarly, we suggested reserving one panel, the public administration panel, for election by city and county council members. We thought it important to preserve the existing link with local government but we felt that was a simpler method. I am grappling with the witnesses’ panel and sub-panel method, which is more complex and given how complex the panels already are, there is some merit in the greater simplicity of our proposal.

We say powers of nomination should be extended beyond the existing nomination bodies. This could be done in terms of the Constitution. Michael McDowell acknowledges that. For example, we could have popular nomination by 500 persons on the Seanad electoral register. Finally, we recommended Seanad election should take place on the same day as the election to the Dáil. That is constitutionally permissible and would make sure, to a greater extent, that the Seanad is not a mini-Dáil and it would break the direct link between Dáil and Seanad elections. I welcome the report. It would make a huge improvement to the Seanad were it to be implemented and I look forward to further debate on the text of the Bill.