Seanad debates

Wednesday, 8 July 2015

Report of Working Group on Seanad Reform 2015: Statements

 

10:30 am

Photo of Paschal MooneyPaschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our former colleagues to the House. Are 500 people required to nominate somebody for direct election? I saw a figure of 500 mentioned somewhere in this. That seemed to me to be a ridiculous figure.

I will rain on somebody's parade by saying this but there seems to be a growing perception that the decision of the Irish people to retain this House contained within it a passion for reform. I have found nothing in any statistics, other than Members of this House and others saying that there was such a need. It is reflected in the report stating that there was unanimity that it should be reformed. As far as I am concerned, and my view may or may not be shared by others, the overwhelming majority of those who voted for the retention of the Seanad did so because first, they wanted the Seanad to be retained and second, they did not want to give the Government any more powers. As far as I am concerned, those were the reasons why they voted to keep it. I do not think they got into the complexities of whether this House was in urgent need of reform. That is not to say that I am not in favour of reform but I want to put it on the record that I do not agree with this cosy consensus that has arisen that there was an obsessional need among the Irish people for reform of this House, if they even thought about it.When they were asked to think about whether they wanted to keep it, they made a very simple decision that, yes, they wanted to keep it. I wanted to get that off my chest.

The report deals with the selection of candidates. It proposes that each nominating body be entitled to nominate a candidate and that candidates be required to have both knowledge and participation. The onus is on the candidates to prove beyond doubt that they meet these requirements. As anyone who has gone through this process knows, there is a very strict protocol involved, irrespective of the looseness of the language about knowledge and general knowledge and experience, but that actually requires a High Court judge sitting along with the Clerk of the House to decide whether a person is suitable for nomination to a particular panel. It is not that one just writes in and ask to be nominated to a panel. There is a very strict protocol involved. To use the American term, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." There is already an onus on the candidate to prove they meet the requirements. I had to do it and I am sure other Members of the House had to do it.

I refer to the oral responses on the previous occasion from former Senators O'Toole and Manning about the Whip system. This seems to exercise the minds of some people who express the opinion that the Whip system is terrible and awful and we should get rid of it. There would be chaos if that were to happen. In fact, the report is riding two horses. On one hand it is talking about having a representative body and on the other hand it refers to the O'Rourke report in the context of Taoiseach's nominations:

[T]he Seanad must inevitably be a political body since it must discharge political functions. This is clearly the case as far as the presentation and management of the Government's legislative programme is concerned and which must also be a legitimate factor in the consideration of any Taoiseach in making these nominations.
In other words, the Taoiseach, at least up to this one, will do what previous taoisigh did, which is they made sure they had a Government majority in this House. The criticism from outside was that it was terrible and awful but the political reality was that it ensured the legislative programme of the elected Government got through the House. That is what it was all about and that was the constitutional requirement from day one. It has strayed from that considerably and I will not go into what is in the mind of the current Taoiseach about his decisions that were taken in that narrow concept. I am not talking about the quality of those whom he nominated.

On votes for emigrants I am totally opposed to the view that they should be passport holders. It should be time limited and be for Irish citizens who left this country within the past ten years. Other than that I think it would be a recipe for chaos. How would it work if all the passport holders started registering? How would this work in principle? How will the nomination process work for the 13 Members elected by councillors? The report infers it will be a continuation of the Oireachtas sub-panel which currently takes four Oireachtas Members to nominate. Keeping in mind that these nominations have traditionally come from the political parties in the Houses, I have no doubt that even though it is being reduced to 13, there will still be a very strong party political input into the 13 nominations. People will be representative of their parties. Inevitably those who are directly elected will be representative of their parties and they will come in here as political groupings. Will they leave their political grouping outside the door? There is this idea that this will be an Upper House that is so diverse and representative of this widespread opinion, of community organisations and the representatives of the whole of Irish society, whereas the reality is there will be people who will be elected to this House either directly or indirectly, under the terms of these proposals who will be party representatives and who will exercise and discharge their party obligations, along with the 11 nominees of the Taoiseach whom the report has acknowledged will be political representatives of the Government of the day.

How will the nomination process work for the 36 Members to be directly elected? This is a national election. I am opposed to a national election because I believe it should be regional. I appreciate the difficulties that those who are university Senators have in reaching out to their worldwide alumni and to their voting register. However, I ask the House to consider the implications of having a directly elected national election such as the amount of money involved and the logistics. It is already difficult enough for those who travel around the country having to canvass Deputies, outgoing Senators and county councillors but to have a national election on the entire island of Ireland - those in the North will be entitled as Irish citizens to vote - suggests this proposal has not been well thought out.

The report talks about modernising the register of nominating bodies. The Clerk of the Seanad each year issues an advertisement inviting representative bodies to apply to be included in the nomination register. What is meant by modernisation of the register? Anybody who fulfils the obligations and criteria is entitled to apply to be on the register of nominating bodies. There is quite a substantial number. I do not have the figure but I am sure that if it were to be analysed I would think that practically all those bodies who are representative of the diversity of society are currently represented on the register.

I do not wish to seem negative about this report. In the context of the recommendation that there be just 13 Members elected by Deputies, Senators and county councillors, I believe that the nominations will be party-based, and this coupled with the 11 Taoiseach's nominees, who will be party-based, means this idea that seems to permeate this report that this Chamber will somehow be non-political with a small "p" does not bear any scrutiny.

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