Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. It is such a love-in, it is a great day to be here, I have never seen anything like it in my life. I commend Senator Wilson. He has done what very few people have been able to do; he has brought something that will bring a degree of reform to this House. It is one slight step forward but it is one that has to be commended.

There is no doubt there is a disconnect between the people and the Seanad. It is rare that one will see a member of the media in this House or a media report on what goes on in this House because there is no public demand to know. This is because people feel totally disconnected from the House. I was delighted to hear Senator Bacik say that one of the proposals brought forward by the Labour Party was to hold Seanad elections on the same day as Dáil elections. I hope that after the next election, the Labour Party has some little piece of the next Government where it can influence the Government. I have also called for nominations for the two Houses to close on the same day.

There are professional Senators here who give their life and soul to this House and work hard every day to drive this House forward. I compliment the Leader for the way he runs this House and I compliment Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party and Sinn Féin for the way they respond. We actually get on quite well in this House and the debates are usually of a very high standard. I admit that I have not been the easiest person to live with since I was elected but my colleagues in Fine Gael have been generous to me and to the Labour Party. They understand the difficulty I have in accepting some of the material that comes through the House. However, I would like an end to the Seanad being seen as a crèche for those who fail to get re-elected in a general election. That has to stop.

I have a problem with the way the House works. I will use my own nomination as an example of where there is a real need to do something. I was not really elected. I was given this seat by Fine Gael because one Fine Gael person tried to pull a stroke and it backfired. Ultimately the members of the Fine Gael Party elected me to this House and I thank them for that, but it should not have been like that. It should have been an election that was open to city and county councillors and Members of the Oireachtas. If that had happened there would be a very different Seanad indeed because party strengths and weaknesses vary within county councils.

This brings me on to the issue of parties. I was elected to an educational and cultural panel in this House. I am a member of that panel but I do not have speaking rights based on my panel membership. My speaking rights are based on the fact that I am, and I stress, an Independent - and I am the only Independent Senator on a vocational panel in this House. Dr. Maurice Manning, a former Senator of this House who also brought forward Seanad reform proposals, informed me that I am only the second such Senator in the history of the State, and the first ever such Senator to be elected in a by-election. There is something terribly wrong that this can happen.

This House divides along party lines; we have the Government and the Opposition, which was never envisaged for this Seanad. This House is supposed to be based on vocational panels with expertise from outside and expertise from inside, a mix of the political, the academic and the experts and is supposed to act like guiding fathers for the nation. The 1937 Seanad that Éamon de Valera developed and wanted was vocational experts who could look at legislation and where the legislation was bad or flawed it was to be sent back for redrafting. I remember when Éamon de Valera died my father said it was a great day for Ireland so I do not know much about that.

However, what has happened to the Seanad? Large majority Governments have allowed legislators to become poor legislators. The people who draft legislation now think that any old thing at all will do because it will be driven through by way of the Whip. That is not right. We are not serving the people well. This House should serve as vocational panels.

I compliment the Senators who are here every day and I have nothing but scorn for those Senators who are not, and there are too many who are not. The Taoiseach's 11 nominations are a total and utter misuse of this House and it is sad that the reform cannot look at changing that situation. Of the people in this House today, none of them treats the House with disrespect or disdain and none treats it as though it was a part-time job. They are all here working hard. There may be disagreements but all the Senators here are working hard and I take my hat off to every one of the professionals here.

However, there are Senators who are using the House as a part-time position to sit in here, and who maybe get a front seat at some event or other because they were given the post of Senator. That is totally wrong. It is not a part-time job. I commend the Leader particularly because he has accepted amendments to Bills in this House. He has accepted Bills that have been developed or have been raised in this House by what we term the "Opposition". I would prefer to think the Bills had been brought in by members of vocational panels but that is a discussion for another day.

I am very impressed by this Bill. I will be bringing forward one additional amendment to seek the reduction in nomination signatories from nine down to four. When I needed nine people to sign my nomination form, before Fianna Fáil did me the favour of giving me the second nomination, it took me from July until September to get nine people to sign. Everybody I met said, "Yes sure I will sign, who has signed already?" When I responded that no one had yet signed I was told to get back to them when someone had signed. That should not be the way to go about it. In the future, although not in this particular Bill, I would look for the right of councillors themselves to put forward a nominee. I would love to see this House work as vocational panels and not along party political lines. I think it could do a great job.