Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

In a summary of Seanad reform, from 1937 to 2003 we had the O'Rourke report of 2004, the Committee on the Constitution in 1967, the O'Keeffe report in 1997, the Lenihan report in 2002, the Gormley report in 2009, the Crown Bill in 2013, the Zappone-Quinn Bill in 2013, the Fianna Fáil policy document in 2013, the Green Party policy document in 2015, the Constitutional Review Group in 1996, the report of the Labour Party, the Green Party and John Gormley in 2009 and the report of the Independent Senators and John Gormley in 2009. I am exhausted already reading them out. These proposals had 112 suggestions on the following areas: elections, automatic re-election of the Cathaoirleach, term and timing of elections, vacancies, nominations, gender balance, vocational panels, university seats, Taoiseach's nominees, the legislative process, Northern Ireland, the European Union and the international role, secondary legislation, public appointments, policy review, petitions, ordering of business, right of address, membership of the Cabinet by Senators, accountability of Government to the Seanad, nominations of Cathaoirleach and Leas-Chathaoirleach, salaries of Senators and the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission. I am exhausted reading those out. There have been about ten or 11 reports on the Seanad between 1937 and 2004, ending with the Manning-O'Toole report, which we have just heard, and Senator Michael McDowell's Bill now on the floor.

The question we must ask ourselves, because this is a general discussion, is what distinguishes and identifies us in the eyes of the Irish people. I can tell you that it is the composition of the Seanad and not our work. That is what distinguishes us. Our composition is our most visible feature. We are not distinguished enough in our function. The composition of the Seanad seems to be, in the eyes of a lot of people, the actual function of the Seanad. The Seanad is ill understood and neither its best nor its worst features are understood or communicated to the public. I lived out in Ballymun for 23 years and I did not know, even though I was supposedly educated, what went on in the Seanad. It did not affect me; it did not communicate to me and neither did I communicate with it. The public are aware of the vested interest of the Government and parties and they also understand our constitutional rigidity. They watch our low prestige every day. They know why the media does not concentrate on us and why sometimes when it does concentrate on us it is to ignite negative feelings. We have a low profile and we are not understood. We demand less media attention and we get less public attention. We are not directly elected and we have no power to really challenge the Government. The party leaders live in the Lower House and our reports gather dust. There are continual calls for reform. I will say again that there are still many vested institutions and vested interests. We have constitutional rigidity, low prestige, negative feelings and unnecessary duplication. If we want real legitimacy we must look to reform, not only of how we get in here - our composition and the many and varying routes to the great blue seats - but of what we do when we get in here. I welcome the Bill. It is flawed, but so am I. It is a start.

I will leave Members with some thoughts. In my last five years in the Seanad, not one Bill was sent back. Giving votes to people in Northern Ireland and the diaspora all over the world will not reform the Seanad. We need to reform the Seanad from the inside out, not the outside in, and we need to reform not its composition but its function.