Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am talking about it here. Over the past number of years, much has been said and documented about Seanad reform. We have had a number of reports, from the O’Rourke committee report in 2004 to the Manning report in 2015, all proposing change. While we have consensus on the need for change, we still do not have broad consensus on the detail of that change. This is something the Government wants to pursue, working with Senators and our colleagues in the Dáil. It was raised by Deputy Micheál Martin, who suggested to the Taoiseach that the implementation body would involve both Houses of the Oireachtas to try to drive that change forward. If we get agreement on that it can happen quite soon, hopefully, in order to move it on.

The proposers of the Bill before us have now set out their stall on the electoral reforms they wish to see implemented. I am conscious that speakers so far have all recognised that the legislation is not perfect, but it is open to change and discussion in order to enhance this process. I am not saying that this Bill is set in stone, and everyone recognises that we need to work on this in the months ahead.

I recognise and acknowledge the great work that has gone into the preparation of this Bill. It is a substantial Bill and is deserving of detailed consideration. Today’s debate gives us an opportunity to take a broad view of the proposals in the Bill. We will have a general principled discussion but we must also get down to some detail. On a first examination of the Bill, my Department has identified a number of significant issues that will need to be addressed in terms of how they would work in practice and having regard to the costs involved, which are as yet unknown. Democracy is important and comes with a cost, which is fair enough. We must bear in mind, as anyone in business would do, that there will be increased costs associated with this. That does not mean we cannot do it, but we have to allow for it and plan accordingly. There are some drafting inconsistencies in the Bill which will need to be addressed in due course. That happens with all draft legislation.

I will now turn to some of the differences between the Bill and the Manning report. The first of these is that the Manning report proposes extending the franchise to citizens in the State, while the Bill before us this afternoon proposes to extend the franchise to all local government electors, including non-Irish citizens. Second, the Manning report proposes that the franchise for Seanad elections would encompass holders of Irish passports living overseas. This Bill proposes, however, to limit that franchise to Irish passport holders born in Ireland who reside outside the State. There is a fair difference there and we will need to tease that out. I am pointing out these differences for the purpose of seeking clarity and to analyse them. Members should make clear what they are trying to achieve in this regard. I am not coming from any particular viewpoint, but we have to tease out the matter and decide what we actually want. When we come to examine the finer detail of the Bill on Committee Stage, we need to be clear in our thinking on this particular matter. There is a big difference between an Irish passport holder living overseas and an Irish passport holder born in Ireland who resides outside the State. We therefore need to tease that matter out. Do we want the franchise in the State for Seanad elections to be wider than it is for Dáil elections? Do we want to limit the overseas franchise to those Irish citizens born in the State? These issues need to be clarified as we go along.

I will now deal with some of the other issues in the Bill that, in our view, would need further work and refinement. I know it is neither necessary nor the practice in a Second Stage debate to analyse a Bill section by section. However, I do think it is important to identify and highlight some of the implementation challenges presented by the provisions in the Bill. As I said earlier, this is about deepening our consideration of the reforms proposed in the Manning report and bringing them forward.

I have already mentioned the proposal in the Bill to extend the franchise for Seanad elections. The proposal is to extend the franchise to all local government electors living in Ireland, to persons resident in Northern Ireland who qualify for Irish citizenship, and to Irish passport holders born in Ireland and living outside the State. Under these arrangements, a conservative estimate of the number of persons who would be entitled to register and vote in Seanad elections is about 5.3 million. Approximately 3.3 million people currently have that voting entitlement and there are a further 1.2 million that could seek it in Northern Ireland. There are about 700,000 passport holders that we are aware of overseas. There is probably some duplication in that, but the possibility is that we could be looking at 5.3 million people under these proposals. There is no doubt about the operational challenges that would be required to deal with numbers of that order, especially given that nearly a third of the votes could be cast outside the State. Dealing with large numbers of postal ballots will present logistical challenges. Careful planning and adequate resources will be needed, not least because no change to the method of counting of votes is proposed. We need to consider whether to change the method of voting. Senators have been through the system and know that it would be a very slow process if we are going to extend it further. I think we will probably need to change the voting system, but I do not know. That is a personal observation, but I have not taken part in a Seanad campaign. The vote counting method for greatly expanded constituencies would benefit from further expert analysis. We need some additional detail on that, and I am sure Members have views on it. None the less, we should examine the matter further.

The Bill provides that the Seanad Electoral Commission should establish and maintain a register of Seanad electors. We estimate that nearly two thirds of those who would be entitled to be on that register are already on the register of electors maintained by local authorities. The cost and other issues arising in having parallel registers, one for Seanad elections and one for all other elections, should be carefully considered in the further development of the Bill.

The new arrangements in the Bill for the election of Senators are based on the important principle of one person, one vote. The Bill proposes that when applying for inclusion on the register of electors a voter will choose the constituency in which he or she will vote at Seanad elections. Senator McDowell analysed that quite well earlier on, including the importance of allowing people to choose and identify their preference in that respect. However, because the electorate for each constituency is self-selecting, there would be no way of knowing in advance how many people would opt to vote in each constituency. That will cause logistical problems, but they can be solved while bearing other issues in mind also. It is conceivable that some constituencies would have significantly more voters relative to others and relative to their respective numbers of seats. There could be an imbalance in that regard. The Bill provides for this to be addressed through a new Seanad register of electors. This is done by setting a limit to the number of electors that would vote for candidates on each Oireachtas sub-panel of each of the five vocational constituencies. The Bill provides for the Seanad Electoral Commission to reassign voters when the number of applications is outside that 18% to 22% limit. The process might become complicated, as well as being unjust and unfair. It is important to get that right, so we should tease it out to see how we will fully implement it.

We see no comparable provision in the Bill for the nominating bodies, sub-panels of the five vocational constituencies, or for the institutions of higher education constituency.Most would agree that the principle of one person, one vote is important from a democratic perspective and particularly in the situation of a direct franchise. It is about how we are going to implement that and how the solutions to balanced constituencies provided in the Bill, as drafted, seem to be incomplete. Even if the 18% to 22% limit was to be extended, it is not clear how it would work in practice, or how it could be made fair, transparent and easily understood by voters. Again, it goes back to the point made by Senator O'Donnell earlier on about wanting to make this House relevant. A key part of that is to make it easily understood and followed. I still cannot follow how the whole process works and I am involved in politics. We must try to make it very clear. Above all, it has to be fair. That is the bottom line on the issue I have just raised.

The Bill proposes changes in the nomination provisions of the 1947 Act. Some 24 Members of this Twenty-fifth Seanad, elected from the vocational panels, were nominated by nominating bodies. I expect that most of the Senators present are in regular contact with those bodies. I am interested to hear the Senators' views and the views of the nominating bodies on the additional governance requirements the Bill would place on organisations seeking to be nominating bodies. This is just part of the process. We know that bringing in change is going to cause difficulty for people and more time and effort will be expended. We need to hear the view of the Senators' and the nominating bodies. The Senators are best placed to represent those views and to feed them back into this debate in the House. There is a question I would ask. Would the changes help to realise the ambitions of the working group by increasing the number and range of nominating bodies?

Another interesting aspect of the Bill is the first-time statutory definition of the knowledge and experience requirement for candidates on the vocational panels. These include a formal qualification or several years of work experience in addition to verifiable practical experience relevant to the constituency in which the nominee is to stand. The requirement may be met by establishing eligibility to the satisfaction of a judicial referee or assessor. As we read it, this adds another step to the nomination process before the so-called "completion of the panels" provided for in section 36 of the 1947 Act. Again, I am interested to hear the Senators' views on these proposed new arrangements but I am all in favour of what is behind them. I agree fully with the principle of them without a doubt. The question is around the process of it and how we see that working out.

The Bill provides for a revision of the numbers to be elected from each of the vocational panels. These changes would see an increase in the number of Members from the cultural, educational and administrative panels, thereby increasing the knowledge and experience of these sectors in the House. That is all very worthwhile. The agricultural and labour panels would see a reduction in Members, which could result in a corresponding dilution of the knowledge and experience of those sectors in the House. The rationale for these changes is not given in the explanatory memorandum for the Bill. I am sure that each section will argue out the importance of that. I presume it is to have balance, fairness and equality.

The Bill provides that application for entry to the register of electors may be made in electronic form and that ballot papers would be issued to each registered voter in electronic form as well. However, the Bill does not set out how these arrangements would be implemented in a secure way nor, I accept, does the Manning report. It puts it out there and says that this is something we should look at and do but nobody has really teased out how exactly we are going to achieve it. The working group on Seanad reform engaged with the National Cyber Security Centre to explore the potential of the Internet and technology for improving and facilitating voter registration. The National Cyber Security Centre report concluded that while online registration is a real possibility from a technical perspective, combining this system with some form of online ballot paper download gives rise to a number of security concerns that would have to be addressed prior to implementation. It can be done but it will take a bit of time and thought and would have to be worked through.

I think Senators will agree that we must be very careful to ensure that the integrity of Seanad elections is not compromised in any way by use of the Internet or other technology. Using technology is not a simple or quick resolution. I accept that is not what is being proposed here. I am just raising the point that we have to tease it out. Given my previous role as a Minister for State with responsibility for driving Innovation 2020, the science strategy and the role of technology, I am all for it. I welcome it. We need to drive on and use technology wherever we can to reform our system. However, we need to bear in mind that there is a security issue there. I, for one, would have assumed that many other countries are doing this, that it is easy and working very well but that does not seem to be the case. We need to analyse that a bit further and take on board the advice we have received from the National Cyber Security Centre. These issues are all addressable and fixable but we need to bear in mind that there would be a bit of time and awkwardness involved and that we would need to tease it through. We must learn from other countries as well. I am conscious that the UK is using online registration. The capacity of that system was called into doubt in the recent election but it was a start in the right direction. Other countries are quoted in debates and when one drills down into, and analyses, the issue, there are questions there as well. If we are going to do it, we have to get it right in order that people feel safe using it and that the system has full integrity. I am one of those who was elected in 2002 with the electronic voting system. I am all for technology because it got me in here in the first place. We have to make sure that it is right and that everyone has faith and trust in it as well.