Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

We will have to determine what this House should be doing and examine how that should be done.

Senator O'Donnell referred to the fact that those in the media take no interest in this House. Why would they? For the most part, and let us be honest with one another, the Seanad is seen as either a crèche for those hoping to get into the Dáil or a nursing home for those who have given up on ever getting back there and are biding their time here. That is not what it should be. People laugh at me when I tell them I am a Member of the Seanad. It is appalling that people would look upon the Upper House of Parliament as something to be the butt of a joke. I understand there was a time when journalists came into this House, sat down and took note of what is being said here. They do not bother any more.

A point was made earlier about legislation that was dealt with in the Seanad during my first 18 months here. One could literally get a Bill passed in this House to bring back hanging because we had the ludicrous situation relating to the Government and the Opposition. The Seanad was not set up to be a Government and an Opposition. It was set up to be a parental-type entity that would offer advice to a Government. We were never meant to have Whips, and whipped votes. We were meant to be a group of people with vocational interests who would offer expertise based on their vocational backgrounds.

My view of a Seanad that would work is that if there were an agricultural question or Bill on the floor of the House, Members from the Agricultural Panel would advise us and we would vote according to the advice offered. That is not the way the Seanad works. We talk about the vocational panels' qualifications. Let us be honest about it. People have been voted into this Seanad on the Agricultural Panel and the closest they ever came to an animal was having a cocker spaniel at home. That is not a qualification. There are people who have been voted here on the Labour Panel who have never engaged in any way with labour or organised labour organisations. That is not right. How did that happen? I am sorry to say to the Members present that the political parties hijacked this House for their own purposes. That is why we never had Independent Senators here.