Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Estonian ambassador and acknowledge the presence in the Chamber of a student from the Royal and Prior School in Raphoe, Ms Jennifer Holly, who has come to witness our democratic institution in operation.

I fully concur with what has been said about Ukraine. As far as I am concerned, the extent of sanctions that must be imposed must be massive and they will cause hurt in the West. We must accept that if we really mean that we stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine, we will have to take the economic cost if we are not going to become involved militarily, which is clearly not going to happen at all.

Our democratic institutions remind me of the following. In July 2020 the Seanad Bill was published and Second Stage took place in this House in November. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, sent his Minister of State, Deputy Malcolm Noonan, to this House to support an amendment that the Bill should not be read a Second Time until 31 December 2021. The Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, gave assurances to the House and said the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, was fully committed to engaging in this process and he would engage with Senators before that Christmas. That never happened. He said he would come back to the House in May 2021 with his proposals but that never happened. Before May 2021, I contacted the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and was assured he was establishing a group among Government parties of Members of the Oireachtas to discuss evolving proposals. That never happened. Those three commitments have been broken and I am putting it on record in this House that they have been seriously broken.

When the Seanad reform implementation group was established by the Government, I was asked to chair it by the members of that committee, and that was against the wishes of the then Minister, former Deputy Shane Ross. It was an all-party group and we brought back our report, which I submitted to the Taoiseach. It was in accordance with the terms of reference that the Government made and it was to implement the Manning proposals because it was part of that Government's programme.

I will finish by saying this. I went to visit the Taoiseach in early 2019 and he told me he had no interest in implementing the recommendations of the Manning report because he did not agree with it. He reminded me he was an abolitionist when it came to the Seanad. I know the Leader of the House played a role in that referendum as well and I am not making any points in that regard. The people of Ireland are not content to leave this House unreformed. The drumbeat of people saying we should be abolished is beginning to grow again.

I demand that the Government live up to its promises in this regard. The Green Party tried to get it into the programme for Government this time around but it was fobbed off with assurances. I am not going to be fobbed off with assurances and I make it very clear that from now on, co-operation in this House and the orderly transaction of its business will be seriously impeded if the Government does not take reform of the method of election to this House seriously. I have not gone away, you know. Reform has not gone away, you know. It will be raised daily in the House on the Order of Business until the Government lives up to the words and assurances it gave the Irish people, Members of this House and, most important, the members of the implementation group who worked for six months on the basis that they would not be betrayed by a Taoiseach who told them he had no interest in implementing the findings of the report.