Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to speak to the set of amendments that relate to Seanad reform. Again, because time is unnecessarily constrained, I will be brief. On the very first day of the last Oireachtas, we moved a Bill for Seanad reform. That was back in 2016. We were asked by the then Government, which included one of the parties still currently in government, to suspend our Bill so we would have a cross-party group who would work together in a committee to come up with cross-party legislation.

A number of us who are here in this House, from all parties, including Senators Warfield, McDowell, Cassells, me and others, worked for hours and hours over eight months to develop legislation which was then voted on and agreed as cross-party legislation. We delivered that to the Government, which promptly parked it.

Coming into this Oireachtas, we were told again that progress would be made. When we brought back that cross-party, agreed legislation on Seanad reform, we were told that these issues would be addressed as part of the Electoral Reform Bill - that was where it would be coming through, that is where action would be taken, that is where progress would be made. Again, we have been disappointed and despite the fact there are a vast number of last-minute amendments on all kinds of issues that have been added into this Electoral Reform Bill, there is nothing about Seanad reform.

I will not go through each of the amendments in turn because my colleague has done so. These amendments would at least start preparing the ground for some of the measures in that agreed Seanad reform legislation, including things like preparing the register and preparing measures around nominations. At a very minimum, amendment No. 54 simply asks that we would have, within 12 months, a report outlining exactly how long-promised Seanad reform was going to come about.

I sometimes get tired of people saying the Seanad will not reform because it cannot reform. The Seanad is very willing to reform itself and Members of this Seanad have been passionate about driving through reform. Let us be very clear that it is the Government that has been blocking it systematically all the way. Will the Minister of State at least agree to amendment No. 54, which makes a commitment that, within 12 months, clear measures would be put forward on how to deliver the promise from two different Governments to implement the Manning report? If not, will the Minister of State support the Seanad reform Bill, if we bring it forward collectively together, since the Government has not chosen to take action on this issue?