This is a Bill to amend the Constitution, but it is also an enabling Bill which allows for the possibility in the future of redistributing by law the six university seats at present divided equally between the National University of Ireland and the University of Dublin, Trinity College.
I will begin by welcoming the decision to retain the six university seats in the composition of the Seanad. There was a possibility that the Government, faced with the proposal for very radical reorganisation of the university structure in Ireland, might decide to propose the abolition of the six university seats and the redistribution of those seats in some other way, either by enlarging the panel system or by creating a new constituency. This would have been a very unpopular decision.
In welcoming the retention of the six university seats it would be appropriate, when discussing this enabling Bill, to examine why university Senators have played such a significant role in this House down through the years. Undoubtedly, they have made a very worth-while, constructive and very memorable contribution which is out of proportion to the numbers in the House. If we recall some of the earlier university Senators—the trouble with recalling some of them is the problem of omission—but if we think of the contributions made by people like Dr. Owen Sheehy-Skeffington, Professor Stanford and Professor George O'Brien, we must see the different role that the Seanad can and should play and has been assisted in playing by the university Senators. One of the reasons why they have made a memorable contribution is because the constituency they represent is significantly different from either the Dáil constituency or the Seanad panel Members constituency. Because I know that my colleagues from the National University constituency will be contributing in this debate I would like to speak about the Dublin University constituency which I have had the honour of representing now for almost ten years.
The first thing I would say is that on a simple democratic head count Trinity, with just over 8,000 electors, is overrepresented in comparison with the National University constituency with an electorate of over 40,000. There is no doubt at all about that. I would not argue for or support a proposal for the retention of three seats for Trinity in a future organisation of the universities. We do not have a precise proposal before us today, and I think that the major considerations must be left until there is a proposal in the light of the reorganisation of the universities. What I would like to do is to try to identify some of the traditional values inherent in the Dublin University constituency as I have known it and to see whether these are values which we ought to try to retain in whatever reorganisation or redistribution of the university seats may come in the future, or may be proposed in the future.
I would like to begin by noting the strong sense of loyalty to the college and interest in the college of the graduates of Trinity. This is a very remarkable feature of the electors in the Dublin University constituency. Some of them live in this part of the country, some of them in Northern Ireland and quite a considerable proportion of them outside Ireland, in Britain, in the United States, Canada, far away places like Australia, India, Africa and continental Europe. Yet they retain a very close interest in and loyalty to the university. This is reflected in the returns during the elections, and perhaps I should refer to the returns in August 1977 which was the last Seanad election: in the university constituencies the electorate for the University of Dublin was 8,007 and the total poll was 5,528. That, I believe, is a remarkably high turn-out for a constituency for which the campaign is by a postal vote and when one considers that a significant number of the graduates now live outside this island. This is something to be recognised and in itself to be valued and, if possible, we must try to ensure that we retain this strong sense of interest and identity of graduates of Dublin University and also of the other university colleges.
The second feature of the Dublin University constituency that I would like to refer to is the way in which it has encouraged independence of thought and the willingness of its representatives to speak out on sensitive issues, to champion minority causes, to have the courage to look into dark corners and to have the courage to stand out against sometimes a rather panicky move, as when there is a pressure for the introduction of emergency legislation. At such times you find that university representatives take a longer view, stand out sometimes against a very strong tide and argue for values and are appreciated by their constituency for arguing these values. In other words, the only fault that a representative of the Dublin University can make, I believe, is to settle for conformism in politics and to try to present conformism to the status quo and to move with the majority on all issues. That, I think, is the one think which a very tolerant constituency would not be prepared to tolerate.
Once again, this is a very useful contribution in our political system. It is fair to say that the Irish political system, both in the Dáil and the Seanad, tends to be too narrow and conformist. There are various reasons why this is so. We look at our parliamentary tradition and we see an absence of a strong and effective backbencher tradition. We see relatively little private Members' initiative, but this has increased in recent years. We see on the whole, especially in sensitive areas or on minority issues, an unwillingness to speak out on the floor of the House even though a number of Senators or Deputies will assure you privately that they agree with you. I am thinking of such issues as divorce, for example, or indeed the contraceptive debate. It reveals the very strong conformism, the unwillingness to take a stand, the unwillingness to pay a price for a stand taken and the unwillingness to face reality. Another issue would be the very grave and serious problem of the sharply rising numbers of Irishwomen going to England for abortion. This is not an issue which would be likely to be raised in the narrow confines of our political system.
The university Senators have a very useful and very constructive role to play in ensuring that we do not ignore such issues, that there is an independent voice speaking out on them. I am thinking of the way in which Dr. Owen Sheehy-Skeffington championed causes such as the need to stop corporal punishment in our schools. He took on a very heavyweight lobby in doing that. There are other examples that one could think of. The only example of a Private Members' Bill that was passed throughout the history of the Parliament was an initiative by Professor Stanford in the Bill for the prevention of cruelty to animals. This was subsequently taken up by the Government and passed through the Dáil as well. It was the only successful effort initiated by a university representative.
I believe the Seanad has benefited from the independent initiative, the independent voice and the independent sense of priorities of university Senators. We had a recent example of that in the way in which Senator Hussey proposed in this House the motion on the subject of rape. Once again, that is a subject that would be at least unlikely to be moved as a motion by a political party; perhaps it is more likely now, but certainly the initiative, when it came, came from a university Senator who got support from this side of the House and then the motion was debated. It was very useful and a very concrete example of the kind of role that can be played.
When we come to consider the way in which the university seats will be redistributed when there is university reorganisation, we should try to see whether it is possible to highlight and perpetuate these kinds of values and the difference in the traditions of the colleges. In a sense the best way to do it is to try to encourage the graduates of our third-level institutions to have this independence of mind themselves in their approach to their representatives to seek to have university representatives who are not going to be the same in their approach as the other persons elected to the Dáil or Seanad who are going to have this capacity to speak out and take a stand on issues and to do so at least partly because they know that their constituency would support the stand even if they did not support the particular viewpoint. This I think is a distinction that is not made often enough in the Irish political system. It is a distinction which requires almost a pluralist approach to politics; the particular freedom of somebody representing a constituency who knows that a substantial number of constituents may disagree quite strongly with a view but will respect the fact that their representative has expressed that view and will support the right of the representative to speak out and represent that view. This is a value we should treasure within the system.
One of the unique features of the Dublin University constituency is the fact that a significant number of the electors live in Northern Ireland. They came to Trinity College for their education; they returned to live there; they are on the register of electors and they vote. They vote because they have a continued interest in the university itself, because they cherish and welcome this link with the political system down here and they very often follow quite closely the debates in the Seanad to see what kind of issues were put forward or what kind of stand was taken by their representatives. Also, the representatives of Dublin University are invited to meetings of the Trinity College associations and also to a significant number of other meetings in places like Belfast, Coleraine, Derry and Enniskillen. We have all been much more frequently than perhaps some other Members in this House to meetings in Northern Ireland, either directly organised by graduates of the university or because we had been already for a meeting of the TCD Association and got to know people who invited us in another context. I think that this kind of mobility, this relevance in visiting Northern Ireland, is something that we ought to cherish and indeed strengthen. In that connection I would like to refer to the proposal that Deputy Horgan made in the Dáil when this Bill was being considered in the other House, that the Minister should think of the possibility of opening the election of the six university seats to university graduates of the Northern universities, of Queen's University in Belfast and of the university in Coleraine and perhaps other third-level institutions.
The Minister seemed to throw cold water on this proposal when it was mentioned by Deputy Horgan, but I understand he subsequently had a letter, a copy of which was sent to Deputy Horgan. It is a letter that is worth putting on the record of this House because it is the voice of a graduate of a Northern Ireland university seeking to be an elector in a future reorganisation of the six university seats. It is not a very long letter and it is as follows:
Dear Minister,
You are reported in the Dublin morning papers of 24 May as stating that you "did not think that graduates of Queen's University had ever expressed a wish to be included in the election for Seanad Eireann. I am a graduate of Queen's University and have been resident in Dublin for the past 11 years. I have on several occasions suggested to your colleagues in the Government and in your party that it would be appropriate to enfranchise graduates of Queen's University who are resident in the Republic. It surely is an ambiguity that whereas Article 2 of the Constitution in effect regards persons born in any part of Ireland to be citizens of this country, graduates of universities in Northern Ireland who are resident in the Republic are not permitted the same degree of political involvement as graduates of other Irish universities. You are reported as stating there is no clamour for this franchise. If, however, your party is the party of national justice why, I wonder, do you need to await that clamour? In addition, my own view is that such a step, which would in effect be seen as giving full citizenship rights to natives of Northern Ireland also graduates of Northern Ireland universities who happen to be resident in the Republic, would be at the very least an initial step in helping to soften the suspicions of the northern majority towards your Government.
Yours sincerely
H.M. Robb.
That, I think, is a viewpoint that the Minister should consider when he comes to make proposals to us in the future about the electors for the six university seats, however they may be distributed.
Another important value of this Northern Ireland representation among the electorate of Dublin University is the number of schools and school children who come from the North to visit the Houses of the Oireachtas. I have on many occasions been approached by headmasters or teachers of children in Northern Ireland to know whether I could arrange a visit of 10, 20 or 30 boys or girls or mixed groups from Northern Ireland coming down here to visit the Houses of the Oireachtas to see how the Parliament here works. I remember on one occasion about three years ago bringing a group into the Dáil. We had visited the Seanad and discussed it informally. The Dáil was not sitting at the time. We visited the empty chamber and one little student from Northern Ireland asked me where the Prime Minister sat. I explained that the Prime Minister was called the Taoiseach and that he sat down there. He said, "Does he carry a gun?" I felt that there was a certain amount of general education to be done in talking about the approach to parliamentary democracy here in the South.
The question reflected the need for this kind of contact, the need for mobility and, indeed, the absence of a parliamentary forum at the moment in Northern Ireland. They do not have a local parliament to bring the school children to. The school children do not have this perception of a local democratic forum, and it is important that they be encouraged to come and visit the Oireachtas here in Dublin. Indeed, school children from here should be encouraged to visit the similar institutions in the North, educational institutions, important buildings, museums and so on in the North. One way of encouraging this flow has been the Northern representation in the Dublin University constituency, the fact that there are a significant number from Northern Ireland who play an active role and who take their position as electors seriously and try to relate it to their lives in Northern Ireland and to the kind of links which can be formed with this part of the island.
A final characteristic which I would like to mention in relation to the Dublin University constituency is its tolerance and generosity as a constituency. It was generous to Noel Browne after his defeat in the Dáil in 1973, enabling him to play a vigorous role in this House from 1973 to 1977. It has been generous to Conor Cruise O'Brien and it has been particularly generous to me because, having been elected as an Independent representative and having found that my own political commitment had changed and evolved and deepened in the time in which I represented Dublin University, when I took the decision to join the Labour Party and to take the Labour Whip this clearly was a decision which did not please some of the Dublin University constituents. It did not meet with favour from those who feel that university Senators should be independent of any party whip, or take an independent stand. Yet in the 1977 Seanad elections I was returned by that constituency to continue in this House. Whatever may happen in the future I think the one legacy I will always carry from the Dublin University constituency is the need on issues of real importance in principle to retain the independence of approach and, if necessary, to pay the price of that. That is the most important legacy that one could get from a constituency which is tolerant and generous towards those who represent it but which does not like either conformism or hypocrisy or subscribing to a view for the sake of trying to please rather than trying to make a thoughtful contribution.
As far as the method which the Minister may decide upon is concerned, I think it would be better to wait for some detailed consideration of that. My view would be that the approach in this Bill is right. It is right to seek the maximum flexibility because there is a great deal of evolution and change in the whole third-level area and in the university structure in Ireland.
I note that in his speech the Minister leaves very vague the future of certain colleges, and I wonder if he can be more specific about this in his reply. He refers to the fact that St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, and the colleges of education, St. Patrick's, Drumcondra, Our Lady of Mercy, Carysfort, and Lady Immaculate, Limerick, are recognised colleges of the National University. The proposed legislation dealing with university reorganisation will also determine the future status of these colleges. Perhaps the Minister could tell us when he feels he will be in a position to table the proposed Bill for university reorganisation and whether he can clarify very important matters like, for example, the status of Maynooth and the general organisation of the university structure. If the Bill is likely to be presented within the next calendar year, then it would be helpful if we could know a little more. I would appreciate if the Minister could deal with this point in his reply.