I formally move Article 29, which is as follows:— "The Senate/Seanad Eireann shall be composed of citizens who have done honour to the Nation by reason of useful public service, or who, because of special qualifications or attainments, represent important aspects of the Nation's life." One might say that that Article contains nothing of value or importance that would justify its existence in the Constitution; but at least it is a useful headline. "Citizens who have done honour to the Nation by reason of useful public service." You could not imagine a man being compelled to defend his title to membership of the Seanad, say, in the Law Courts, and a Judge sitting solemnly to decide whether he had done honour to the Nation, or useful public service; but as an indication of the kind of body we would wish Seanad Eireann to be, I think the Clause might remain.
DEBATES ON ADJOURNMENT. - ARTICLE 29. COMPOSITION OF THE SEANAD.
Mr. KEVIN O'HIGGINS:
Mr. THOMAS JOHNSON:
I agree with the Minister that this particular Clause is quite useless in the Constitution, because there is nothing to guarantee that the electors who will elect these various Senators, will follow the advice given in the clause and elect citizens who have done honour to the nation. My amendment deals rather with the principle of this whole series of clauses as to the composition of the Seanad. I would prefer, on the whole, a Single Chamber, but the Dáil is agreed that the Legislature shall comprise two Houses. Therefore it is desirable that the Second Chamber should be the best possible. One of the reasons for the particular form of Seanad that is being devised in the Constitution has passed, because the Universities are now going to have representation in the Dáil, and therefore thsir particular plea for special representation in the Seanad does not arise. I put forward in this amendment a proposition; I am not going to stand by it in every detail; I am not pretending that it fills the bill entirely. I desire to raise the principle, just as the principle of representation of the Universities in the Dáil was raised in the last amendment. The proposition is that, instead of having a small correctional Chamber, or a cooling Chamber, as the Minister described it, we should have an active Second Chamber selected by the whole of the electorate on vocational lines. The suggestion is that all voters should be qualified to vote not only for representation of their locality—territorial representation—but should also be qualified to vote for the representation of their particular vocations or occupations. The suggestion is that the whole of the community may fairly well be divided into ten, twelve, or fifteen main constituencies, based upon occupation. The elector would choose the occupation in which he desired to have his name registered, and in the election for the Second Chamber he would use that particular qualification. The advantage lies in this, that you would get away directly from mere territorial politics, and for very many subjects, especially subjects affecting the economic and social life of the community, you would have representatives who would possess expert knowledge. If such a Seanad were elected, it would naturally follow that when agriculture, say, was being discussed, the members elected by the agricultural constituency would have a special voice in the discussion of that particular subject. It would be an agricultural committee of the Chamber, and it would revise the particular measure under discussion, would promote measures affecting the industry, and be able to expound thoroughly upon all agricultural matters, having had them fully discussed by all sections in the agricultural world before coming to the Chamber. Similarly, the same procedure could be adopted in regard to other occupations, such as transport, education, law, etc. I believe by frankly accepting this principle we would be going a long way to obviating very many difficulties that will arise in the future, and we would make the Legislature very much more influential in the actual social life of the people. It will then become a thing closely associated with the living organism called the community. One argument was used in the last discussion which, I think, might be much more effectively used in this discussion. That is in regard to the invitation to our friends in the North-East. Supposing you have a textile constituency, a constituency representing all the workers in the textile industries, that particular representation will have a chance of going through, closely and effectively, any scheme or proposal that might be brought before the Legislature. You would then have in that Legislature a body of men who were elected by virtue of their special knowledge in that particular subject, and inevitably, as things are to-day, they would be drawn from the North-East corner. In so far as there is any genuine basis for fears in that corner of the country, it lies in the belief that shipbuilding, linen and textile industries would be unfairly dealt with by a Parliament which would be predominantly agricultural. Here you have one means at least of getting over that difficulty, but apart from that I believe it would be found inherently valuable as a working machine to have a Chamber composed of men elected by constituencies based upon the day by day occupation of the people. I beg to formally move this amendment:—"To delete Articles 29 to 33 inclusive, and to substitute the following:—
"The Senate/Seanad shall be composed of one hundred and fifty members representative of all the principal economic functions in the Saorstát and elected directly by the citizens. For the purpose of this election every citizen shall be entitled to have his or her name entered upon the register of voters in one or other of the following Industrial or Service Constituencies, viz.:—
Agriculture, Horticulture, and other Land-working Industries.
Domestic and Personal Services.
Land-transport and Communications.
Water-transport, Docks, Harbours, and Fisheries.
Commerce, Distribution and Exchange.
Constructional Works—Building and Civil Engineering.
Engineering and Shipbuilding Industries.
Food Preparation Industries.
Textiles and Clothing Industries.
Education and Health Services.
Public Administrative Services.
Law and Religion.
Miscellaneous Industries.
Miscellaneous Services.
The methods of election to the Senate/Seanad, and the delimitation of constituencies, shall be determined by law."
MINISTER for LOCAL GOVERNMENT (Mr. Blythe):
Although for reasons, which I think are good reasons, I am opposed to this amendment, I am very glad that Deputy Johnson brought it forward, and that it is to be discussed here. Proposals, such as these are being canvassed in many countries at the present time, and I think the underlying idea is a good and sound idea, and one which is very likely to be adopted eventually, but it is an idea which has not been considered in this country, and an idea which very few in this assembly have given sufficient consideration to. It is one which would require a detailed scheme to be considered very carefully and submitted to the people before, I think, we would be entitled to adopt it. This is the sort of amendment which, I think, might come on in a year or two as a constitutional amendment to go before the people. Obviously, if it were to be adopted now, apart from the risk there would be in adopting a principle which had not been considered by the representatives of the people to any great degree, and, I should say, scarcely considered seriously by any considerable section of the people, there would be an objection that we could not get through this business of Constitution-making in any reasonable time, that we could not have the Seanad in any reasonable time, and be able to get on with the work, and that we would also be involved in a breach of certain arrangements which the Ministry have made. Those are reasons which are sufficient to indicate that this is not really the time to rush into the adoption of this thing, and it would properly come on later in the Dáil as a proposed Constitutional Amendment. I believe it would be a very good thing to give us a second Chamber, which would be elected on a different basis, and which would view things from an entirely different angle from the first Chamber. On the other hand, the adoption of a principle like this might involve very considerable consequential changes. This could only be accepted, if ever, as a scheme for a second Chamber. It could never be adopted where there would be two Chambers. It seems to me, to make this scheme work, it would be necessary to abolish Proportional Representation in the first Chamber. Under Proportional Representation you do get, to some extent, a vocational representation in an indirect way, but you do get it; if you were to have a pure or citizen representation as distinct from vocational representation it would involve, in my opinion, an abolition of Proportional Representation. That is another consideration, to my mind, for holding that the subject of the proposed amendment could not be adequately considered now, and is, in that sense, a premature thing. I think that nowhere has there really been a scheme worked out yet. The whole matter is rather in the germ stage, but I think it was a very good thing that it should, at least, be mentioned. I do not know that it could ever involve us in one of those pious aspiration clauses, but, in a sense, to have it brought forward as a pious aspiration, it is good; even though it is not embodied in the clause.
Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS:
I am very glad to see this amendment here, proposed by Deputy Johnson, because it reminds me of many excellent discussions that he and I had on this very subject in respect of certain commercial matters and inquiries made during the past two or three years. I rather expected to see such an amendment proposed by him. I gathered from a certain comment made by him on one occasion that he rather expected to see something like this proposed in the Constitution. I would like to point out to him that in the Seanad provisions as they stand these industrial, vocational, or occupational constituencies are given an opportunity for creating themselves. This matter of occupational representation was very carefully considered. Deputy Johnson has made a list of many occupational constituencies. It is optional for any citizen to permit himself to be registered in respect of any one occupation. He states he does not claim, any finality for any such list as he proposes, and very rightly, because once one attempts to make out a list with that kind of finality that is really required you discover that ultimately it is impossible to segregate them into their proper categories. It is as a pious aspiration this is to be welcomed, but when that pious aspiration is put down in actual practical detail with the intention of adopting it in a Constitution in such practical detail, without which it cannot be considered in any Constitution, it is at that moment that one discovers that the whole thought in this country, or any other country, has not yet achieved that clarity which is required, and that clarity will never be achieved until it follows after the actual practical work of experimentation in social or political experiments as the case may be. Therefore, seeing that circumstances being as they are, it is impossible to adopt any such proposition, or to embody any such proposition in the Constitution, I suggest that the next best thing to be done has been done. I suggest by making the whole Free State one constituency for the election of the Seanad in effect and in practice, in the course of two or three or five or six years it would mean that in the election to the second Seanad you will get the nation practically working as one whole, and different parts of the nation will cohere in their natural formation, and so be created one large constituency, and remove that particular local appeal from regional association. You are creating associations that are not local, and that are not regional, and that must of necessity become functional and occupational. I suggest to Deputy Johnson that to anyone who has thought over this the proposal he has put forward must commend itself to the deepest interest and sympathy, but that the time is not ripe enough for the practical working out in detail, and that the Constitution has provided for the Seanad some method by which these provisions he has put down here may be worked out in practical detail. The general outline is put up, and the filling up of that outline is left to the experience of the future. I hope that functional and occupational representation will become a living factor in the Seanad; I go further, and I say that I think it must needs be so. I think that the best thing would be in any Parliament for any Nation you ought to have two Chambers, and I believe that both Chambers should function. Perhaps the two Chambers will function more completely than in this Constitution; that can be a matter for amendment in the future, as the Seanad becomes more and more a living reality. If it can be proved to be the case, I cannot conceive any transitory construction of powers which, after all, are mere matters of intellectual abstraction. Those matters have to wait for living experience! I can imagine no better consideration than, first, to have two Houses—one House representative of the geographical areas, and another representative of the functional or occupational services. For that reason I suggest that the amendment might be withdrawn, inasmuch as the substance and body of the amendment are present in the Constitution as it stands. I do not think it quite true to say, as its advocates have said, that Article 29 as it stands is quite so pious as it appears. I merely suggest that those who read the provisions for the Seanad should read those provisions without the statement in Article 29, and then read the provisions with the statement. Although it is actually the case that no one Senator can be held in law—because he, in your opinion or mine, may be—to be a person held to possess all the necessary qualifications, notwithstanding the provisions that fare set out in their actual working, and giving a headline, and qualified by that headline to have a certain meaning, and if that headline be withdrawn the meaning would be lacking. If that headline was withdrawn and the meaning, the practical working of the Constitution might be entirely different from what it would be without the meaning. For these reasons I vote against the amendment, because I think it premature and unnecessary, and I shall vote for the Article, not because I think it necessary, but because I think it is a very useful headline.
CATHAL O SEANAIN:
Aontuighim leis an leas-rún. An lá fé dheire dubhart nach maith liom dhá thigh a bheith san Oireachtas, ach má tá sé raichtanach go mbeidh dhá tigh ann b'fhearr liom an dara tigh seo atá sa leas-rún ná an dara tigh atá sa Bhun-reacht. In supporting Deputy Johnson's amendment I should like to specify one of the points he made in favour of it, and that is this: It is well known that the economic or, if you may put it that way, the material things that bind certain people in one part of Ireland with certain people in another part of Ireland are a far stronger and in a way more intimate than the political things that bind them, and while I do not want to enter into anything like controversial or Party matters in this thing, I think we all have experience that, for instance, the agriculturist in the North, as an agriculturist, has a great deal more in common with the agriculturist in the South than he has as a citizen in the North with a fellow agriculturist as a citizen in the South, and so through the various categories of the people of whom the amendment speaks as carrying out the principal economic functions. For that reason I think I am in agreement with Deputy Johnson that this will give a fairer chance of a natural combining of the strata of society, if I might put it in that way, of combining the North with the corresponding strata in the South, because the political differences have been largely artificial, but the economic common interest is not artificial but is a deep and inevitable thing in nature. If provision were made in the Constitution for some such object as this I think it would help to bring together the different categories now divided in Ireland, the farmer with a farmer, textile people with the textile people, and the same with people of similar industry in the rest of Ireland, and right on through the fourteen or fifteen sections enumerated in the amendment. Besides that I think it would be quite a strong safeguard, a stronger safeguard than any paper safeguard that could be put up for minorities of all descriptions without any exception, whether political, religious, industrial or any other kind of minority, because it would give them their value and nothing more than their value in this Dáil. As I said the other day, I am opposed on the whole to two-Chamber Parliaments. I prefer a single-Chamber Parliament, indeed my whole inclination is in favour of a single Chamber. Perhaps it is premature at the present stage to look for the complete abolition of the territorial or political representation, but I think this might meet the fears that have been expressed, because I do not want the second Chamber merely to be a cooling one, and apart altogether from the controversial or party, or class arguments, that I might have against the second House as in the Constitution. I want—if there is to be a second Chamber—that Chamber to perform certain definite and essential functions, to reflect the most important things in modern life. Now we all know that there has been an evolution in the system of representation. We know generally the origin and the purposes and the reasons for territorial representation. We know, too, that the causes that gave rise to that kind of representation have very largely passed to here. You have, in modern life, a new demarcation, so to speak, of functions. That is a real thing, and these classes are performing real functions and exercising real powers. We would want to put that in a framework or machinery in which they realise those powers to the utmost. The Minister, and, perhaps, some others, may think that this would interfere with this system or agreement as to Proportional Representation in the first Chamber. I do not think that, and I do not agree with him, that under Proportional Representation we get representation in an indirect kind of way. I do not agree that we do, but we would have it distinctly and clearly if we had a second Chamber on those lines, because, as I said at the previous debate, when you have an election with a five or six-member constituency at the present moment, the voter does not vote, except a few, for a candidate because he happens to belong tc a particular avocation or occupation, or industrial service. He votes for him as being representative of a definite body of political thought. That is what we call party representation. That is what we have in the present system. This would do away with it in the second Chamber. In your second Chamber, as outlined in the Constitution, you would have the same thing. People will not vote because of occupational or professional qualifications or anything like that. They will vote because a particular candidate stands for a particular body of political thought. We want to get away from that thing. I do not see that that is provided for, although Deputy Figgis makes out it is in the arrangements for the Seanad as in the Constitution, because, even that the Constitution makes the Free State a constituency, and even though it may be that that gets the same effect, what it gets is a political or citizen representation, and so far as it deals with legislation, legislation from the citizen or political angle. What we want to get is a view-point from another angle, that is, the functional or occupational services. That is, to my mind, of greater importance and greater power in Ireland and everywhere else than the political one. I don't think the arguments the Minister used that because this is not being considered by many people in the Dáil it should be rejected are right. It is a reason why it should get a thorough good discussion, and it really shows the fact that many members of the Dáil have not been thinking of, or discussing, things like this. It shows that we have to go a long way in the Dáil before we will be able to draft a Constitution which will be a framework of our whole future. I support the amendment.
Mr. T. JOHNSON:
I would like to say in regard to the discussion that it is obvious there has not been sufficient discussion, sufficient cultivation of knowledge on this or similar subjects to warrant the Dáil in now imposing it on the country. I accept that at once. I would argue the same with many other provisions of this Constitution. It is a very sad thing that so momentous a document is being passed through this Chamber without having an adequate discussion in the country. I am not going to be guilty of some of the things the Ministers are guilty by asking to embody this clause without adequate discussion. I hope it will be found possible at later stages to provide for easier amendments in the Constitution than has been anticipated, and with that in view I have proposed the amendment as a sort of First Reading, then to leaye it over for future discussion. With the permission of the Chamber I withdraw this amendment.
Mr. T. JOHNSON:
The proposition with regard to Article 29 is, that it should be deleted. I anticipate that the following amendment may be accepted by the Ministry, and, therefore, I prefer to withdraw the clause insomuch as the Ministers have indicated that there is some value in Article 29, which I cannot see, but which they may be able to see better.
Mr. K. O'HIGGINS:
The only little value I see in Article 29, as it stands, is that it is a headline for the election of Senators in the future. It is not as ideal as if the Senator would be selected directly from the people. There would be no person elected to the Seanad—after the first Seanad—who has not been placed upon a panel as eligible by Dáil Eireann, the voting to be upon Proportional Representation. As an indication of the line future Parliaments should take in selecting people to go on the panel for election to the Seanad, that Article may have some utility.
Mr. GAVAN DUFFY:
I think that the amendment that I am proposing to Article 29 will be acceptable. I propose this innocent little amendment with the object of safeguarding the dignity of the Oireachtas. The Article, as it stands, says: "The Senate shall be composed of citizens who have done honour to the Nation by reason of useful public service, or who, because of special qualifications or attainments, represent important aspects of the Nation's life." Now, every lawyer in this Assembly will agree with me that there is no doubt whatever that any one of those tests of the right to stand for the Seanad might be dragged before the Law Courts. And it will be a very humiliating thing for our Parliament if, because an unpopular or, even say, an undesirable person managed to get elected, you could have his record canvassed in the Law Courts with a view to getting rid of his election. It would be infra dig. Take the case of the next election, you are going to have people elected, and you are going to have people nominated. One of the elected men, or one of the nominated men, may be, to many people, an objectionable person. Whether a man is a person who has done honour to the Nation is very often a matter of opinion. Whether a man is a man who has given useful public service, or who, because of special qualifications or attainments, represents important aspects of the Nation's life, is very often a matter of opinion. And I think it would be deplorable to have that matter fought out in the Law Courts because some crank objected to the person who was elected to the Seanad. Suppose, for example, that I was a very cantankerous person, and supposing my pet aversion got elected to the Senate, and supposing I got a glorious opportunity of exposing the record and the past life of that pet aversion——
Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS:
Name.
Mr. GAVAN DUFFY:
Well, to name him would be out of order. Well, under this Constitution as it stands I, being a malignant person who would take pleasure in doing this, would have a perfect right under this Article as it stands to create all the mischief and create all the unpleasantness I could by challenging the right of this gentleman to get elected to the Seanad. I do not think it would be the proper way. I think the fact that Mr. So-and-So was elected should be sufficient. It is better, even if the wrong man got in, than that the qualifications of Senators should be made the butt of private malice or, if you like, of anyone who objects to any particular individual. That should be out of the reach of the Law Courts. It will not do any good to have that dragged into the Law Courts. Therefore, I add this provision in my amendment and I move after the words "Nation's life" to add the words "provided that the eligibility as a Senator, within the terms of this Article, of a citizen who shall have been elected a Senator, shall not be questioned at law."
Mr. O'HIGGINS:
With reference to that amendment, we do not feel that there is any grave danger, even under the Article as it stands, of the eligibility of Senators being questioned in a court of law, but I wonder, after what has been expressed, if this alteration in the wording of the clause would meet with general approval. It is: "The Senate/ Seanad Eireann shall be composed of citizens, who shall be proposed on the grounds that they have done honour to the Nation by reason of useful public service, or that, because of special qualifications or attainments they represent important aspects of the Nation's life."
Mr. GAVAN DUFFY:
That meets my point.
Sir JAMES CRAIG:
While the Minister for Home Affairs is putting that in writing, might I say that I asked on yesterday evening about the "Orders of the Day." You announced that they had been posted to the Deputies and that they would receive them this morning. I do not know what happened in the case of the other Deputies, but the "Orders of the Day" did not reach me. I do not know what happened to them. Could you suggest any arrangements that could be made by which we could receive them in the morning?
AN CEANN COMHAIRLE:
We have made arrangements to post them in the ordinary way. That is the only arrangement we have at present, but we could take steps to see if the Post Office Authorities would arrange to have these specially delivered.
Mr. O'CONNELL:
We have not received them either. Nobody on these benches got them this morning.
Mr. GOREY:
It is only at lunch today that I received the "Orders of the Day" for yesterday.
Mr. LYONS:
We will get to-day's Orders to-morrow.
AN CEANN COMHAIRLE:
There must still be a lack of normality about postal arrangements. If the postal arrangements were quite normal you would have received them. We will consider the matter, and see whether we can come to a better arrangement in future in view of the facts that have been brought to our notice.
Motion made and question put: "That Article 29, with the, change suggested by the Minister for Home Affairs," stand part of the Bill.
Agreed.