Before the debate begins, amendments on the Order Paper Nos. 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 seek to introduce into the Bill the principle that members of Dáil Eireann and Seanad Eireann are to be divided up into classes for the purpose of voting for the election for members of the Seanad. These amendments, it seems to me, are outside the scope of this Bill and cannot be moved to this Bill. All these amendments seek to delimit the words "members of Dáil Eireann" by classifying the members of the Dáil and Seanad. I take it that most of the amendments refer to both members of the Dáil and Seanad.
CONSTITUTION (AMENDMENT No. 6) BILL, 1928—COMMITTEE.
The Dáil went into Committee.
I find it difficult to follow your ruling, A Chinn Comhairle. The point with respect to these amendments is that they are contrary to the principle of the Bill?
That they introduce a new principle into the Bill.
The principle being that of the separation of the Dáil and the Seanad?
No. Amendment No. 1 is in order; it removes the Seanad altogether. Amendment No. 4 is in order, and it seeks to provide that a certain proportion of Senators shall be elected by the Dáil and a certain portion by the Seanad. It is in order doing it by a different method. The amendments which seek to take members of the Dáil and Seanad and classify these members into particular categories, specifying that members belonging to particular categories may not vote, seem to me to introduce a principle that ought to be in the Bill on Second Reading.
Is the President prepared to introduce another Bill enabling us to deal with that matter because it does seem very critical?
That question does not arise at this stage of the Bill.
With respect to amendment No. 3, surely the question of whether retiring members nominated for re-election should themselves have a vote can hardly be regarded as a separate principle. The question of whether a Senator who is retiring shall vote or not is a question that very naturally should occur.
I agree that amendment 3 is an amendment that requires very careful consideration. It seems to me that if all the amendments depended on the same principle, the only argument that could be advanced purporting to be a point of order in favour of amendment 3, is an argument on the merits. Amendment 3 seems to be in the same category as the other amendments. The amendment seeks to set up a classification and it could be also applied to the Dáil. To say that particular members of the Seanad shall not have the ordinary rights of members under this particular Bill is a new principle. I think this amendment is on all fours with the other amendments from the point of view of the principle involved. The question might arise in a Bill specifying who may be candidates for the Seanad, but that is a different question altogether; it might, however, be approached from that angle. In this particular Bill it would appear to be foreign to the principle to introduce an amendment that members of the Dáil and Seanad may be classified and that a particular class may vote while other classes may not vote.
Before you rule definitely in this matter, I would like your advice with regard to the position of retiring members. I am assuming that a retiring member is not entitled to vote. When a Senator retires he ceases to be a member. The real difficulty is in the transition stage. I ask you to hold that there are no such things as retiring members from the point of view of voting. Members of the Seanad are either members or they have ceased to be members. If they are members they cannot vote for a vacancy which does not exist, and if they have ceased to be members they cannot vote at all because they are not members. I am asking you to rule that there are no such members as retiring members. The members who are going out are gone. They can neither vote nor have any recognition within the ambit of this Bill. I do not know whether it is really a matter for ruling or interpretation. It is not clear in the Bill itself. I personally would not be able to form any opinion except in so far as I know that the matter was considered by the Committee. I presume whoever drafted the Bill drafted it with some knowledge of the circumstances as to whether or not there are such things as retiring members in the sense of people competent to vote.
The question that the Deputy raises is one that can be raised on Section 2 when that section is being discussed. The Deputy asks me to decide that there are no such things as retiring members entitled to vote. I am not prepared to decide whether retiring members of the Seanad are or are not entitled to vote. If I were of the opinion that the amendment could be put in order I would have advised the Deputy beforehand to get it drafted so as to put the idea which I think is in the amendment in order. I think the idea is out of order. The amendments seek to disqualify certain members.
With reference to amendments that appear on the Order Paper, is it not the custom for the Ceann Comhairle to indicate whether the amendment that is to be put on the Paper is or is not in order? When a member brings along an amendment to be placed on the Order Paper, is it not the custom at the time for the Ceann Comhairle to indicate whether that amendment is or is not in order? Why I raise this matter is that it is quite clearly unfair to have a large number of these amendments on the Order Paper and subsequently to have them ruled out. They are supposed to cover points which are important ones, and Deputies find in the end that these points will be ruled out of order, and there is no alternative way of bringing them up. It is unfair from the point of view of Deputies to be so placed and to find that they have no alternative way of again raising the questions set out in their amendments. If there was any idea in the minds of Deputies who propose amendments that these amendments might be ruled out of order, there might be an alternative way of dealing with the question. In this case we have had the Second Reading finished before these amendments were put in. There might, at least, be an opportunity given for dealing with these amendments otherwise if it were known that they might be ruled out of order.
The Ceann Comhairle cannot decide offhand on amendments. This is a matter of some difficulty, and a decision could be come to only after consideration. It would be impossible for the Ceann Comhairle to decide, when he receives an amendment, whether it is or is not in order. Sometimes he has a doubt and sometimes he has not. Sometimes there is something suggested in the House which would enable him to come to a decision. In this case the amendments were put into the Paper in accordance with the usual practice, which is that the amendments as received shall be circulated. Until the Chair is asked to put the question to the House, a point of order may be raised at any time.
With regard to whether the amendments could be put in order, I do not think any of them could in respect of this particular Bill, because the essence of all these amendments is that they disqualify members of the Dáil and Seanad, and they could not be put in order. I did give some consideration to whether amendment 3 could in any way be put into a proper form, but I was unable to find any amendment that I could suggest. I therefore rule that this particular type of amendment which is on the Order Paper cannot be moved at all to the Bill.
When we speak of the principle of a Bill arising on Second Reading, the question arises, what is the principle exactly? I can imagine you extending your ruling for various reasons into other categories and saying that the Seanad should not be separated from the Dáil. To my mind the main principle of the Bill was the abolition of the existing method of election and the proposal to substitute another method in its place. The other method proposed is clearly open to amendment, and the amendment may consist, in my opinion, of separating the Seanad and saying that the Seanad shall not in any way participate in the election. Another way would be to take from the Seanad those members who are directly elected by the people and who might, therefore, be regarded as representatives in some sense of the people, and that the election would be by Deputies or by Senators who are directly elected by the people. The electorate then would be, so to speak, one step removed from the people by the representatives of the people.
It seems to me that the other amendments you propose to rule out of order contain very important principles, and I spoke of these this morning. They concern themselves with whether we should have as an electorate for this Second Chamber individuals who appear to have special allegiance or to be under special obligations to a foreign Power. If we look upon the principle that has been decided in the Second Reading in the sense in which I have suggested it, we can see that the amendments proposed here are very natural ones and that they produce no new principle except the principle of deciding what electorate shall replace the existing system.
The question the Deputy raises as to whether amendment 1 on the Order Paper would be out of order on the same principle, was given some consideration. I am of opinion that amendment 1 is in order and the deletion of the words "and the members of Seanad Eireann" would leave it also in order to delete the words "and the members of Dáil Eireann." The Bill as read a Second Time decides that the electors are to be the members of the Dáil and the Seanad, but the Bill contains no proviso that those who are members of Dáil Eireann and Seanad Eireann are to be disqualified.
There is no disqualification of any kind or description in the Bill, and I think that the element of disqualification cannot be introduced into the Bill in Committee. I am not, of course, obliged to find another method of moving these particular amendments.
All these questions might be considered on the basis of whether certain types of people ought to be Senators or Deputies under an Electoral Bill for the purpose of finding out who ought to be candidates for the Dáil and Seanad. But so long as people are members of the Dáil or Seanad, I think this particular Bill cannot be used to disqualify them for this particular purpose. That element, that principle of disqualification being, as I said, new, rules all the amendments of that particular kind out of order. Amendment No. 1 is on a different basis, and so is amendment No. 4 also, which seeks to take the Dáil and Seanad as an entity. It says that the members of Dáil Eireann shall elect a certain proportion of the members of Seanad Eireann and the members of Seanad Eireann another proportion. That is an ordinary limitation of the principle of the Bill. It is not a new principle.
You have indicated that the question of disqualification would naturally enter into an Electoral Bill only, but this is an Electoral Bill, as far as the Seanad is concerned. It seems to me that the question of additional disqualification of any kind is just a type of thing that occurs in the Committee Stage. But the general principles are there. The object on a Committee Stage, I understand, would be to add certain limitations of various kinds, precisely of the nature of the disqualification indicated here. Deputies could then decide whether certain principles as they stand in the original Bill could not be limited and defined in a more rigid manner than in the Bill as originally produced.
It seems to me that on these two grounds it is an Electoral Bill, and that the question of this disqualification is a very natural type of amendment to introduce when the Bill has passed the Second Stage, and I submit that your ruling is a harsh one.
The Bill is not an Electoral Bill. The Bill is to set up a principle that the electors shall be members of Dáil Eireann and Seanad Eireann. These amendments apply equally to members of the Dáil and Seanad, and could be extended to include all kinds of disqualifications. Before the House entered into a discussion of that kind, it must have given a Second Reading to a Bill which involves the principle of setting up disqualification of members of either House to vote. The amendments are not in order.
SECTION 1.
Article 14 of the Constitution shall be and is hereby amended as follows, that is to say:—
(a) by the deletion of the second sentence now contained therein, that is to say, the sentence beginning with the words "All citizens" and ending with the words "Seanad Eireann," and
(b) by the deletion of the words "either House" now contained therein and the insertion of the words "Dáil Eireann" in lieu of the words so deleted.
Of course Section 1 is the section that deals with the abolition, I take it, of the previous electorate, and, as far as we are concerned, we indicated on that our attitude already. I, for one, have my views as to the functions of a Second House. My idea is that if the Second House is to exist at all it ought to be one merely for re-examination of Bills, a House that would have very limited suspensory powers. It seems to me that it would be unreasonable to expect that the members of such a House with those limited powers should be elected by this process that had been established. There was a sum of £30,000 or £40,000 spent on the last election. I think it was £40,000. Consequently I was of opinion that it was undesirable to continue it if a more satisfactory method could be found. It appeared to me that the method of election by the Dáil alone should be adopted. Now instead of that we have an evil of another character introduced. It is bad to be spending £40,000 every three years on the election of Senators for a Second Chamber, to which it is quite clear there is nobody here going to be satisfied to give very extensive powers, such powers as would justify such an expenditure.
We have now to choose between two evils, the evil of having a House with sufficient powers at any rate to be a serious obstruction to the majority directly elected by the people, and a House to which this series of Bills is giving an opportunity of reproducing itself. If we look at the principles involved we will see that there are 60 Senators. There are 152 voting Deputies here. That means that we have 212 entirely. It is supposed to set up an electorate of 212. Let us say there are 20 Senators who are going to be elected. That gives you the number that would constitute a quota, say ten or eleven, and, therefore, the Seanad members alone if they were to form a solid block and range themselves for voting purposes could elect no less than six Senators even if the whole Dáil were to make up its mind that it was not going to vote for any of those Senators.
Is the Deputy arguing on Section 2?
The point of my argument is this, that the second method is so bad——
We are discussing the first section, merely the deletion of certain words which give the citizens of Saorstát Eireann rights to vote for the Seanad. The Deputy is arguing on totally different matters.
I can see, for instance, that the members of the Labour Party who are opposing this Bill will find that this is a section to which they are more likely to take strong opposition, and I want to say that we will vote with them on this as against the other, on account of the method that it is proposed to substitute for the ordinary way. We do that because we have a choice of two evils—the evil of having a House with 60 members introduced in here to elect themselves. That is a very bad principle, a principle so bad that even the question of expense is to be put aside in connection with it. I hold that the method as it exists is undesirable. But undesirable is a relative term. A thing may be undesirable and it may be proposed to substitute for it a thing that is still more undesirable. A thing most undesirable here is to give to any House whatsoever the power of reproducing itself. That is an undemocratic and unfair principle. I voted because the question of order came into it. Some question had to be decided first on the Committee Stage before the question of an alternative to the present system could be decided. It had to be decided whether the present system was desirable or not before an alternative to that system was decided. Having undertaken that I myself would propose that the Dáil should be the electors, I voted that the present system is undesirable. I think it is very undesirable. I stand by that. The present system is undesirable. I think the idea even of amending it by a change in the constituencies would be undesirable. Why? Because of the fact that I believe there would be gerrymandering in the arrangement or regrouping of any such constituencies.
We are now confronted with this: that we have two evils, and we have to choose the lesser of the two. As far as we are concerned, we will, in order to get the most effective protest we can against having this election by a Second House, which can reproduce itself, vote with the Labour Party on this section, which, to my mind, is the section, from what I understand of their attitude, to which they most object. I do it fully conscious of the fact that those who will try to make points will say there is inconsistency as far as I am concerned in it. There is no inconsistency whatever. I believe that the proper electorate is the Dáil. I believe it is the country in miniature, so to speak, in so far as the country is represented here is concerned, and therefore it is probable that by Proportional Representation you would get more or less the same type as you would get otherwise. There are other members, I know, who may not agree with me in that particular view. That is my view, and I would support—and I think our Party would support—a change of the present system if there was going to be substituted for it election by the Dáil alone. But, as far as we can see, the Executive is determined to weaken the powers of this House and put the other House into a privileged position. The argument is now strengthened by the decision of the Chair not to accept an amendment to take out of the category of Senators those who were popularly elected. Senators popularly elected undoubtedly have a claim to be the people's representatives, and if that amendment were accepted, I, too, from the point of view of having the election of those who are one step removed from the people, might be prepared to accept the change of the old system for the new in that respect. In order that there should be the greatest possible opposition given to this Bill at every stage, we are deliberately choosing, as the lesser of two evils, to vote against the change, seeing that what is proposed to be substituted is of such a vicious character. That indicates what our attitude is going to be. As I said, this is the amendment with which the Labour representatives are most immediately concerned. We are concerned only from the point of view of choosing between two evils. Unlike the Labour Party, we do not think the present system desirable. We think it is an undesirable system, too, because it is costly, and because there is a certain suggestion that it is giving to the Seanad a standing which I do not wish it to have. I have some hope that the people would select a second House that would not be detrimental to the national interests in general, rather than one which would be selected by the Seanad and the Dáil together. Hence the attitude of our Party.
The Deputy who has just sat down was quite right in saying that our fundamental objection to this Bill was because it took from the people the right to elect directly the members who were to sit in the Seanad, and I think Deputy de Valera himself must by this time realise that he made at least an error of judgement, or an error of tactics, in agreeing with the Cumann na nGaedheal Party that the method of direct election was undesirable. Possibly, when he has a little longer experience of the members of the Government Party——
We have very long experience of them.
Longer than the Deputy.
Mr. O'CONNELL
But not here. We have more experience than you here.
Mr. BOLAND
We have it outside.
Mr. O'CONNELL
You know what they do outside; we know what they do here.
Mr. BOLAND
Join the two together.
Mr. O'CONNELL
The Deputy might have known, having taken the first step, that all the rest was inevitable.
This was the place to settle it if we did not settle it elsewhere.
Mr. O'CONNELL
You did not know when you got caught. Apart from that I disagree with Deputy de Valera when he says that this method of election to the Seanad is very undesirable. I cannot see that point of view. I believe the present method, or a variation of the present method, which might easily be got, is the best method of securing a Seanad—if you are going to have a Seanad—that will be in a position to render useful service. I believe that a body of men and women chosen on a broad franchise, different, perhaps, from that on which members of the Dáil are elected, chosen from a different point of view from that on which members of the Dáil are chosen, would constitute a useful body to review legislation passed in this House, passed sometimes not altogether because of the merits of that particular legislation, but because of some clashing of party interests in the House. I believe that a method of that kind, even if it were a little more costly, would be worth it in the long run, and that the expenditure of even £40,000 in getting a body of that kind, which would have some claim to speak in the name of the people, would be money well spent. That is our point of view. That is where we differ. What happened in Committee is only a small matter. We differ vitally in our point of view from the point of view of Deputy de Valera's Party in this matter. We believe that direct election is the surest way of getting a body of people who will review legislation that is sent to them from this House, and review it in the proper manner. I do not know of any other way by which you could procure a better body to do such work, if you are going to have a Seanad at all. Deputy de Valera made the objection that gerrymandering might come into play in the question of selecting the constituencies, assuming that you are going to have a different constituency from the whole State. Of course that is possible, but it is possible in any scheme of distribution of constituencies, whether for the Seanad or Dáil. If it is possible in the one case it is possible in the other. It ought to be the duty of the Oireachtas in laying down the constituencies to see that there is no gerrymandering of that kind. I say that to this section of the Bill our strongest objection lies. We have opposed it from the beginning, on the Second Reading, and herein we shall continue to do so by voting against it.
It appears to me that the Fianna Fáil Party in this case very much resembles a coy old maid alternating between two forces, one led by Deputy Tierney and the other led by Deputy O'Connell. The old lady is in a state of philosophic doubt, or perhaps in a state of spiritual exaltation, satisfied to throw over direct representation of the people, as far as the Senate is concerned, and satisfied in that connection that she is getting some support from one of the two parties, but, on the other hand, when she sees the method that is pro- posed, she tries to get back to the other, and in the meantime tries to explain to the people that the mistake was on the part of the other two persons rather than herself. I think the lady is an old political frump. No one is in any way illuminated by the explanations we have had as to why voting for the election to the Senate by direct vote of the people is undesirable. That is very hard to explain, and I do not think Deputy de Valera has explained his Party out of it.
Does the President insinuate that Deputy O'Connell and I are objecting to this?
Yes.
Section 1 deals only with the question of the abolition of popular election, and seeing that Section 2 and the amendments, particularly amendment 1 to Section 2, on the Order Paper, deal with the method of election, the discussion on this amendment should be confined to Section 1. Deputy O'Connell confined himself to the question as to whether there should or should not be popular election. The other question as to what the electorate should be is down for discussion later on Section 2, by amendment 1 to Section 2, and, to a limited extent, by amendment 4 to Section 2. So that we should keep ourselves to the question of direct election or not.
When we are considering the question as to whether there should or should not be popular election to the Senate, the question we will have to ask ourselves is what we propose or what we hope to achieve. It is well known that Deputies on these benches do not want a Senate; but if we must have a Senate to spite us, then we want a Senate that will be as impotent and as innocuous as possible. Deputy O'Connell has said that the present method, or a variation of it, is the best method of getting a Senate which would give useful service. Deputy O'Connell begs the question. He takes it for granted that a Senate constituted within the framework of this Constitution can give useful service. I suggest that Deputy O'Connell is arguing from false premises, that by assuming that such a Senate can give useful service at any time he is being deceived into taking a wrong attitude in regard to the method of election.
Then your amendment No. 1 should not be there.
I will deal with amendment No. 1 later. The fact remains that the Party on these benches is not able to ensure that there will be no Senate. A Senate will be in existence after these Bills have passed, a Senate of a particular character and with particular powers. In what way is it best that the Senate should be secured?
I thought the Deputy was going to say what way would it be worse secured.
That is a point of view I will deal with. The purpose which Deputies on these benches have, and the purpose which animated them in all discussions on this matter is: What is the speediest way of getting rid of the Senate, and what is the best way of keeping the Senate innocuous while we are engaged in the process of getting rid of it? Any Deputy who faces the question that election to the Seanad by direct vote of the people is undesirable, would have no difficulty in making up his mind when he knows that a method of election to the Senate is possible which would ultimately facilitate the abolition of the Senate and which would, in the meantime, ensure that the Senate would be in every way subordinate to this assembly and unable to take effective action contrary to the will of this assembly. If, however, that method of election is not to be put into operation we have got to ask ourselves what is the next best method of election from our point of view. If we have election by this Dáil, a Dáil consisting of representatives elected by the people, or if we have election by the people, it is possible to ensure that the will of the people in connection with the Senate will be made operative, and I have no doubt whatever that the will of the people is that the Senate should be abolished. I said before, and I am going to say it again publicly here, that if members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party were prepared to say in this House what they are prepared to say to me in private in connection with the Senate, they would go into the lobby and vote for its abolition. The best method to ensure that the duration of the Senate will be as short as possible and that the Senate will be as innocuous as possible while it is in existence would undoubtedly be to have an election by the members of the Dáil from a panel of candidates nominated by the Dáil. But we cannot have that; that proposition was turned down by the Joint Committee, and has not been proposed here. Therefore, we have got to choose between the methods that are proposed here, the method of popular election, or the method of election by the Dáil and Senate combined. With a popular election we could provide that the will of the people could be made effective in respect to the Senate. It is possible to elect Senators who would be prepared to support the idea of the abolition of the Senate, and it is possible to ensure that ultimately there would be a majority in the Senate prepared to support any legislation designed to abolish it. With the other system the reverse is the case, because you are giving to the existing members of the Senate—the people with an interest in maintaining it, a number of whom are nominated, a number of whom, as has been pointed out, have interests, and potent interests, outside this State, some of whom are actually members of the Parliament of an alien country——
The Deputy is going into Section 2 on amendment 1 rather than into Section 1.
I agree, but the proposal is to give to these members power to elect the Seanad, and sufficient power to ensure that——
That proposal is not in Section 1 at all. The situation is simple enough to-day because amendments are all down in the names of members of the same Party, but a different situation would arise if the Chair allowed a discussion on Section 1, ranging over the whole Bill, to prevent other matters being discussed. I want to take a decision on amendment 1 and Section 2 first, and to have a proper discussion on the matter raised on amendment 1.
The only other point I will deal with is the statement by Deputy O'Connell, that a body elected under the existing system, or under a variation of the existing system that he has in mind, would have some claim to speak on behalf of the people. That is the danger. That is why we are going to oppose this section of the Bill, to ensure that there will not be in existence a body which can claim to speak on behalf of the people.
That is an excuse for executing the electors, which is the first act.
The first section of this Bill is to delete from the Constitution the section which provides that all citizens of the Irish Free State, without distinction of sex, who have reached the age of thirty years and who comply with the provisions of the prevailing electoral laws, shall have the right to vote for members of Seanad Eireann.
We are now excluding that by this.
But remember they cannot vote whom they like into the Senate. They can only elect members from a nominated panel, and although they have the right to vote they have not the right to ensure that the people representing their views will be in the Seanad. They have got to choose between the lesser of two evils presented to them. We are going to oppose the proposition to take from the people the right to vote. If we are going to have a popular election we should have it in the full sense, and we should give to the people the power to put into the Seanad men who, for example, would be pledged to abolish the Seanad and who would not be nominated under the existing system. We think that as between the existing method and the method proposed by the Bill that the existing method is the better one because it gives the opportunity of choosing the lesser of two evils, and not because it is good.
The cynicism in which Deputy Lemass has indulged in this matter reminds me of a remark made by Deputy Boland the other day when he said something about members of the Cumann na nGaedheal organisation being the only non-political people in the country. He said the reason for that was that they had no heads for real politics. I suppose what Deputy Lemass has been preaching in this matter is what he thinks to be real politics. If that is the case, I must say that personally it seems to me that the possession of a head for that brand of real politics is rather a hindrance than a help. Deputy Lemass and his party have seemed to make a virtue of proclaiming as their policy what one of the Labour Senators brought up against them at the Joint Committee as an accusation. They were accused of wishing to abolish popular election for the Seanad in order that they might weaken the position of the Seanad, and thereby bring about the abolition of the Seanad in time.
I think it would be better for the Deputy not to enter into the views expressed by a particular Senator. I think there was only one Labour Senator on the Committee. The matter is not of any great importance here. It is purely a political question, but I think it would be better if the Deputy would simply give us his own views.
I think the accusation has been brought here by Deputy O'Connell. I only meant to convey that Deputy O'Connell, in the speech he made on this subject, was not giving his own views, but rather the views of the official Labour Party. The accusation was made in any case as a sort of subtle attack on Deputy de Valera and his party. Deputy de Valera and his party have been practising this brand of real politics, of which Deputy Boland is so proud. Apparently they expect that that will bring them some credit in the country. It seems to me, looking at the matter personally, that if Deputy de Valera and his party are really anxious for the abolition of the Seanad, they should join with Deputy O'Connell in his attitude on this Bill. If they wish to bring about the abolition of the Seanad the way to do it is to continue the present system of election. I have been very firm in that belief for a long time.
That is what we are proposing to do.
That is what the Labour Party propose to do, but Deputy de Valera's idea is to abolish the present system and substitute for it election by the Dáil. From the point of view of maintaining the Seanad, I consider that Deputy de Valera's proposal is somewhat of an improvement, but not much of an improvement, on the present system. I believe that if you really want to abolish the Seanad and make the people all sick of it, the way to do it is to keep this elaborate type of election that we have in which only 25 per cent. of the registered electors vote, in which the candidates are only very slightly known to the electors, and in which an enormous list is presented to the electors for the selection of a small number from it.
I am in favour of this Bill for that reason. I believe that some such Bill is necessary in order to secure that the Seanad should continue to be a useful organ in the State. I believe that if Deputy de Valera and his party had that head for real politics which they pride themselves on, they would be much more anxious to maintain the present system than to vote for a system in which the Seanad will be elected by the Dáil alone I do not believe that even if they were to carry their point, and that it was brought about that the Seanad was elected by the Dáil alone, that they would weaken the position.
That is a question that would arise on amendment No. 1. Would the Deputy keep to the section for the moment?
As regards the attitude of the Labour Party on this question, I do not believe that Deputy O'Connell's attitude represents to any degree the attitude of his constituents in the country. I believe that there is no public demand for the continuance of the present system of election to the Seanad. I believe that the people are tired of it, and have never had any interest in it, or any enthusiasm for it, and I believe they would be very glad to get rid of it and see substituted for it a more sensible system. All this talk about democracy seems to imply that there is only one kind of democracy possible, and that in order to be democratic you must have an election for everything, no matter what the functions of the body to be elected are.
It seems to me that the functions which it is proposed to confer upon the Seanad, the functions which the Seanad has exercised up to the present, are functions which do not make it at all necessary or advisable that the Seanad should be a popularly elected body. It has not any very wide powers in the way of initiating legislation. Its powers are mainly in the matter of checking, criticising and improving legislation which has already been begun by the more popularly elected Assembly. It seems to me that for a body like the Seanad there is no real reason why you could not have nomination as the principle of selection if you wish. I do not believe it would be by any means the best system. I think the system proposed better. At any rate, it is a compromise which gives you the best elements combined together in one system. I do not see where democracy enters into this at all. What I believe we should have in the Seanad, in spite of Deputy de Valera's idea of progress, is a sober and critical body which would criticise and improve upon, if necessary, legislation that may be passed in the Dáil in a very heated and unfavourable atmosphere. For that reason I think the system which it is proposed to establish in this Bill is much the best that could be devised for choosing a Seanad. My personal opinion about the attitude of the Labour Party on this is, that hardly any member of the Party really believes in this democratic principle that they talk so much about.
How do you know?
I am simply stating my personal opinion.
It is not worth much anyhow in that respect.
I know, just as well as Deputy O'Connell knows, what the opinions of his constituents are on that subject.
They put you out of Mayo and I am there yet.
I would be prepared to discuss this with Deputy O'Connell or the constituents of any rural Deputy in the Labour Party, and I would be prepared to back my views and abide by the decision of any rural constituency in these matters. I believe the people are not in the slightest degree interested in or in any way enthusiastic about this system. If it is continued it will be the quickest way of bringing about the end of the Seanad. Deputy O'Connell, I believe, is talking of this matter from the book. The Labour Party has a set of more rigid official doctrines than any other party in this House, and when the Labour Party talks about democracy and the necessity of maintaining the popular system of election, I believe it is not saying what its members believe, but is simply handling out some ancient doctrine devised for it by some cosmopolitan Socialist.
Deputy Lemass has made one thing quite clear—namely, that he and his party favour the abolition of the Seanad as we know it under the existing Constitution. Deputy Lemass has on several occasions made quite clear that he does not believe in working under the existing Constitution, and that his party and himself are here in this House against their own will and judgment. Deputy Lemass and other members of his party who have spoken on this matter say that they favour the abolition of the Seanad, but they do not say that they are definitely opposed to a second Chamber of any kind. I think they should make their position quite clear on that. Deputy de Valera, in his speech to-day, said he favoured the election of Senators by a joint sitting between members of the Seanad and the Dáil, because, in the first place, he wants to save the country the expense of a Seanad election, as it was carried out in the last three or four years. He definitely stated that he wanted to save the electorate the sum of about £40,000. Deputy Lemass, on the other hand, says he favours election by the Dáil and Seanad sitting together, because he says he believes that would get a larger number of people into the Seanad than they would otherwise get for the purpose of voting for its abolition.
Perhaps the Deputy would look at the amendment on the Order Paper and see what it proposes. The question before us now is whether there ought or ought not be a popular election apart from the other alternatives.
I preferred to listen to Deputy de Valera's speech to find out what he thought rather than make it out from the amendment on the Order Paper. Deputy de Valera and his party, and on this we have been with him up to a certain point, held up the ordinary business of the House for the last couple of weeks because the Government proposed to remove from the Constitution the right to initiate laws and maintain the principle of a Referendum. The Referendum Clause, if put into operation, would cost about £85,000. Deputy de Valera is prepared to make use of that clause on every occasion he would wish, but he is not willing to allow the same people to whom he would appeal to say whether they are willing to elect people to a Second Chamber to carry on under the existing Constitution. I am in favour of a Second Chamber, but I am not in favour of the Seanad in so far as it is composed of sixty members. I believe that the majority of the Seanad, by absenting themselves from the meetings of that body, have failed to justify the existence of that institution, so far, at least, as numbers are concerned. Assuming that the people are anxious to abolish the Seanad, I would suggest to Deputy Lemass—he seems to indicate in his speech that he was anxious to get into the Seanad members who would take the earliest opportunity of abolishing that institution—that there is no better way of doing that than by referring the elections to the people. Deputy Lemass would favour an election by the people the same as three years ago, because he would get a greater number of people into the Seanad who would vote for its abolition than he would by having Senators elected by a joint meeting of the members of the Seanad and Dáil.
That is not what I said.
Then I cannot understand why Deputy Ruttledge, on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party, at the meeting of the Joint Committee expressed himself in agreement with Clause 2 of that report. He agreed that the Joint Committee is of opinion that election to Seanad Eireann by direct vote of the people is undesirable and recommended instead there should be substituted for it election by a vote taken together of the members of the Dáil and Seanad on the principle of proportional representation. Why in the name of goodness did Deputy Ruttledge sign that report?
The report is the report of the Committee signed by the Chairman of the Committee and the proceedings disclose how members of the Committee voted on the particular issues before it. Deputy Ruttledge did not sign the report.
He agreed that election by the people was undesirable. Then Deputy Lemass tried to confuse members of this House and the public on this question, and as to the reason why Deputy Ruttledge subscribed to this clause in the majority report.
He did not subscribe to it.
The fact remains that the Fianna Fáil Party and the Cumann na nGaedheal Party have agreed that the Senators who are to be elected inside the next three or four months will be elected jointly by the Seanad and the Dáil.
FIANNA FÁIL DEPUTIES
No.
If they have agreed that election by the people is undesirable, I suggest the only other way the election could be carried out is by the suggestion in the majority report.
Read amendment No. 1.
I read it. Deputy Lemass says, so far as he is concerned, so long as the Seanad continues to function it should give expression to the majority will of the Irish people. There is no more certain way of doing that than by allowing the election to be carried out by the people. I fail to understand why the Fianna Fáil Party or the representatives of that Party on the Committee should subscribe to an election by a joint meeting of the Dáil and Seanad. That suggestion is certainly contained in the majority report, and that report has been made possible by the signature to the agreement of Deputy Ruttledge as representing his Party.
If the amendments on the Order Paper are to get adequate discussion, particularly as the time is limited by order of the House, I would suggest that we should decide the question on Section 1 and then go on to discuss the amendments on the Order Paper, on which I would be able to allow a discussion on the whole question as to how the Seanad should be constituted. I believe that will give a better discussion than we are getting in speeches which are partially relevant.
Are we supposed to know what Deputy Davin recommends?
No, but to what he objects—the removal of that section from the Constitution.
I suppose I can say what I want on the amendment so far as it is relevant?
On the amendment the Deputy can talk about the methods of election to the Seanad, and not as to whether members shall take part in the elections. Amendment 1 raises the whole question, I think, in a better way.
I would like to say a few words on the question as to whether the electorate should have this vote or not. It is impossible in this country to have a dual authority. You cannot have two Houses based on the same electorate deriving the same authority from the people. Of course I can understand Deputy Davin and people who represent big organisations wanting to have the present system of election, because it is very valuable for them. If you have a big influence on newspapers and big organisations like trade unions, I could understand that feeling, but the Deputy should not allow himself to be used as a sort of free lance instrument of attack by Cumann na nGaedheal on the Fianna Fáil Party. It looks like that from the outside. I can understand the Deputy's hurt feelings. If I may put it this way, he has, I think, a sort of electoral vested interest in the system.
Not one-tenth part of yours.
His attempt to confuse that attitude of the Fianna Fáil Party by trying to deduce things from the report is obstructing proper discussion of this question. Deputy Tierney answered himself, because he said that if we were consistent we should stand over the present system, as it was so rotten that the people would get tried of it and would get rid of it, and then he said that the people were tired of it. It seems to be natural and logical that if one believes in one House and one authority based on one electorate, no other House should spring from that as a creation of that sovereign House.
Question—"That Section 1 stand part of the Bill"—put.
The Committee divided. Tá, 67; Níl, 44.
Tá
- William P. Aird.
- James Walter Beckett.
- George Cecil Bennett.
- Ernest Blythe.
- Séamus A. Bourke.
- Michael Brennan.
- Seán Brodrick.
- Alfred Byrne.
- John Joseph Byrne.
- John James Cole.
- Mrs. Margaret Collins-O'Driscoll.
- Martin Conlon.
- Michael P. Connolly.
- Bryan Ricco Cooper.
- William T. Cosgrave.
- Sir James Craig.
- James Crowley.
- Peter de Loughrey.
- Eugene Doherty.
- James N. Dolan.
- Peadar Seán Doyle.
- Edmund John Duggan.
- James Dwyer.
- Barry M. Egan.
- Osmond Thomas Grattan Esmonde.
- Desmond Fitzgerald.
- James Fitzgerald-Kenney.
- John Good.
- Denis J. Gorey.
- Alexander Haslett.
- John J. Hassett.
- Michael R. Heffernan.
- Michael Joseph Hennessy.
- Thomas Hennessy.
- John Hennigan.
- Mark Henry.
- Patrick Hogan (Galway).
- Richard Holohan.
- Myles Keogh.
- Hugh Alexander La.
- Patrick Leonard.
- Finian Lynch.
- Arthur Patrick Mathews.
- Martin McDonogh.
- Richard Mulcahy.
- James E. Murphy.
- Joseph Xavier Murphy.
- James Sproule Myles.
- John Thomas Nolan.
- Richard O'Connell.
- Bartholomew O'Connor.
- Timothy Joseph O'Donovan.
- Daniel O'Leary.
- Dermot Gun O'Mahony.
- John Marcus O'Sullivan.
- Patrick Reynolds.
- Vincent Rice.
- Martin Roddy.
- Patrick W. Shaw.
- Timothy Sheehy (West Cork).
- William Edward Thrift.
- Michael Tierney.
- Daniel Vaughan.
- John White.
- Vincent Joseph White.
- George Wolfe.
- Jasper Travers Wolfe.
Níl
- Frank Aiken.
- Richard Anthony.
- Neal Blaney.
- Gerald Boland.
- Patrick Boland.
- Daniel Bourke.
- Seán Brady.
- Robert Briscoe.
- Daniel Buckley.
- Frank Carney.
- Frank Carty.
- Michael Clery.
- James Coburn.
- James Colbert.
- Tadhg Crowley.
- William Davin.
- Thomas Derrig.
- Eamon de Valera.
- Frank Fahy.
- Hugo Flinn.
- Andrew Fogarty.
- Patrick J. Gorry.
- John Goulding.
- Seán Hayes.
- Samuel Holt.
- Patrick Houlihan.
- Stephen Jordan.
- Michael Joseph Kennedy.
- James Joseph Killane.
- Mark Killilea.
- Michael Kilroy.
- Seán F. Lemass.
- Patrick John Little.
- Ben. Maguire.
- Thomas McEllistrim.
- Seán MacEntee.
- Séamus Moore.
- Daniel Morrissey.
- Thomas J. O'Connell.
- Patrick Joseph O'Dowd.
- John F. O'Hanlon.
- William O'Leary.
- James Ryan.
- Patrick Smith.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Duggan and P. Doyle; Níl: Deputies G. Boland and Anthony.
Motion declared carried.
SECTION 2.
Article 32 of the Constitution shall be and is hereby amended by the deletion of the words "at which the area of the jurisdiction of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann) shall form one electoral area, and the elections shall be held on principles of Proportional Representation" now contained therein and the insertion in lieu of the words so deleted of the words "at which the electors shall be members of Dáil Eireann and the members of Seanad Eireann voting together on principles of Proportional Representation. The voting at such elections shall be by secret ballot and no elector may exercise more than one vote thereat. The place and conduct of such elections shall be regulated by law."
With regard to the amendments, I think that Amendments 1 and 4 might be discussed together. They involve two questions from the Chair. One is that the words "and members of Seanad Eireann" stand part of the section. I would not put Amendment No. 1 in the form that the words proposed to be deleted stand part of the Bill, as if I did it would be impossible to put the question on Deputy MacEntee's Amendment No. 4. I shall, therefore, first put the question that the words "and members of Seanad Eireann" stand part of the Bill, and on Amendment 4 that the word "together" stand part of the Bill. Under the Order made last night the Chair has no discretion in the matter of these amendments, but there is only one other amendment on the Order Paper after these two, and that is Amendment No. 11. I suggest that under this procedure some time should be given to the consideration of that amendment, because it must be put under the resolution of the House. It cannot be put at a later stage, and some discussion should be reserved for that particular amendment, as it raises a wholly different point to that raised under Amendments 1 and 4.
I move:—
In line 40, after the words "Dáil Eireann" to delete the words "and the members of Seanad Eireann" and the words "voting together" and to substitute the word "alone."
The amendment is to the effect that the electorate should be Dáil Eireann only. Perhaps it will save time in the long run if I try to clear up a confusion which was, I think, real on the part of Deputy Davin and assumed on the part of the President—confusion as to our attitude. Our attitude on this matter ought to be easily understood. We are against any Seanad in the present circumstances. We are not strong enough numerically here to have our way in that matter. If we were, we would put in very clear form our idea of what is the proper thing to do with the existing Seanad. A Joint Committee was set up to discuss the matter of the powers and constitution of the Seanad. I was a member of it, and I raised as one of the first questions there the question whether it would be in order to discuss the abolition of the Seanad as a whole. It was ruled that that particular question would not be within the Committee's terms of reference. Therefore the questions which the representatives of our party had to discuss there were questions of the changes in the Seanad that might be made within the terms of reference. During the first two or three meetings of the Committee the discussion ranged over the whole field, and it was only when it was necessary to come to the point of taking decisions that the order in which questions would be taken had to be decided, and it was decided, I think, against the opposition of our representatives—I was in another place on that day—to take first this question of election.
We believed that the question of the powers of the Seanad should take precedence in the discussion. The first question put was whether the present method of election was desirable or not. I think that the present method of election is undesirable. As I have already stated three or four times, we regarded it as undesirable because it was costly, because it would give to the Seanad a foundation as derived directly from the people which we did not wish it to have and it would set up a Second House that might be a rival to this House in authority, as being derived from the people, and finally popular election could not be used in the sense of destroying the Seanad with very great effect. In fact, popular election, when a large number of people would not participate in the election at all, was about to be used as a method of misrepresentation of the people. Those who would be elected would be elected by a 23 per cent. vote, and would be able to say, "We have been elected by the people," though a large section of the people had boycotted the election and did not intend to take part in it at all. There is no use in saying that the people could stop it. They could only stop it by doing the same thing which we were able to do in 1918, that is by electing by an overwhelming majority a number of people who would not recognise its authority when they were elected.
In the circumstances that was not likely to be possible, and what was going to happen was, that a number of Senators would be nominated and would be elected on a very small percentage vote. Therefore, popular election was in the circumstances likely to be misrepresentation of the people, and would not be useful for ultimate purposes. Secondly, we regarded it as undesirable, but it was only relatively undesirable. It is obvious that when you take a thing that is undesirable it is possible to get things that would be more undesirable. That was exactly what was proposed. We were in a difficulty. We had either to maintain an undesirable form, or else in the first stage to say that that was undesirable in order that the other question, the more desirable method, might be discussed. The same difficulty occurs with regard to this Bill. Supposing that the second section of the Bill, instead of providing for election by the Seanad and the Dáil combined, provided for election by the Dáil only, I would have voted in a different way to that in which I voted just now. Why? Because I would have to vote against popular election in order that the second part might go on for discussion. That was precisely the position in the Committee. Unfortunately, Deputy Ruttledge is not able to be present. It was he who actually cast the vote referred to. If I had been there, I would have voted in exactly the same way as Deputy Ruttledge did. He voted the Party attitude absolutely on this particular question, so that there is no question of Deputy Ruttledge acting in one way and the Party acting in a different manner.
took the Chair.
The report as a whole was not signed by us in the sense that we agreed to its terms. It was a majority report. Even though I knew that I was one of a very small minority dissenting, I had repeatedly to dissent from things that I knew were going to be agreed to in the main by the Committee, in order that this very confusion which has been brought about, or attempted to be brought about, might not occur and that our attitude might be clear from the beginning. I believe it is clear to everybody who does not want to blind himself to the obvious and try to make out inconsistencies, and that sort of thing, for purely deceptive purposes.
As to the amendment itself, what I have said is the introduction to show what our attitude is. If our amendment were carried, I would be better pleased with it than if, for instance, Section 1 were carried. If our amendment is carried, and if we have an election by Dáil Eireann alone, I for one will be satisfied with that mode of election, and think that we had saved the country a sum of £30,000 or £40,000 a year, and that we had replaced a cumbrous and costly system by one that was very much better— better because it was less costly and because you were getting the very same results as you got before. The objection, of course, that is raised in all these cases is that if the Dáil elects the Second House it will be a replica of itself. If you have a popular election it will be a replica, pretty much. How are you going to get a Second House which will not be more or less a reproduction of the popular House? Nomination has been suggested, but the history of nominated assemblies makes it quite clear that nomination as a method of electing a Second House is a very short-lived method. It has brought dissatisfaction everywhere and would not be tolerated at all by people who have any regard for their rights and liberties. By the method proposed in this Bill you have the nearest possible thing to nomination. You have got a body which is itself 50 per cent. nominated given the power of voting for its successors and for reproducing itself. In the Seanad there are sixty members, of which the only members who could in any sense be regarded as deriving authority directly from the people are those who were voted for popularly at the last election.
When you remember that a large section of the people boycotted those elections altogether, you will see that even they are not definitely representative of the viewpoint of the people as a whole. So that it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that 80 per cent.— in fact, you might make it the whole 100 per cent.—of that assembly is more or less nominated. The panel which was submitted to the people was selected by the Senate—at least, the Senate had to do with the selection of it—and therefore the people were presented with an election in which they had simply to choose, if they were to choose at all, the least objectionable from the panel presented. Sixty members elected in that particular way are going to be brought to vote with the members of this House, and, therefore, destroy completely the representative character of the voting. Sixty added to 152 is a very serious proportion. The total vote would be 212. If there are to be twenty members elected, eleven would be the quota. That gives an opportunity to the Senate if they vote in a block—and thirty of the members are directly nominated without any question or shadow of doubt about it—the power of electing six or seven members. That is one of the things that is bad about proportional representation when you apply it with a big number of candidates and a small electorate. There is no doubt that it is unsuitable, that it does not work out well in that particular case. The number of vacancies would probably be more than twenty, because there will be certain added vacancies, but you will have twenty vacancies normally. By the method of proportional representation you divide that number into the total electorate, which is 212, and you add one, and that gives you eleven as the quota. That means that if the Senators could arrange among themselves they could of themselves elect between five and seven members, according to whether the quota works out in that particular way. I think that is altogether wrong—to give the Senate the power of reproducing itself in that particular fashion. It destroys also the representative character of the election and of the Senate when elected. It is a very common method to elect a Senate by one step removed, that is by the popularly-elected Chamber. That is a very common method and can be defended. I, for one, would agree, as I have said, with it. But the moment you introduce an outside body into it, you destroy its character completely.
The Minister for Justice, in talking about the Initiative, said that in his view the Initiative, by a direct appeal to the people like that, had a tendency —and there is a certain amount of truth in it, of course—towards weakening the power of the representative assembly. The question of weakening their power is a question of whether you want to weaken their power or not. I want to weaken their power for doing harm when they are likely to do it. Therefore, I am in favour, at any rate, of the Initiative.
But how the Minister for Justice, or anybody else, holding views of that kind could hold that they stand for representative government and, at the same time, by means of election to the Second House destroy completely the representative character of the Legislature, is a thing that I cannot understand. There is a real inconsistency there, very different from the apparent inconsistency which was tried to be made out against our party in respect to our attitude on popular election in this particular matter.
As far as I am concerned, I have given the arguments, as they appeal to me, more than once, on this Bill. I do not propose to continue them any longer. I repeat them simply in a summary form: That it destroys the representative character; that it gives to that House, which was nominated largely at the start, an opportunity of reproducing itself; that that House is already intended to buttress and to preserve privilege, and that it was originally intended for an entirely different purpose. The idea at that time, as far as I remember, and as I understood it, was that if all the forces of Irish nationalism were united this particular section would be swamped as against the unity of the rest of the people. But no such thing has happened. As I have said, they are already in a position in which they have the balance of power here and are able to dictate to the majority party what their policy is to be; the penalty for refusing to answer to the lash being that the majority would be thrown out of office by their votes. There is no need, therefore, to give them any privileges. They have attached themselves to the majority party; they are almost indistinguishable from the majority party, and, consequently, the position is that that this Bill gives to the majority party a buttress by which its power is going to be preserved. The idea is to buttress up the present existing majority party in such a way that it will be able to resist popular change, so that when the people change and withdraw from them the support they have so far given them there will be a long "lag," at any rate, in the result appearing in the legislation. Now, we think that is most unfair. We did not think that the Executive in any circumstances would be likely ever to introduce a measure of this sort. We did not think at all that the Executive would vote for depriving this House, apart altogether from any general principles, of its strength in the election of a Second House, and against the will of this House putting up another House which can resist that will fairly effectively if it wants to. These are the reasons why I propose that we should delete the words "Seanad Eireann" and make the electoral body that we propose to substitute for the people the nearest body we can get for the people, namely, that of their directly elected representatives here.
On a point of order I suggest that in order that this amendment should be discussed adequately some member of the Government should state the grounds on which they recommend the section to this House.
That is not a point of order.
Because we do not want the people to do wrong.
You are not a member of the Government yet. Of course there is hope.
I think the reasons why this Bill is now before us have already been stated. They are simply purporting to be carrying out the report of the Joint Committee. I might say that while I quite easily understand the position of Deputy de Valera—he need not have gone the lengths he did to explain it, because it is to my mind quite clear—my objection to it is that his action in joining the Cumann na nGaedheal Party in taking the first step, saying that direct election was undesirable, has resulted in the report of the Joint Committee that we have now before us in the form of a Bill. If Deputy de Valera's Party, instead of standing in with the Cumann na nGaedheal Party and adopting their suggestions, stood in with Labour Senators and Deputies, we would not have this Joint Report on this matter, and, therefore, we would not have this Bill. Perhaps we might have had it— we do not know—but certainly we would not have had the apparent justification for it that is made by the Government when they say they are only putting before us the report of the Joint Committee. My difficulty in finding out exactly where the Fianna Fáil Party stands is this: we take the view, if there is to be a Seanad it ought to be a good Seanad. I think that Deputy Lemass, and certainly Deputy Boland, have expressed the view that if there is to be a Senate we ought to have a bad Senate.
No, a harmless one.
Mr. O'CONNELL
A harmless one, an in effective one. That is where we differ. I think it should be a good one, and I take up that point of view, but if Deputy Lemass and Deputy Boland are logical, I cannot see why they should stand for this amendment of Deputy de Valera. We have no difficulty at all in the matter. Having been denied the rights of having the Senate elected by the people, we agree with Deputy de Valera that the next best thing is to have it elected by the Dáil, and the next best thing after that is Deputy MacEntee's amendment. I certainly shall vote for Deputy de Valera's amendment, and if that is defeated I shall vote for the next best thing, namely, Deputy MacEntee's Amendment No. 4. If Deputy Lemass speaks upon this matter, as I expect he will, I would like him to explain what he said when speaking to the last section, when he said that the danger he sees is that if the Senate were popularly elected they would have some right to speak for the people. They would have some claim according to Deputy de Valera to speak, as once removed, from the representatives of the people if this amendment was carried. I would like to hear from Deputy Lemass how he can logically support Deputy de Valera's amendment if he has that view of the Senate that he seems to have. At any rate, our point of view is clear and I think it is logical. It is that having been refused what we think is best we will take the second best.
Deputy de Valera's attitude about this whole matter seems to me to be best described as that of an inverted stepmother. Officially his policy is to destroy the Bill as soon as possible, but he cannot, probably owing to the vein of constitutionalism running through his nature in spite of everything, help feeling a certain affection for the Bill. While officially he purports to be engaged in its destruction, he cannot help every now and again bringing up secret supplies of nourishment and suggesting things by which its health may be improved. I prefer briefly to look at him in the official aspect in which he seeks the baby's destruction. And it seems to me that if we do take that view as to the official attitude of the Fianna Fáil Party our only course with this Bill is to vote for it as it stands and against the amendment. If Deputy de Valera wishes by confining the elections of the Senate to the Dáil alone to hasten the end of the baby I think we have a duty to fulfil to resist his fell design as strongly as possible, and to give every help we can to the Senate to become a strong organ in the State.
Deputy de Valera and his Party make great play with the statement that the Seanad consists very largely of nominated members. I would like to point out that the members of the Seanad are nominated, not by some external and hostile authority, but by the President of the Executive Council.
An internal and hostile authority.
There again we have a certain little inconsistency. Perhaps it is hardly sufficiently serious to describe it as inconsistency on the part of certain Fianna Fáil Deputies. Sometimes they are inclined to pat us on the back, and regard us as very erring brothers, and sometimes they treat us as if we should be forgiven. The fact of the matter is we never know in which aspect they regard us at the moment, whether we are in Purgatory or in a place from which there is no return. We are now told about the internal and hostile authority. The fact is that the nominations are made by the President of the Executive Council. The President is elected by the majority votes of this Dáil, and he is now described as the internal and hostile authority who nominates the members of the Seanad.
To my mind, the members of the Seanad are elected by a system which is only one step further removed from popular election than the system Deputy de Valera proposes to set up. They are nominated by an authority who himself was elected by the majority of the members of Dáil Eireann. The present holder of the post will not, we presume, always be its holder, and future Presidents might take a very different attitude towards nomination from what the present President does. This Bill pre-supposes that system will fall into abeyance after a certain time, and after some years have elapsed there will no longer be any nominated elements in the Seanad. Even if Deputy de Valera's worst fears were to be realised, you would simply have this dangerous state of affairs in which this terribly evil-minded minority would be likely to dictate to the country—you would have it continuing only for a very short term of years. Ultimately under this Bill a state of affairs will come about by which the whole body of the Seanad will be elected directly by the Dáil and Seanad voting together.
By themselves.
Not quite. The members of the Dáil will never be members of the Seanad at any future time. We will ultimately have a state of affairs in which the Seanad will gradually come to consist of people who have been elected, partly by the representatives of the people here, and partly by Senators who themselves have been, in their turn, selected by the representatives of the people here. You will, therefore, get a mixed kind of Seanad. It is in that the excellence of the proposal mainly rests. If Deputy de Valera's proposal were carried you would have a Seanad which would tend to become more and more a complete replica of the Dáil, a Seanad which would be sharply divided into the very same number of Parties as in the Dáil, and it would be apt, if Party discipline could be got to extend to the Seanad, to react in the same manner towards every Bill brought in as the Dáil would react. You might easily have a state of affairs in which you would have, not only all-night sittings of the Dáil, but all-night sittings of the Seanad following shortly afterwards. If Deputy de Valera's party could find nominees of their own loquacity and pertinacity, we might have debates in the Seanad being dragged out to the same ridiculous extent as the debates in the Dáil were for the last few weeks.
There is a great deal said about the very wide powers it is proposed to confer on the Seanad, which, in turn, is supposed to be elected in such a sinister way. What are the powers? A lot of use was made yesterday of the word "veto." There is no veto being given to the Seanad in any of these Bills.
The Deputy must confine himself to this Bill.
This is relevant, because the point has been made that you are proposing to elect Senators in this way and give them very wide powers. The Deputy referred to a body not directly elected and which consists partly of nominated people, and he suggested that we were giving them powers to override the rights of the people. You are not giving them any veto at all. You are giving them power to hold up legislation for a very short period. I believe in doing that you are simply making the Seanad into a useful body, by having a mixed system of election which will secure that not only the members of the Dáil but of the existing Seanad will all have a part. That is the best system of election that could be found for the main reason that it will tend to create in the Seanad something that will cut across the line of Party division that exists in the Dáil.
One could have some sympathy with Deputy de Valera's fears that for a time the majority of the members of the Seanad would be opposed to his own particular policy. That is partly his own fault in any case. If he had taken his ordinary part in the election of the Seanad during the last four or five years he would not have that state of affairs existing now. Deputy de Valera would be represented in the Seanad by a number of Senators and the danger he is afraid of that some time when he might get a majority of the votes he may be held up by a hostile Seanad, would not be so terrible as it would appear now. All that danger will disappear as time goes on, and it is quite on the cards that before Deputy de Valera comes into power in this country he may have succeeded in levelling things out sufficiently to secure that no dangerous obstruction will be offered to any measure he proposes to put in force. I am rather glad to find the Labour Party consistent with their doctrine in this matter. I had an idea that they intended to be sensible.
Did you ever find them otherwise?
I had an idea that they wanted to be sensible and take a more humane point of view and vote for a Seanad which gives you the benefit of different systems of election. But for the sake of their own consistency I am glad to see that they still cling fast to the doctrine laid down for them.
By Deputy Tierney?
A leopard cannot change his spots and Deputy de Valera, if he is anything at all, is a mathematician. He has discovered that by a combination of the Seanad and the Dáil voting at an election to the Seanad his party will secure five members in the Seanad. He has also discovered that by the Dáil being the only electorate he will secure seven members in the Seanad. But there is one fact which strikes me as extraordinary for a Party that has so recently gone before the public, because we had a petition here some short time ago signed by 98,000 people for a certain purpose. This Party has gone to the public after a general election, and Deputy de Valera being a mathematician, I would like to know if he has found out how many seats he would get in the Seanad if it was by a popular vote.
How many vacancies would there be?
How many seats would Deputy de Valera get if the election was by popular vote? We must infer from the figures what the Dáil and Seanad voting together would produce. The Dáil voting alone will give the Deputy seven members and with the Seanad will give him five members, but on a popular vote Deputy de Valera is satisfied that he would secure less than five members in the Seanad.
Quod erat demonstrandum !
Nobody knows that better than Deputy de Valera. I think it was for that reason the Fianna Fáil Party assented to the proposition that the election to the Seanad by popular vote was undesirable. They have not contradicted that. Now we come to the Government side. What is the Government point of view? The Government did not fare well in the Seanad election the last time. I think, as Deputy O'Connell very properly pointed out, they were a bit disappointed. They think under the new arrangement which takes the election away from the popular vote they will do a little better than the last time; they will hold their own and perhaps a little bit more. They feel certain of doing that. Incidentally, I dare say this alteration in the method of election to the Seanad has been largely influenced by the Minister for Finance. He finds that not alone will the Government get their representation in the Seanad, but they can also save something like £80,000. I do not know whether that figure is correct or not, but it was the estimated figure given here as to what the Seanad elections would cost. Under the new arrangements we can have as good material in the Seanad as under the old, and it will cost practically nothing.
That is the Government point of view. The Opposition point of view is that if the Seanad get powers to vote then the Opposition Party will have five representatives. If the Seanad do not get the right to vote for Senators, then the Opposition will have seven of their nominees amongst the newly elected. Further, they know that if they go to the people they will not get as many as five.
What is your suggestion?
My suggestion is this, that we should continue to have the Seanad elected by the popular vote, that we should scrap the old system— and, mind you, the system that was in operation at the last Seanad election was not so bad as it appeared. Let us remember this—that the Seanad election is not really a popular election. We cannot talk about popular representation for the Seanad election. Senators are supposed to have some qualifications more than the fact that they are merely electors, and that is all the qualification that we ourselves have got.
Speak for yourself.
That is the qualification that any member of this Dáil has got, and so far as a great number of people who voted for Deputy Lemass and for me are concerned, I may say that a certain number of them did not know what qualifications we had for the position at all. Is not that correct? But under the terms of the Constitution in which the qualifications of Senators are distinctly laid down we have it clearly set forth what these qualifications are. The very fact of the qualifications of Senators being laid down must presuppose that somebody must nominate these men who have these qualifications. I doubt, however, if any of those who had the qualifications that are laid down were nominated. I doubt that. Who is going to check it? I say the people themselves can check it, and there is only one way of checking it, and that is by giving the nominations to the people. If only 25 per cent. of the electorate voted at the Seanad election three years ago, I say that is not a bad percentage, having regard to the qualifications necessary for Senators.
Might I ask the Deputy one question? If the voters who elected both the speaker and other Deputies here, on the Deputy's own admission, did not know whether we were qualified or not, how would the same voters estimate the qualification necessary for membership of the Seanad?
That is not a parallel case at all. That has nothing at all to do with the election of Speaker.
Not the Speaker of this House. I mean you.
The electors who elected us all were aware that the only qualification necessary was that we were citizens of Saorstát Eireann; is not that quite so? The Constitution lays down what qualifications are necessary for election to the Seanad. I will read what these qualifications are. They are contained in Article 30 of the Constitution, which says:—"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." Now these are the qualifications, and if I might put it this way, that is the reason why the qualifications for a Seanad vote are higher and more mature, if I may put it that way, than the qualifications necessary for having a vote for the Dáil. It is necessary that the people who are voting for the Seanad should be able to appreciate who are the people who have these qualifications. I do not think I am casting any reflections on the electors generally when I say that when we talk of popular representation there are many people in the country who do not know the prominent men of the country. They do not know the men of outstanding rank in literature, art or in the many other phases of the national life, and that being so, we cannot blame them if only 25 per cent. of the electorate voted on the last occasion.
Not 25 per cent.
That is the figure that has been stated here.
It would not be more than 15 per cent. The rest were dumped into the boxes.
That strengthens my argument. I will deal with that matter later on. The system was not so bad in itself as in its administration and carrying out.
Perhaps the Deputy will now come to deal with the amendment.
Twenty-five per cent. of the electors voted—that is to say, 25 per cent. of those qualified to vote voted at the last Seanad elections. That was not a bad percentage, considering what they knew as to those who had done "honour to the nation by reason of useful public service." I say that if the election had been by popular vote very few of those who had been elected on the last occasion would have been elected.
So far as the Deputy has gone his speech would be more relevant to Section I than to the amendment now under consideration.
If the Leas-Cheann Comhairle thinks I am out of order, I will resume my seat, but, with all respect, I am dealing with the question as to whether the Dáil and Seanad together, or the Dáil alone, or the people themselves should be the electors.
Mr. O'CONNELL
The people are out of it.
Read Section 1 of the Bill.
If the people are out of it, then all I say is, God help the people.
We, in the discussion on these proposals which the Government has introduced, are at a considerable disadvantage in that, as on the last occasion, the case for the amendment generally has first of all to be stated from the Opposition Benches. Apparently there is no person, no member of the Government, who is prepared to defend and justify and argue these proposals upon their merits. The grounds upon which the House is asked to accept the proposals contained in this Bill are, I think, ridiculous almost to the verge of tears. The one justification that is offered for making these fundamental changes in the Constitution is that they were considered by a Committee, discussed very possibly by that Committee, judging by the number of separate motions which that Committee took in one sitting, lasting from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The fundamental principles, the operative machinery of the legislative proposals to amend the Constitution contained in Section 2 of this Bill, were discussed by twelve members, six members of the Dáil and six nominated by the Seanad. They were discussed for less than two hours.
Was there ever so frivolous, so unsubstantial a reason for changing a Constitution adduced to a serious deliberative assembly before? I notice that the Minister for Education has left the House. As he sat there, silent and intense, the very apotheosis of concentrated intellectual effort. I thought that out of the matrix of that great brain of his there would evolve some reasoned argument in support of the Bill. But when he saw that there was some prospect that he would be called upon to justify the proposal which he, as a member of the Executive Council, has set before the House and has assumed personal responsibility for, the Minister, like the Arab in the poem, has folded his tent and silently stolen away, and there has come to take his place in these debates the Minister for Local Government.
The Deputy ought to avoid dealing with Ministers, and ought to deal with the amendment or with the Bill.
I am dealing with the arguments which the Executive Council have proposed to this House in order to justify the legislation——
Have not proposed.
Are about to propose.
I am going to consider in particular the argument which I know has already been formulated in the brain of the Minister for Local Government, the argument—"I move that this question be now put," the one argument that, throughout all this long and tedious discussion——
Do I understand the Deputy to say that he is moving that the question be now put?
No, I would not like——
The position is that the Deputy was so sleepy that he did not know what happened last night, and which governs our procedure to-day.
No, I was doing what the Minister has, on occasions, failed to do when he has been drafting legislation for consideration by this House; I was exercising intelligently the faculty of anticipation.
The Deputy cannot anticipate by the Standing Orders.
It is a pity that Ministers on occasions could not anticipate. Otherwise, we would not have one, two, three separate legislative measures proposed to this House, all of them to be withdrawn, one after the other, seriatim.
That has nothing whatever to do with the Bill.
I will show that the amendment——
The Deputy must come to the amendment and the Bill.
Neither have the arguments which I know the Minister for Local Government will shortly set before this House anything to do with the Bill.
The Deputy cannot discuss anything which is not now before the House.
Well, I think I am entitled——
The Deputy is not entitled.
I put it to you this way——
The Deputy is not entitled to discuss any matter that is not before the House at the moment.
The matter is before the House. The matter I am discussing is Section 2 of the Bill. I am entitled, in moving the amendment which I have down to that section, to anticipate the principal argument upon which I know the Government will rely to defeat that amendment.
The Deputy is not.
I submit that if a Deputy is putting a proposition before the House he is entitled to examine it pro and con, to state his reasons in support of it, and to examine the reasons and the arguments which he knows can be adduced against it. The argument that might is always right is the argument of the Government. That is the line that the Executive Council takes up in a matter of this sort. I have not heard any justification from the Government, which has assumed responsibility for this measure, for Section 2, but I assume that their sole justification is the one which the President put forward for the Second Reading, which was that this Bill was to give effect to the recommendations of a certain Committee. I was going to consider what time that Committee and what consideration that Committee could possibly have given to the proposal that is contained here. We have heard here during the last few days about popular Government, about representative Government, about Parliamentary Government, about Cabinet Government, but the Executive Council in dealing with these Constitutional amendments have adopted a new principle which I will call "closet Government." Instead of matters of fundamental public importance being discussed here openly in the Dáil, instead of arguments for and against, instead of a discussion on propositions which are going to alter, to the detriment of the people, the fundamental statute which governs the relations between the Executive Council on the one hand and the people over whom they rule on the other, these important matters are being discussed by a caucus, gathered away and secreted in some room in this building remote from the public, and their decisions are to be set before us without a single reason stated or ground given or argument advanced as to why the changes which they propose should be made. And the Executive Council accepts that proposition. The Executive Council, which has assumed responsibility for altering this Constitution, sits there, silent and mute, like the three gods upon the mountain, and vouchsafes not one word as to the monumental wisdom which actuated them in proposing these changes. We are left to depend instead for our guidance upon the Deputy who acknowledged ingenuously in this House that he had no head for politics. Deputy Tierney is wont to draw his analogies, his arguments and his metaphors from the nursery. Everyone to his metier. I presume that the arguments of the nursery are those which appeal to Deputy Tierney. Deputy Tierney, the Deputy who has no head for politics, is the blushing parent of this new Constitutional proposal. He did not attempt indeed to justify or defend this progeny of his, which, like a political Vulcan, has sprung from the brain of the Zeus who has no head for politics. And we have, I think, to consider with the Deputy in bringing that progeny to birth, Deputy O'Hanlon, who so badly muddled his mathematics in discussing the principle involved in amendment No. 4.
On a point of explanation. I do not think that Vulcan sprang from anybody's brain.
His thunder did not fall from heaven.
He fell from Heaven.
Anyway, apparently, the Deputy is a greater authority upon mythology than upon politics. But people who come here to propose constitutional amendments ought at least to have some head for politics, whatever they know about mythology. However, I leave the Deputy among his ancient myths and come back to the proposal——
They are not my ancient myths, I am very glad to say.
I think the chief argument adduced by the Deputy with no head for politics in support of this section of the Bill was, that a body elected on those principles would tend to cut across party lines as they exist in the Dáil. I think, so far as the Seanad is concerned, that party lines are much more rigorously drawn there. You have almost the same sections of opinion, possibly with one exception, represented in the Seanad as you have in the Dáil, with this difference, that so far as the Seanad is concerned the great preponderance of opinion there is that of those represented in this House, calling themselves for the nonce independent members, but who in every single division in this House have shown themselves to be the jackals of the Government, and it is to the jackals of the Government in the Seanad the Deputy proposes under this proposal of his to confer the powers, rights, and privileges of an ascendency caste.
Is the Deputy calling Senators a certain kind of animal or is he applying to them the name of the counterpart of Mr. Hyde?
Whichever the Deputy chooses. We have seen them in this House assume one or other character as the occasion suits. We have seen a Deputy getting up here and filled with zeal and admiration for the Constitution deny to the people, upon a quibble, the rights which were given them under Article 48 of the Constitution, and when he had encompassed his purpose we have seen the constitutional Mr. Hyde disappear and the constitutional Dr. Jekyll appear and vote in every division in support of the proposal to delay and to deprive and rob the people of the rights conferred on them by Articles 47 and 48 of the Constitution. I leave the Deputy to make whichever choice he likes in the matter. His metaphor or my metaphor is equally applicable.
I think the Deputy will have to leave metaphors and come to the Bill and the amendment. I have spoken to the Deputy on more than one occasion already.
Quite right. If I am interrupted——
The Deputy has been wandering from the amendment since he started his speech. He must now come to the amendment to the Bill.
But I am entitled——
The Deputy must come to the amendment.
I am coming to it. I submit that it is becoming practically impossible for any Deputy to discuss matters in this House, because the Leas-Cheann Comhairle in particular proposes to map out for him in advance the line on which his arguments shall go. I submit that is not within the competency of any Chairman.
On a point of order, I beg to ask if you will send for the Ceann Comhairle, so that I may move that the question be now put, in view of the deliberate way in which the Deputy is misusing the time of the House.
The old argument.
I am not going to send for the Ceann Comhairle at this stage. I am going to insist that Deputy MacEntee will deal with the amendment or else discontinue his speech.
In opening I stated that I put down this amendment to elicit the grounds on which the Government proposed that the elections shall be carried out by the two Houses voting together, and the grounds upon which they justify the concession to the Seanad of an equal franchise and qualification to vote with members of this House. I put down the amendment for that purpose, and I am entitled in discussing that amendment to point out that the Government have not advanced a single argument to justify their proposal. Under Article 2 of the Constitution "All powers of government and all authority—legislative and executive—in Ireland are derived from the people of Ireland." All legislation originating in this House must be in accordance with that principle. In case the Minister for Local Government should interrupt me, I am not proposing to discuss the Constitution, but I am stating, as I am entitled to do, a requirement with which all legislation must comply. But when we come to consider the method of election proposed by the Government, what do we find? As a result of that election certain powers, certain authority—legislative and executive—will devolve upon certain people. In so far as a number of those people are concerned who are elected by the single votes of the Dáil, or by the votes of Senators, who themselves sit as a result of a popular election, the requirements of the Constitution will be fulfilled. Mark what I said. So far as certain Senators are concerned, not all the Senators who are elected under Section 2 of this Bill, but that particular section, represented by these Senators who are elected by the votes of members of the Dáil and members of the Seanad who are Senators by virtue of their return at the last Seanad election, or some who have been since then elected by the votes of the Senators who were returned at the last Seanad election, the requirements of that Constitutional Article will be fulfilled.
But so far as the remaining persons purporting to be Senators are concerned, that is those who are elected by the nominated element of the Seanad, the requirements of Article 2 of the Constitution will not be fulfilled, and a proposal originating in this House which does not fulfil the requirements of the Constitution and is not in accordance with it or any Article in it, must be null and void and ineffective. That is my first argument against Section 2 of the Bill. My next point is that I suggest to the Government it is their duty to discuss these matters, to deal with them and to answer them, and if they are incapable of dealing with or answering them or of justifying their proposals to the House then they ought to drop the parrot cry that these proposals are to implement or give effect to the recommendations of a certain committee, and to acknowledge that the recommendations of this committee cannot be justified, and therefore to withdraw the measure. There is no use in the Minister for Local Government popping up like a toy hangman and proposing the closure every five or ten minutes, thereby disclosing to this House that what his colleagues in the Executive Council fear is discussion and criticism of the measure they are proposing. So far as the method of argument adopted by the Government in relation to these Bills is concerned, I submit that a duty devolves upon the Chair under Article 52 to see that these proposals are discussed.
Might I ask is the Deputy speaking to the amendment?
If the Deputy is suggesting that the Chair has the power to make any member of the House speak on a particular matter he is quite wrong. The Chair has no such right.
I suggest that the Chair can compel discussion by refusing to accept the motion for the closure until the proposal before the House has been discussed. I suggest that the Chair has the duty imposed upon it of refusing to accept the motion for the closure until the particular proposal before the House has been discussed. There is not only the power but the duty.
The Deputy is deliberately ignoring your ruling that he should discuss the amendment before the House.
I am not deliberately ignoring it. I want the amendment discussed.
I have had to warn Deputy MacEntee on more than one occasion that he was wandering away from the amendment before the House and was out of order. I have now come to the conclusion that the Deputy has been deliberately wandering, and I ask him to discontinue his speech.
I do think that we might have some explanation as to what is the intention of the Government. I frankly admit that while the Minister may state the intention of the Bill, that it may not be legally the intention in the Bill. There are two things there, and we ought really to know what is intended by them. I frankly cannot make out from the actual wording of this Bill who are going to elect even under this existing unamended section. It seems to me that it is impossible that you can elect to the Seanad until there is a vacancy, and if there is a vacancy it seems to me to be impossible that those whose departure from that body created those vacancies can be voters. I would have taken it, reading this clause, that those who are going to vote on the Seanad, I mean the Senators as voters in this election, would have been the residuum, say forty, when the twenty whose vacancies were declared automatically at some particular time were left.
I think that point was dealt with by the Ceann Comhairle to-day.
No, it was not. I was told that was a question which I could raise here in the discussion upon this amendment, as to what this particular clause means. Against that, unfortunately, you have the report of this Committee. What the Committee's report says about it is this—I am not now trying to make debating points at all. If the Minister could tell us what is intended, then I will know whether I am attacking something which does not exist or something which does exist. If this report, as implemented by the Bill, has in it the things that we say, then it ought to be attacked, but our difficulty is that we cannot get that information. The Government may not have made up their minds as to what it does mean. The report says, "Motion made by Deputy de Valera: That the Joint Committee recommends as a proviso to their recommendation that the members of the Seanad be elected by the members of the Dáil and Seanad voting together on the principles of proportional representation." That is the clause which is here—that the outgoing members of the Seanad be not entitled to vote at such election.
Did Deputy de Valera propose that?
Yes.
What did he propose?
That the Joint Committee recommend as a proviso to their recommendation that the members of the Seanad be elected by the members of the Dáil and Seanad voting together on the principles of proportional representation. This is the significant part of it: that the outgoing members of the Seanad be not entitled to vote at such election.
No. I think you are attributing to Deputy de Valera a thing which he did not do.
It is printed here. As a matter of fact, Deputy de Valera informed me that he did put such a motion.
I suggest that the recommendation he made was that the outgoing Senators be not allowed to vote.
That is so. That motion was negatived and therefore the recommendation of the Committee, if there is any recommendation, and presumably the negativing of this does make it a recommendation, is that the outgoing Senators shall vote. How can they vote in the first place? Would the Minister tell us what was intended in this? I am not asking now for argument for or against it. Do they intend these people to vote?
I cannot make it any plainer to the Deputy than it is in the Report. The Seanad consists of sixty members.
Do you intend that these outgoing members shall vote?
The Seanad consists of sixty members, and it is proposed that the members of the Seanad shall vote.
It looks now as if the Minister is not trying to help the House. I have tried quite honestly to get information from him. If this clause said that the Seanad for the purpose of this amendment should consist of sixty, whether that was right or wrong, we should understand it, but so far as I can see they cannot vote until there is a vacancy, and when there is a vacancy they cannot vote, but the Minister for Local Government tells us they will vote, and tells us they consist of sixty when the vacancy has been created. I do not think he has been fair to himself. He certainly has not been fair to the House. Does the House believe it can be done, or that it ought to be done? There are two separate proposals. Can they vote for these? Can 60 Seanad representatives vote in an election if there are vacancies, and if there are not vacancies can they vote? I do think we are entitled to an answer. If you look at the section—it is here for everybody to see if they can find the meaning——
I submit the Deputy is only wasting the time of the House. The Seanad consists of 60 members. An election to the Seanad has already been held in which the electorate voted, and they voted under the legislation dealing with the matter —the Seanad Act—which provides that an election shall be held within a certain period for the purpose of filling vacancies which would arise in the Seanad through outgoing Senators having finished their period of time. The Deputy appears to see a difficulty in taking steps to provide for filling vacancies which will arise at a definite point of time. There is no such difficulty.
With regard to the Minister's point about wasting time, the Deputy in discussing the section is in order.
I submit, with every possible respect, and I put myself in the hands of the House, that I honestly attempted as an ordinary member to find a meaning, and that I asked three or four times the Minister to give me some indication as to the meaning or intention of it, and he did not give it.
I would ask the Chair and the House to take it from me that I am not declining in any way to be either disrespectful or helpful to the House in declining to help the Deputy regarding what he says are difficulties, because I believe that they simply arise from the desire of wasting the time of the House. That is my real belief.
The House may have some respect for its dignity and it may be satisfied with the explanation, but I am not, nor do I think that any man who reads that document can be satisfied that that is an explanation which is respectful or decent for a Minister to give the House. The section says: "at which the electors shall be members of Dáil Eireann and the members of Seanad Eireann." Now, why are one class called "the members of Seanad Eireann" and the others merely called "members"? Is there some intention? In one case does it mean some of the members and in the other does it mean "the members"? It is a question for lawyers to decide. I tell you frankly that I do not know, and I challenge any man in this House following me to show from the contained words of that clause any means by which a man can discover what that section really means in relation to the retiring members. My colleague, Deputy MacEntee suggests that it might be helpful to insert "the" in both places—"shall be the members of Dáil Eireann and the members of Seanad Eireann." I am quite satisfied that I cannot even then find out what it means. The thing is either intended to deceive, or it is so badly drawn that there is no meaning in it. Imagine passing a Bill for which you have to go to a lawyer for interpretation at once. If this means that these retiring Senators, who have not retired, are going to vote for themselves for vacancies which have not been created it is a very sound reason—I mean in order to clear up the obscurity—for preventing the Seanad voting at all. Take the case of people who might be in favour of the Seanad voting and who might think they had, accidentally or by design, particular qualities—and some of them have—I do not see how anybody can defend the proposition that those men shall vote for themselves for vacancies which do not exist. I do not see how anybody can tell you how they can vote for themselves when they have ceased to be members of Seanad Eireann to fill vacancies in the Seanad. That is a type of drafting.
These things have come to us in a hurry. I mean we have got them in a bundle and naturally one might think they were hurried, but I did assume that each of these single-clause Bills had been subjected to the examination of a skilled draftsman. I am perfectly sure that no skilled draftsman who drafted that with the intention of telling the ordinary man in the House what it means could have drafted it in that particular way. That is a good and sufficient reason for us to vote against it. What reason has been given for voting for it?
What reason has been given to this House for voting that members of Seanad Eireann shall vote as members for themselves? None whatever. I will tell you what the argument is. This Bill is going to be passed not by An Dáil, but is going to be passed by Peadar Doyle. That is the plain meaning of it and nothing else. They do not presume to pretend that it has any other reason. "We have a majority; we will not agree to reason; we will not draft the Bill in any way you can understand; we will not explain it to you; we will insult you when you ask for information; we have got the majority and be damned to you"—that is the meaning and spirit in which the Dáil is being treated by this Government.
The Deputy ought to be more moderate in his language.
As a matter of fact I do not often speak from heat—I speak sometimes from meditation, but I am now feeling a bit hot. I think that members of this House who have attempted to contribute to an examination of this document so that the country would understand what is being done have been treated with impertinence and insolence and with complete disregard of the rights of private Deputies by the Minister. If the House is satisfied with that then we know what to make of the House. If that is the sort of conduct which the Government would extend towards the House, then the country ought to understand it because their conduct and attitude of mind towards the House are their conduct and attitude of mind towards the country as well, because we are, so far as they are concerned, for the moment the country. When they treat a private member, or all members, with insolence, they are treating the source of their own power and authority with the same insolence and they ought to receive from this House the same punishment which they, undoubtedly, will receive from the community when the community understand that little men of that kind, puffed up with their own authority, forgetting their own limitations, have been insolent to the people. The inspired person who lectured us the other day on our ignorance, our lack of knowledge, and our incapacity to draft Bills, the same man who did that either does not know, or does not intend to tell, or is trying to deceive the House, or sheltering behind the authority of Peadar Doyle, is prepared to spurn the Dáil. The man is no good. Back Peadar. That is the philosophy.
The Deputy will have to return to the Bill and get away from personalities.
The sole argument for the Bill offered to us is that they possess a majority. Though that may be a sufficient means of passing the Bill it is not a sufficient argument to recommend it to this House.
This is the Committee Stage of the Bill and not Second Reading. The Deputy is making a Second Reading speech on Deputy de Valera's amendment.
I object to the inclusion at all of the words "Seanad Eireann" in this clause as representing an electorate, because I object to election by a nominated body at all. Secondly, I object to its election by a body which contains in it men who are supposed to have retired and who are going to be eligible as electors. I object to it, thirdly, because you have a hybridised electorate imposed upon the electorate here. You have half a dozen qualifications in the Seanad. You have previous nomination under an agreement; you have members who are voluntarily nominated by the President; you have the people who were co-opted; you have the people who were elected; and now you are going to have people elected by a co-opted-elected-nominated diluted nomination, diluted election, diluted election-nomination, added to an elected popular Dáil to produce another conglomeration.
Nonsense.
Naturally the Deputy would not understand. The whole thing is undemocratic. The method of the presentation of the Bill is insolent. Its drafting is beneath contempt. The whole thing is worthy of the source from which it comes and the inspiration which brought it. For that reason, if the Dáil has any respect for itself, and has disrespect for that Front Bench and everything it stands for, it ought to have that disrespect which this country will have when it understands the mentality which insulted it, and it will vote against this clause. They ought to take out of the clause the words "Seanad Eireann," and take away the interference which that sort of Government attempts to impose upon a hybridised, conglomerate electorate for the sake of producing some thing which, to use a phrase of the President of the Dáil, would be bankrupt of intelligence, bankrupt of initiative, bankrupt of everything which would be of any use to Ireland.
As you, sir, have pointed out, Deputies seem to forget that they are dealing with the Committee Stage of the Bill and their feelings, developed to a certain extent by wandering from the subject, confused their minds. The principle and the purpose of this Bill, and the reasons for which it is introduced, were quite adequately dealt with by the President on Second Reading. The suggestions on the part of Deputy Flinn, about confusion regarding what exactly the electorate is, are rather unreasonable. The long title of the Bill states that "the electorate shall be the members of Dáil Eireann and Seanad Eireann voting together." If, by any difference in the words of the text, in the dropping or inserting of an Article, any confusion is caused to the Deputy it is a matter for amendment. I suggest that it cannot reasonably be stated by any Deputy having heard the discussion on Second Reading, and reading the long title of the Bill, and even the section, that he does not understand it. It is proposed that the electors, for the filling of vacancies in the Seanad in future, shall be 60 members of Seanad Eireann voting together with 153 members of Dáil Eireann.
May I ask the Minister to deal with that point in reference to confusion on the part of the Deputy? What about the confusion of judges if these elections are contested and if these sections have to be construed?
I hope the point is clear. I do not intend to deal with these matters here that were fully dealt with on the Second Stage. Not only have the reasons been stated, but a Joint Committee set up by the Dáil and Seanad discussed the matter over a period from the 8th March to the 16th May. It is quite wrong and deliberately misleading on the part of Deputies to suggest that this matter has been discussed in secret because it has been discussed by a Joint Committee of the Dáil and the Seanad. The main point that I wish to refer to is the type of criticism that has been made of the Seanad as a body. Deputies on this side have been charged with being responsible for muddled mathematics but of all the haphazard mathematics or of all the haphazard collection of figures, of which I ever heard, I could not beat the figures which Deputy de Valera tried to put up. According to him 100 per cent. of the present Seanad is nominated and is entirely removed from being in any way representative of the people. Generally the suggestion is made to the Dáil and to the people that the Seanad was set up for the purpose of giving position and power to what Deputy de Valera calls "a particular section." Various suggestions have been made by Deputies here. Deputy Flinn wanted to insist that certain members at present in the Seanad were nominated by the King. A certain number of amendments have been put down here that in my opinion were put down in order deliberately to convey the impression to the people that the Seanad is a body brought together by people and by powers other than the Irish people and Irish powers.
As far as the future composition of the Seanad is concerned, Deputy de Valera treats us to the suggestion that when the people vote for members of the Dáil the people produce an institution which is a replica of themselves and he tells us that if the Dáil alone elected the Seanad, that the Seanad would be a replica of the Dáil. I take it that if the Seanad reproduced itself, even to a certain figure, on his theory that fraction of the Seanad which was reproduced would be a replica of what brought it about, so that if we accept that theory, whether Deputy de Valera meant it or not, we would have under our present system a replica of a replica of a replica and to a very great extent that is so. There are sixty vacancies in the Seanad, or rather the Seanad consists of sixty members.
Or sixty vacancies— which?
Sixty members. Let us assume that that is the present composition for a moment. Thirty members are to be elected every three years by the Dáil and the Seanad combined. That is what is proposed in this Bill, and if the Dáil here is one remove—
Mr. O'CONNELL
Twenty members are to be elected every three years.
Did the Minister say that thirty members of the Seanad had to be elected every three years?
If I did it was because I had not the same grip over the tongue as some other Deputies.
I am asking for information; did you state it or did you not?
The Deputy will have to sit down.
No. I am entitled to ask for information.
The Deputy must sit down when the Chair tells him to sit down. If the Minister does not want to answer a question I cannot force the Minister to answer it.
Very well, we will take it that he does not want to answer it. Let us be clear any way.
If I said that thirty Senators were to be elected every three years, that was a slip of the tongue. The fact is that twenty Senators will be elected every three years, but the ultimate position will be that, in so far as the voting power of the Dáil can create Senators, forty-three Senators will be created by the voting power of the Dáil and seventeen will be created by the voting power of the Seanad. The influence of the Dáil increases more and more on the Seanad, even though the Seanad is voting with the Dáil. It is the most reasonable way, in our opinion, in saying how the Seanad should be elected, to suggest that the Dáil and the Seanad voting together can give us a better type of representative body in the Seanad than we could get by any other means we could suggest. With regard to the reflection thrown upon the present Seanad, at the present moment Deputy de Valera said there are thirty nominated members in the Seanad. There are only 24. Six of the nominated members of the Seanad have died. The suggestion is made that all the nominated members of the Seanad were people, in so far as the ordinary people of the country are concerned, who could not be regarded as being worthy of being their representatives, that they were of a select class in this country that could not hope to be put in by a popular vote. But the nominated section of the Seanad, to speak of those who have died since they were nominated, contained the names of worthy Irishmen, like Doctor Sigerson and Mr. Martin Fitzgerald, so that the suggestion that the nominated section of the Seanad must be regarded as an alien section, or a section that belongs to a class that is not of the people here, is simply a false suggestion.
What about the Earl of Kerry?
There were a few thrown in for window dressing.
The composition of the Seanad at the present is that there are 24 nominated members; there were eighteen elected directly from the people at the last election; there are fourteen members elected directly from the Dáil here, and there are four co-opted. If the 24 nominated members in the Seanad at the next election combine to do that which has been so often referred to here as reproducing themselves, the 24 could only reproduce two.
With the assistance of Cumann na nGaedheal, how many could they reproduce?
The suggestion that there are unrepresentative elements in the Seanad, and that they are going to reproduce themselves, and reproduce themselves so that we could never rely upon the Seanad being an institution properly representative of the people, is simply nonsense. It is simply stating what is not a fact and what could hardly be believed to be a fact by the Deputies who stated it. The proposal is that the Dáil and the Seanad voting together will give us a Seanad, and we challenge any of the Deputies who have spoken on this matter to show how a more representative and a more satisfactory Seanad could be formed.
It is a satisfactory thing that at long last the great silence of the Ministry has been broken and that some explanation in reference to this Bill has been offered to the Dáil.
Does the Deputy remember that last night he was complaining we might take up Deputies' time to-day?
Taking up time and explaining are two very different things.
Deputy Flinn ought to let Deputy Lemass make his speech.
The net result of the Minister's defence of this section amounts to an unsubstantiated statement that a better type of representative body cannot be secured by any other means, and a gratuitous challenge to Deputies to produce the means by which a better type of body could be procured. There was no statement made by him that could be even mistaken for an argument in support of the introduction of this section. Deputy de Valera's amendment has been substantiated by arguments of a substantial nature which, I submit, are conclusive when the effect of this Bill and the other Bills with which it is associated is taken into consideration.
Before dealing with the amendment, there were some points mentioned by the Minister I should like to dispose of. He said that Deputy de Valera had stated that the Seanad was 100 per cent. nominated. What Deputy de Valera said was that for all practical purposes we could take them as having been 100 per cent. nominated, because those 18 members who were elected by the people, and who can falsely parade themselves as being elected by the people, were in fact nominated members. There was a nominated panel, and from that panel 23 per cent. of the electorate selected certain individuals and sent them to the Seanad. Is it seriously contended that in an election where only a certain selected cast could seek election, and where less than one-fourth of the entire electorate decided to record their votes, the people elected are representatives of the people or could claim to represent the people? I do not think so. The method of nomination in the case of these 18 members was somewhat different from the case of the others, and that is all. For all practical purposes, the Seanad is a nominated body. It is not a representative body. When the Minister talks about a better type of representative body, I do not know what he means, because in order to know what is meant by the term we have to know what it is intended that body should represent.
The section of the Constitution which Deputy O'Hanlon referred to is a section more honoured in the breach than in the observance. In fact, the Seanad has become, whatever it may have been intended to be, representative of a certain section of the community—the section which is represented by the titled aristocracy and the chambers of commerce. The amendment proposes to ensure that election to the Seanad shall be by the members of Dáil Eireann alone. It is contended that members of the Seanad should not have the power of saying who their successors are to be.
With reference to the actual words of the section of the Bill, I submit that the Minister has not cleared away any of the confusion that exists. Can an election be held for the Seanad if there are no vacancies? If there are no vacancies, what is an election being held for? If there are vacancies, are there 60 members? If there are not 60 members, what is the status of those who have ceased to be members and who have become retiring or outgoing members? Will they be entitled to vote in the election to fill the vacancies created by their own retirement? There is nothing in the Bill which would make clear the intentions of those who drafted it in that connection. As Deputy Flinn pointed out, the fact that the Joint Committee definitely turned down the proposal made by Deputy de Valera, definitely to exclude outgoing members of the Seanad from voting at such an election, would imply that they intended that outgoing members should have the right to vote to fill vacancies created by their own retirement after they had technically ceased to be members. However, apart from whether ordinary or extraordinary or retiring members of the Seanad should vote at an election to fill the vacancies, the purpose of the amendment is to ensure that no Senator will be able to exercise that power.
In the debate on Section 1 of the Bill I made clear the reason why we are introducing this amendment. Deputy O'Connell asks: could I logically support this amendment having voted against Section 1? The only answer to that is that I would have voted for Section 1 of the Bill if I thought this amendment was going to be passed, but because I was prepared to recognise the fact that we are not a majority in this House, and that the tame majority which the Government have behind them will probably succeed in rejecting the amendment, I was taking the lesser of the two evils which remained.
Did you ever put down an amendment in the hope that it might be passed?
The probability is it will not. If it is, well and good. Section 1 of the Bill is carried in any case so that the position is there that we want to ensure that the Seanad will be abolished as quickly as possible. We want to create an instrument for its abolition. Before we can guillotine it we have got to get its neck under the blade, and as far as in our power lies we are endeavouring to induce it nearer to the machine, and to get its neck into the right position for the stroke that is to finish it. We think it is very difficult to argue an amendment of this kind, having as we have a particular reason for introducing it, without bringing in the whole question of the advisability of the existence of the Seanad under existing conditions. I know that the Leas-Cheann Comhairle would not permit us to discuss that, but I hope that the debate that has taken place here to-day will in itself have convinced some members that the Seanad is only a constant source of disorder and contention and that the sooner it is terminated the better, not merely for the welfare of the people but also for the stability of the State.
took the Chair.
Question put: "That the words proposed to be deleted stand part of the Section."
The Committee divided: Tá: 66; Níl, 45.
Tá
- William P. Aird.
- Ernest Henry Alton.
- James Walter Beckett.
- George Cecil Bennett.
- Ernest Blythe.
- Seán Brodrick.
- Alfred Byrne.
- John Joseph Byrne.
- John James Cole.
- Mrs. Margaret Collins-O'Driscoll.
- Martin Conlon.
- Michael P. Connolly.
- Bryan Ricco Cooper.
- William T. Cosgrave.
- James Crowley.
- Peter de Loughrey.
- Eugene Doherty.
- James N. Dolan.
- Peadar Seán Doyle.
- Edmund John Duggan.
- James Dwyer.
- Barry M. Egan.
- Osmond Thomas Grattan Esmonde.
- Desmond Fitzgerald.
- James Fitzgerald-Kenney.
- John Good.
- Denis J. Gorey.
- Alexander Haslett.
- John J. Hassett.
- Michael R. Heffernan.
- Michael Joseph Hennessy.
- Thomas Hennessy.
- John Hennigan.
- Mark Henry.
- Patrick Hogan (Galway).
- Richard Holohan.
- Myles Keogh.
- Hugh Alexander Law.
- Finian Lynch.
- Arthur Patrick Mathews.
- Martin McDonogh.
- Joseph W. Mongan.
- Richard Mulcahy.
- James E. Murphy.
- James Sproule Myles.
- John Thomas Nolan.
- Richard O'Connell.
- Bartholomew O'Connor.
- Timothy Joseph O'Donovan.
- Daniel O'Leary.
- Dermot Gun O'Mahony.
- John J. O'Reilly.
- Gearoid O'Sullivan.
- John Marcus O'Sullivan.
- Patrick Reynolds.
- Vincent Rice.
- Martin Roddy.
- Patrick W. Shaw.
- Timothy Sheehy (West Cork).
- William Edward Thrift.
- Michael Tierney.
- Daniel Vaughan.
- John White.
- Vincent Joseph White.
- George Wolfe.
- Jasper Travers Wolfe.
Níl
- Frank Aiken.
- Richard Anthony.
- Neal Blaney.
- Gerald Boland.
- Patrick Boland.
- Daniel Bourke.
- Seán Brady.
- Robert Briscoe.
- Daniel Buckley.
- Frank Carney.
- Frank Carty.
- Michael Clery.
- James Coburn.
- James Colbert.
- Eamon Cooney.
- Tadhg Crowley.
- Thomas Derrig.
- Eamon de Valera.
- Frank Fahy.
- Thomas J. O'Connell.
- Patrick Joseph O'Dowd.
- William O'Leary.
- James Ryan.
- Hugo Flinn.
- Andrew Fogarty.
- Patrick J. Gorry.
- John Goulding.
- Seán Hayes.
- Samuel Holt.
- Patrick Houlihan.
- Stephen Jordan.
- Michael Joseph Kennedy.
- James Joseph Killane.
- Mark Killilea.
- Michael Kilroy.
- Seán F. Lemass.
- Patrick John Little.
- Ben Maguire.
- Thomas McEllistrim.
- Seán MacEntee.
- Séamus Moore.
- Daniel Morrissey.
- Timothy Sheehy (Tipp.).
- Patrick Smith.
- John Tubridy.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Duggan and P.S. Doyle; Níl: Deputies G. Boland and Killilea.
Question declared carried.
Amendment No. 4 not moved.
I move amendment No. 11:—
In line 43, to delete the words "secret ballot" and to substitute the words "open vote which shall be recorded on the official records."
The Bill, as it stands, indicates that the method of election shall be by proportional representation, and that the voting shall be by secret ballot. My amendment is to the effect that instead of having voting by secret ballot the voting should be open and that the votes be recorded on the official records. There is an Article in the Constitution in reference to the Seanad, to which I referred earlier this morning; it is Article 30—the first Article, I think, in the Constitution which deals specifically with the Seanad. It says:—
"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."
I think it will be remembered that in the discussion on the Joint Committee the futility of that as an effective article was pointed out. No machinery whatever is provided by which there can be any test as to whether candidates for the Seanad who are proposed do, in fact, come in under that particular Article, or to test whether 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. The only way, it appears to me, in which that Article could at all be made effective is by focussing public opinion upon the type of candidates that are proposed by different Parties and the manner in which individuals vote for the nominees. I am sure that anything I say at this stage is not likely to be misunderstood, as my whole attitude has been pointed out more than once. Fundamental in my objections to the Second House is that I believe, inevitably, it is bound to deteriorate. Even leaving aside the particular aspect of it on which I have laid a good deal of stress—the aspect that it is likely to be a barrier to progress from the national point of view—and thinking of it only as a Second Chamber that is to be elected to do political work, I think, inevitably, it will deteriorate, and the idea that its members shall be of the class indicated in that Article is an illusion—that, in fact, in a Seanad that is supposed to be the purpose of the election, in a Seanad that is even approximate to that ideal, that it is going to be extremely difficult to devise any machinery by which it could approximate to that ideal. The only machinery that occurs to me is the machinery of compelling the voters, the electorate, to give their votes openly. After all, there ought to be no objection to it. We vote here day after day on questions about which a good deal of unpopularity in some cases is bound to arise. You have to decide the pros and cons every day, and it is unreasonable to think that every decision here does not effect some individuals, making friends or enemies in the country by our votes. If we give our votes openly on big questions, where it does in one way offend many, I see no reason why we should not take upon ourselves the responsibility of giving offence to individuals if that is necessary in order to provide a proper Second House. In speaking against the Second House I indicated what a Second House tends to become. As I said, we have all got an idea—those of us who favour a Second House have an idea of a certain ideal assembly, something that would correspond, for instance, to the old Roman Senate or something of that kind. There you had members who were men who had filled certain public offices, and if you had something of that kind it might itself be a sort of qualification test for entry into the Second House. But there is no such thing proposed here, and I do not think that it would be possible to propose anything of the kind here. What is proposed, however, is something that is going to give you not these impartial, experienced, wise statesmen who could be depended upon to take an independent view and a wise view of public matters in general; you are going to have in the Seanad the classes I enumerated already. First of all, you are going to have in it those who make large contributions to Party funds. You are going to have in it representatives of business, of certain big interests that are able to bring pressure upon the political Party. You are going to have in it finally a sort of House of Rest, in which those who have given one type or other of service to political Parties may be rewarded for their past services or conveniently got out of the way. I think it is a very unhappy prospect, the prospect of having a Second House like that, but as I have said once or twice already, I see no way by which you can prevent it from deteriorating into being a House of that kind except by making the political Parties who nominate or the individuals who nominate and vote take full responsibility before the public for their votes and the choice that they make.
I do not know whether this is going to be opposed or not by the majority Party here. I hope it is not going to be opposed by them. I do not think that any of the arguments that apply, for instance, to making the ballot for the ordinary election secret, should apply here. I anticipate that the arguments, if there are arguments to be brought against open voting, will be of the type that are generally used with reference to having a secret ballot in ordinary elections when the citizens, as a whole, vote. But I think there is no analogy whatever between voting here and the voting of an individual citizen. I think this is very special work which this Bill proposes, and a special obligation and a special duty which this Bill proposes to lay upon the members of the Dáil and, unfortunately, now upon the members of the Seanad as well. I do not want to labour the point. I think that my main purpose in moving this ought to be clear, that most of those who favour a Second House favour it because they have an idea that it will be a useful Chamber for the re-examination of certain measures, for the improvement of certain measures and for a certain amount of delay and all that. However, while I do not myself believe that, at best, it can become that and exercise useful functions, I appeal to those who have that view that they should at least go so far as to make their ideas effective by supporting this particular motion. In speaking now I have this difficulty, that I do not know whether it will be opposed from the Government Benches or not. If it is not to be opposed there is no use in spending time over it, because I dare say our Party will support it, and that the two Parties together will very easily carry the question. But if it is opposed, then I am confident that, as this is in Committee, I will be given an opportunity to reply, or that some opportunity will be given to some members of our Party who may be able to reply to the objections raised. I leave it at that.
The Government will oppose this amendment. Deputy de Valera has not brought forward any argument in favour of it except the general suggestion that if you are doing good work you might as well give offence openly and show exactly where the blow comes from, and not put a person into the Seanad and not let him know how his own particular friends and the people he looked to to put him into the Seanad voted. Let us look at it from the point of view of the person who is to be elected to the Seanad. Is it argued that a better type of person will be put into the Seanad by open voting than by secret voting by the members of the Dáil and Seanad?
It is.
I would like to know on what that argument is based. Is it that in facing our duties of electing suitable Senators, we cannot face them in private in the way in which we would face them in public? I suggest that if you are selecting the best type of people to put into the Seanad you are more likely to do it better by a secret vote than by a public vote, as Deputy de Valera plainly suggested. He suggested that very big and very powerful political interests may be pressing on you to vote for a particular type of person. I suggest that there is nothing in the secret ballot that would prevent members of the Dáil and Seanad from doing their duty in the election of Senators and doing it in the best possible way. On the other hand, take the elected Senator. I suggest that the elected Senator is in a much clearer and more satisfactory position to carry out the responsibilities that he takes on himself as a Senator if he is not branded by eleven or twelve labels that would necessarily brand him if it were publicly clear that the eleven first preference votes that put him into the Seanad were the votes of eleven particular people. The position of the Senator carrying eleven or twelve different tags might not be at all an enviable one, and it might very easily, for one particular reason or another, prejudice him with the people among whom he was supposed to work, the people whose interests he was supposed generally to represent. So I do not think there is any case at all made for the departure from the general acceptance that there has been in political elections, of having these elections carried out on a secret ballot.
rose.
Before Deputy O'Connell speaks, I want to point out that the proceedings on the Committee Stage will have to be concluded at 7.20 o'clock.
I just want to say that I am opposing this amendment. I do believe that the object which the mover has in mind will not be specially secured by the fact that the vote would be an open vote. I believe there will be other factors which will come in, and must come in, and they will not, in my opinion, come in to a greater extent—operate to a greater extent—under an open vote than they are likely to do when the voting is to be by ordinary ballot. I think there is a very great difference indeed between voting as we do here on certain principles, and for certain principles, and where the chief factor will be a personal factor. It is a very different thing when we come to vote for certain principles and to vote for persons, as the personal factor should be the main factor. I believe we are generally more likely to get an independent expression of the voter's mind when the vote is by ordinary ballot than when it is an open vote. I believe the object which the Deputy has in view will not be secured to any greater extent. In fact, I doubt if it will be secured to as great an extent by the method he proposes as by the method of the secret ballot. Especially where you have proportional representation, it would create a very dangerous precedent that, I think, might well be avoided. I will vote against this amendment.
I would be in favour of Deputy de Valera's amendment, seeing that the Dáil and Seanad are going to elect a Seanad, if he will show me by what means it is possible to cast an open vote under proportional representation. If he can show me that I will be with him.
I will.
If the Deputy would show me how it would affect the preference votes I will be satisfied. If I vote for five or six candidates I would like to know how the transfer of my preferences can be recorded in the House in any intelligent way, and if I am shown how that can be done I will vote for the amendment.
Deputy O'Connell said that this would be establishing a dangerous precedent. I think we are going to establish a dangerous precedent. As Deputy Flinn remarked, our constituents are entitled to know how we vote here on all matters. As far as I know, up to this there has been no ballot-voting in the Dáil. The people who sent us here are entitled to know how we vote on every question.
This is, in my opinion, a dangerous precedent, and I can see it very easily extended to other activities. Deputy O'Connell drew a distinction between various questions to be decided here. The question of setting up ballot voting might very easily be extended if it is allowed now.
It might not be a bad thing if we had secret voting; we might get very different results.
We might, indeed. Anyhow, it cannot be denied that elected representatives are entitled to show their constituents how they vote and what attitude they have on certain questions and as regards the type of persons that they vote for.
On the point of precedent, this particular precedent is not being introduced here for the first time. When the elections to the Seanad took place in 1922 and 1925 the elections to the Panel were by secret ballot under the proportional representation system.
That is not a precedent to some extent. I suggest the wangling was going on there and certain people were selected. I do not know exactly how it was done, but it is not the same thing as in this case. It was not then really an election to the Seanad. Even if there was a precedent, it was a bad one and it should not be followed. Our constituents are entitled to know how we vote.
I was listening to the Minister for Local Government, and, as I expected, he is for secrecy. All this stern morality which we heard about in another connection has disappeared and we do not see much of it now. The Minister likes secrecy. He does not want to have the purifying light of public opinion turned on the doings and the acts of individuals here and Parties can manipulate much better in caucuses, can make their arrangements much better by caucus meetings, than they can by coming here and openly discharging their duties, each man being responsible to the electorate for the vote he casts. We are told the point of view of the person elected must be considered. The same sort of thing turned up in connection with candidates for appointment. If a man is not prepared to risk not winning a race, why does he go up? If we have it that a person must not stand the criticisms or whatever may result from his not winning a race, not being first, if he thinks he cannot stand that, why go up?
It is not a reflection upon anybody that, when an election to office of this kind is concerned, he does not get the votes of A., B. and C. A man goes up publicly for election and enters a certain petition and stands up to be judged by his fellows on his merits for a certain post; he has no grievance whatever if the result of the contest is made plain. The question is, will it affect his efficiency afterwards? Why should it? Why should a man be less efficient in carrying out his duties in the Second House because, for example, he should have got first preferences from some members or some Parties in the House and second preferences from others? I cannot see in any way how it would be unfair to the candidate to have the results published or how it would interfere in any way with his efficiency afterwards.
As I have said, it is the question of secrecy that I dislike. I believe that there is only one protection for the people, if we are to have representative government, and that is to have the acts of their representatives open and above board so that they may be judged, when the time comes, by the people, to whom they will have to give an account of their stewardship. Surely you are performing, on behalf of the people, a very important function if you are going to elect members to a Second House. It is as their representatives that you will have any right to election. You will be exercising your own individual judgment on their behalf, but the actual authority for doing this will come from the people, and it is in their name ultimately that you will act. So that, on the ground of general principle, I see no reason at all why there should not be open action in this matter, and, as I say, the doings of caucuses will be kept very much more pure if the clear light of public opinion is turned upon them.
I have been challenged by Deputy O'Hanlon to show how a vote could be recorded. It is very simple. Every voter would be supplied with a ballot paper. He would put down his preferences—1, 2, 3, 4—to whatever extent he likes on the paper, indicating the candidates in the order of his choice. He would hand this signed ballot paper up to whoever was the returning officer—the Ceann Comhairle, for example. Then a table could be made out with the names of the candidates, giving the list of the various electors, and under each one his preferences, No. 1, 2, 3, and so on, so that if you wanted to represent it in the form of a large table you could put down the list of candidates and afterwards, in columns, you could show the vote that was given by each individual voter. You would then have a complete record of his vote, as it would be transferred from his signed ballot paper on to the official record. I see no difficulty about doing that.
Well, I do. If the Deputy would consider the matter again he would find that a separate table would be required for each particular ballot paper, and that he would want 153 separate and distinct tables.
There would be only one ballot paper served out. On it would be the names of the various candidates, and we would write down in the column provided, 1, 2, 3, and 4, in our order of preference.
The same as at present.
These documents would all be signed. They would be kept by the House as part of the official documents of the House, and the result could be transferred on to any particular record we wanted. All that would be necessary, as far as I can see, would be a simple table on which you would have the candidates, and you could write down the names at the top, or, if you wished, put numbers instead of names, or you could put each individual down with his ballot paper indicated. So much money is spent here on printing that we need not worry about a little extra expense, so that from that point there is no difficulty that I can see.
No single ballot paper would show you the transfer from a particular elector.
I hold that we do not need to show anything; we could always infer the transfers. We do not want to see each particular count represented. There would be no necessity for it.
Then you would be doing away with the principle of open voting, because you would not know in the end who elected a particular Senator.
We would, of course.
I do not think so.
We would know who each individual voted for in the order of his preference which is the only thing we are concerned about. How it is summed up is immaterial. The important thing we want to secure is that the vote of each individual person should be open for inspection by his constituents and the whole country to see for whom he is voting first, second, third, fourth or fifth. That is all that is required. That is the real material thing and the other thing is a matter of calculation, which follows of necessity. The final results are given, and anyone interested from the point of view of proportional representation can do the rest. I am not interested as a secretary, for instance, of a proportional representation society might be, in seeing how the thing summed up. I am interested in one particular thing, that the vote of the individual elector should be open to anyone for inspection.
You only want to know how he marked his paper but you do not want to find out how his vote was recorded.
That is how it was recorded.
You cannot find it out by your method. If a nineteenth preference was given to a particular candidate you would never find out who got it.
I know that the time table is against me but I can say all that I want to say in a few sentences. I intend to vote against this amendment. I am rather surprised to see such an amendment standing in the name of Deputy De Valera, because I thought his tendency was towards democracy, and that he was not in any way reactionary. I think it is admitted that the Ballot Act was considered to be one of the greatest victories that could be secured for the common people. Time was when the landlords and the possessing classes in this country were able to drive the voters to the polling booths like so many sheep or cattle. I regret that one who has so long appeared before the Irish public as a leader of thought should put such a motion as this on the Order Paper. Deputy De Valera suggested that the acts of those who vote in the Seanad election should have the light of day thrown upon them. If that principle was to be followed to its logical conclusion we should then say that the people who elect Deputies should also have the light of day thrown on their actions. That is what it really amounts to. The secrecy of the ballot, I hope, is a thing that we shall never depart from in this country. I think that it was considered one of the greatest victories for democracy, and I am rather surprised at Deputy De Valera committing himself to anything so reactionary as to suggest that we should go back to the old days and the old system when the people were driven to the ballot boxes as if they were so many sheep and cattle. I am opposed to the amendment.
The extreme reactionary views of my young friend from Cork unwillingly bring me to my feet. The difference which Deputy Anthony apparently does not understand is this: when a man is casting a vote in an ordinary election he is casting his own property and knows what he does with it. He is entitled to know what he did with it, but nobody else is. When Deputy Anthony or myself casts a vote in the Dáil it is a case of using the property of somebody else, and those who are responsible for the existence of Deputy Anthony as a Deputy, and those who are responsible for the existence of Deputy Flinn as a Deputy, and only in that way, are entitled to know exactly what Deputy Anthony or Deputy Flinn did with the authority given them. There is nothing undemocratic and nothing to be ashamed of in advocating that principle. As we are sent here to represent the people we do in the open all things in the face of their knowledge of our acts and are publicly responsible to them for what we do.
Question: "That the words proposed to be deteted stand part of the section"—put.
The Committe divided: Tá, 68; Níl, 41.
Tá
|
William P. Aird.Ernest Henry Alton.Richard Anthony.James Walter Beckett.George Cecil Bennett.Ernest Blythe.Michael Brennan.Seán Brodrick.Alfred Byrne.John Joseph Byrne.John James Cole.Mrs. Margt. Collins-O'Driscoll.Martin Conlon.Michael P. Connolly.Bryan Ricco Cooper.William T. Cosgrave.Sir James Craig.James Crowley.Peter de Loughrey. Patrick Hogan (Galway).Richard Holohan.Myles Keogh.Hugh Alexander Law.Finian Lynch.Arthur Patrick Mathews.Martin McDonogh.Joseph W. Mongan.Richard Mulcahy.James E. Murphy.James Sproule Myles.John Thomas Nolan.Richard O'Connell.Thomas J. O'Connell.Bartholomew O'Connor.Timothy Joseph O'Donovan. |
Eugene Doherty.James N. Dolan.Peadar Seán Doyle.Edmund John Duggan.James Dwyer.Barry M. Egan.Osmond Thos. Grattan Esmonde.Desmond Fitzgerald.James Fitzgerald-Kenney.John Good.Denis J. Gorey.Alexander Haslett.John J. Hassett.Michael R. Heffernan.Michael Joseph Hennessy.Thomas Hennessy.John Hennigan.Mark Henry. Daniel O'Leary.Dermot Gun O'Mahony.John J. O'Reilly.Gearoid O'Sullivan.John Marcus O'Sullivan.Patrick Reynolds.Vincent Rice.Martin Roddy.Timothy Sheehy (West Cork).William Edward Thrift.Michael Tierney.John White.Vincent Joseph White.George Wolfe.Jasper Travers Wolfe. |
Níl
|
Frank Aiken.Neal Blaney.Gerald Boland.Patrick Boland.Daniel Bourke.Seán Brady.Robert Briscoe.Daniel Buckley.Frank Carney.Frank Carty.Michael Clery.James Colbert.Eamon Cooney.Tadhg Crowley.Thomas Derrig.Eamon de Valera.Frank Fahy.Hugo Flinn.Andrew Fogarty.Patrick J. Gorry.John Goulding. |
Seán Hayes.Samuel Holt.Patrick Houlihan.Stephen Jordan.Michael Joseph Kennedy.James Joseph Killane.Mark Killilea.Michael Kilroy.Seán F. Lemass.Patrick John Little.Ben Maguire.Thomas McEllistrim.Seán MacEntee.Séamus Moore.Patrick Joseph O'Dowd.William O'Leary.James Ryan.Timothy Sheehy (Tipp.).Patrick Smith.John Tubridy. |
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Duggan and P.S. Doyle. Níl: Deputies G. Boland and Killilea.
Question declared carried.
It being now 7.25 p.m., and the period prescribed by the Order of the Dáil of the 20th June having expired, the Chairman proceeded to put forthwith the questions necessary to bring to a conclusion the proceedings in Committee.
Question put: "That Section 2 stand part of the Bill."
The Committee divided: Tá, 67; Níl, 45.
Tá
- William P. Aird.
- Ernest Henry Alton.
- James Walter Beckett.
- George Cecil Bennett.
- Ernest Blythe.
- Michael Brennan.
- Seán Brodrick.
- Alfred Byrne.
- John Joseph Byrne.
- John James Cole.
- Mrs. Margt. Collins-O'Driscoll.
- Martin Conlon.
- Michael P. Connolly.
- Bryan Ricco Cooper.
- William T. Cosgrave.
- Sir James Craig.
- James Crowley.
- Peter de Loughrey.
- Eugene Doherty.
- James N. Dolan.
- Peadar Seán Doyle.
- Arthur Patrick Mathews.
- Martin McDonogh.
- Joseph W. Mongan.
- Richard Mulcahy.
- James E. Murphy.
- Joseph Xavier Murphy.
- James Sproule Myles.
- John Thomas Nolan.
- Richard O'Connell.
- Bartholomew O'Connor.
- Timothy Joseph O'Donovan.
- Daniel O'Leary.
- Dermot Gun O'Mahony.
- Edmund John Duggan.
- James Dwyer.
- Barry M. Egan.
- Osmond Thos. Grattan Esmonde.
- Desmond Fitzgerald.
- James Fitzgerald-Kenney.
- John Good.
- Denis J. Gorey.
- Alexander Haslett.
- John J. Haslett.
- Michael R. Heffernan.
- Michael Joseph Hennessy.
- Thomas Hennessy.
- John Hennigan.
- Mark Henry.
- Patrick Hogan (Galway).
- Richard Holohan.
- Myles Keogh.
- Hugh Alexander Law.
- Finian Lynch.
- John J. O'Reilly.
- Gearoid O'Sullivan.
- John Marcus O'Sullivan.
- Patrick Reynolds.
- Vincent Rice.
- Martin Roddy.
- Timothy Sheehy (West Cork).
- William Edward Thrift.
- Michael Tierney.
- John White.
- Vincent Joseph White.
- George Wolfe.
- Jasper Travers Wolfe.
Níl
- Frank Aiken.
- Richard Anthony.
- Neal Blaney.
- Gerald Boland.
- Patrick Boland.
- Daniel Bourke.
- Seán Brady.
- Robert Briscoe.
- Daniel Buckley.
- Frank Carney.
- Frank Carty.
- Michael Clery.
- James Coburn.
- James Colbert.
- Eamon Cooney.
- Tadhg Crowley.
- Thomas Derrig.
- Eamon de Valera.
- Frank Fahy.
- Hugo Flinn.
- Andrew Fogarty.
- Patrick J. Gorry.
- John Goulding.
- Seán Hayes.
- Samuel Holt.
- Patrick Houlihan.
- Stephen Jordan.
- Michael Joseph Kennedy.
- James Joseph Killane.
- Mark Killilea.
- Michael Kilroy.
- Seán F. Lemass.
- Patrick John Little.
- Ben Maguire.
- Thomas McEllistrim.
- Seán MacEntee.
- Seámus Moore.
- Thomas J. O'Connell.
- Patrick Joseph O'Dowd.
- John F. O'Hanlon.
- William O'Leary.
- James Ryan.
- Timothy Sheehy (Tipperary).
- Patrick Smith.
- John Tubridy.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Duggan and P. Doyle. Níl: Deputies G. Boland and Killilea.
Motion declared carried.
Question put: "That Section 3 stand part of the Bill."
The Committee divided: Tá, 71; Níl, 43.
Tá
- William P. Aird.
- Ernest Henry Alton.
- Richard Anthony.
- James Walter Beckett.
- George Cecil Bennett.
- Ernest Blythe.
- Michael Brennan.
- Seán Brodrick.
- Alfred Byrne.
- John Joseph Byrne.
- John James Cole.
- Mrs. Margt. Collins-O'Driscoll.
- Martin Conlon.
- Michael P. Connolly.
- Bryan Ricco Cooper.
- William T. Cosgrave.
- Sir James Craig.
- James Crowley.
- Peter de Loughrey.
- Eugene Doherty.
- James N. Dolan.
- Peadar Seán Doyle.
- Edmund John Duggan.
- James Dwyer.
- Barry M. Egan.
- Osmond Thos. Grattan Esmonde.
- Desmond Fitzgerald.
- James Fitzgerald-Kenney.
- Dermot Gun O'Mahony.
- John J. O'Reilly.
- Gearoid O'Sullivan.
- John Marcus O'Sullivan.
- Patrick Reynolds.
- Vincent Rice.
- Martin Roddy.
- Timothy Sheehy (West Cork).
- John Good.
- Denis J. Gorey.
- Alexander Haslett.
- John J. Hassett.
- Michael R. Heffernan.
- Michael Joseph Hennessy.
- Thomas Hennessy.
- John Hennigan.
- Mark Henry.
- Patrick Hogan (Galway).
- Richard Holohan.
- Myles Keogh.
- Hugh Alexander Law.
- Finian Lynch.
- Arthur Patrick Mathews.
- Martin McDonogh.
- Joseph W. Mongan.
- Daniel Morrissey.
- Richard Mulcahy.
- James E. Murphy.
- Joseph Xavier Murphy.
- James Sproule Myles.
- John Thomas Nolan.
- Richard O'Connell.
- Thomas J. O'Connell.
- Bartholomew O'Connor.
- Timothy Joseph O'Sullivan.
- Daniel O'Leary.
- William Edward Thrift.
- Michael Tierney.
- Daniel Vaughan.
- John White.
- Vincent Joseph White.
- George Wolfe.
- Jasper Travers Wolfe.
Níl
- Frank Aiken.
- Neal Blaney.
- Gerald Boland.
- Patrick Boland.
- Daniel Bourke.
- Seán Brady.
- Robert Briscoe.
- Daniel Buckley.
- Frank Carney.
- Frank Carty.
- Michael Clery.
- James Coburn.
- James Colbert.
- Eamon Cooney.
- Tadhg Crowley.
- Thomas Derrig.
- Eamon de Valera.
- Frank Fahy.
- Hugo Flinn.
- Andrew Fogarty.
- Patrick J. Gorry.
- John Goulding.
- Seán Hayes.
- Samuel Holt.
- Patrick Houlihan.
- Stephen Jordan.
- Michael Joseph Kennedy.
- James Joseph Killane.
- Mark Killilea.
- Michael Kilroy.
- Seán F. Lemass.
- Patrick John Little.
- Ben Maguire.
- Thomas McEllistrim.
- Seán MacEntee.
- Séamus Moore.
- Patrick Joseph O'Dowd.
- John F. O'Hanlon.
- William O'Leary.
- James Ryan.
- Timothy Sheehy (Tipperary).
- Patrick Smith.
- John Tubridy.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Duggan and P.S. Doyle. Níl: Deputies G. Boland and Killilea.
Motion declared carried.
Question put: "That the title be the title to the Bill."
The Committee divided: Tá, 71; Níl, 43.
Tá
- William P. Aird.
- Ernest Henry Alton.
- Richard Anthony.
- James Walter Beckett.
- George Cecil Bennett.
- Ernest Blythe.
- Michael Brennan.
- Seán Brodrick.
- Alfred Byrne.
- John Joseph Byrne.
- John James Cole.
- Mrs. Margt. Collins-O'Driscoll.
- Martin Conlon.
- Michael P. Connolly.
- Bryan Ricco Cooper.
- William T. Cosgrave.
- Sir James Craig.
- James Crowley.
- Peter de Loughrey.
- Eugene Doherty.
- James N. Dolan.
- Peadar Seán Doyle.
- Edmund John Duggan.
- James Dwyer.
- Barry M. Egan.
- Osmond Thos. Grattan Esmonde.
- Desmond Fitzgerald.
- James Fitzgerald-Kenney.
- John Good.
- Denis J. Gorey.
- Alexander Haslett.
- Martin Roddy.
- Timothy Sheehy (West Cork).
- William Edward Thrift.
- Michael Tierney.
- Daniel Vaughan.
- John J. Hassett.
- Michael R. Heffernan.
- Michael Joseph Hennessy.
- Thomas Hennessy.
- John Hennigan.
- Mark Henry.
- Patrick Hogan (Galway).
- Richard Holohan.
- Myles Keogh.
- Hugh Alexander Law.
- Finian Lynch.
- Arthur Patrick Mathews.
- Martin McDonogh.
- Joseph W. Mongan.
- Daniel Morrissey.
- Richard Mulcahy.
- James E. Murphy.
- Joseph Xavier Murphy.
- James Sproule Myles.
- John Thomas Nolan.
- Richard O'Connell.
- Thomas J. O'Connell.
- Bartholomew O'Connor.
- Timothy Joseph O'Donovan.
- Daniel O'Leary.
- Dermot Gun O'Mahony.
- John J. O'Reilly.
- Gearoid O'Sullivan.
- John Marcus O'Sullivan.
- Patrick Reynolds.
- Vincent Rice.
- John White.
- Vincent Joseph White.
- George Wolfe.
- Jasper Travers Wolfe.
Níl
- Frank Aiken.
- Neal Blaney.
- Gerald Boland.
- Patrick Boland.
- Daniel Bourke.
- Seán Brady.
- Robert Briscoe.
- Daniel Buckley.
- Frank Carney.
- Frank Carty.
- Michael Clery.
- James Coburn.
- James Colbert.
- Eamon Cooney.
- Tadhg Crowley.
- Thomas Derrig.
- Eamon de Valera.
- Frank Fahy.
- Hugo Flinn.
- Andrew Fogarty.
- Patrick J. Gorry.
- John Goulding.
- Seán Hayes.
- Samuel Holt.
- Patrick Houlihan.
- Stephen Jordan.
- Michael Joseph Kennedy.
- James Joseph Killane.
- Mark Killilea.
- Michael Kilroy.
- Seán F. Lemass.
- Patrick John Little.
- Ben Maguire.
- Thomas McEllistrim.
- Seán MacEntee.
- Seámus Moore.
- Patrick Joseph O'Dowd.
- John F. O'Hanlon.
- William O'Leary.
- James Ryan.
- Timothy Sheehy (Tipperary).
- Patrick Smith.
- John Tubridy.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Duggan and P.S. Doyle; Níl: Deputies G. Boland and Killilea.
Motion declared carried.
The Dáil went out of Committee. Bill reported without amendment.
Report Stage ordered for Tuesday, 26th June.