The President will have an opportunity, as he usually has, of making the speech at the end of his performance that he should have made at the beginning. For the head of the Government to introduce a Bill dealing with the Seanad and to limit himself to what I might call the mere arithmetic of the matter is rather naive. I might suggest to the President—he may have forgotten—that there is another Bill dealing with the Seanad in, so to speak, a state of suspension. I thought this might be the opportunity which the President might have availed of to tell us exactly what his intentions with regard to a Second Chamber are and whether he has yet excogitated that ideal Second Chamber which he hankers after. He has not even indicated what advantage the passing of this Bill will be to him in respect of any legislation which he thinks there is any likelihood the Seanad might hold up. It is practically 12 months now since this House passed that other Bill dealing with the Seanad. We must take it for granted that, as the President never learns anything, his mind is still the same and that because he introduced a Bill of this particular kind almost a couple of years ago now, he must, therefore, introduce it again.
As he indicated at the end of his statement, he might have brought in this resolution at any time since last December. He brings it in now, so far as I can see, merely because he brought it in before and for no other reason. He has another Bill, much more drastic, awaiting consideration and yet he deliberately goes on with this. For what purpose? What time can he gain with respect to any Bill the Seanad might hold up? At the very best, a matter of a couple of months. If he waited from December until now, why not wait that couple of months longer that would make this Bill completely unnecessary, unless he has, strange as it may seem, changed his mind? Surely, he cannot have done so? He has not explained precisely, if this resolution is passed now, and supposing the Seanad, when the Bill goes to them, hold it up for two months, as they still can do, in what better position he will be and whether it is worth doing this, assuming, as I said, he intends to put the other Bill on the Statute Book.
I suggest that some of the arguments that appealed to him when he was first introducing this Bill need not appeal to him any longer. I think he said then that the Seanad were "friends of ours." I think that was the phrase he used. If I were to take that argument or pay any attention to that particular type of argument, I candidly confess that I would see no reason for opposing this Bill, assuming that the Government was likely to remain in power for a few months longer. They may easily get a majority in that particular body, but it is not from that particular Party point of view that I am really interested in the Bill. If I were looking at this from the purely Party point of view, I might take up the line the President took when first introducing the Bill, when he more or less hinted that it was one of the motives that were actuating him, so far as this Bill was concerned. Looking at it from the rather broader point of view than any mere Party point of view, I think it is advantageous to have a body like the present Seanad which really has not unduly exercised the powers vested in it by the Constitution and which, on the whole, has acted with great moderation. I do not think anybody, looking at the matter without Party bias, can say that they have acted in anything but a moderate fashion, and, that being so, I think that, in the general interests of what I might call a more reasonable Constitution, apart altogether from Party issues, he should not be anxious to curtail the powers that the Seanad now possesses.
The period of 18 months for which they can hold up Bills, extended, of course, to 20 months by the extra two months, has not been abused and in the course of time, if there are vacancies in the Seanad, with their majority in this House and practical equality in the other House, it is possible that the Government may get a majority there. Yet, I think the Seanad ought to have this power. The Government, as we know and as the country knows, has on more than one occasion since it came into office, been guilty of extremely hasty action, so far as the rushing of legislation through this House is concerned—action of which, I am sure, if they had not committed themselves, they would now be quite ready to take a different view. If we had a normal Government in existence, I think the Seanad would have rendered services to the nation in giving the Government an opportunity of calmer consideration. Where a Bill is held up for such a long time, it can be looked upon in a different atmosphere and examined, even by the Government itself, in a different atmosphere from the atmosphere of jumpiness and hastiness in which they first introduced the measure.
Even in regard to one of the principal criticisms which, I think, the President had against this power of the Seanad, namely, the Oath Bill, I think the Seanad, by holding up that Bill, conferred what the Government, if they looked at the thing calmly, would acknowledge as a benefit on the country. They at least prevented this —delay is useful in all international relations, I do not care whether between this country and England or between big continental countries—they prevented a fait accompli between two Governments before either had an opportunity of considering the full consequences, with the result that although subsequent actions may be far from satisfactory, they at least never got to the breaking point they might have reached had the Oath Bill been passed by the Seanad immediately it was sent up by this House. I think that it will be agreed that a period of delay is desirable in national as well as international affairs, where highly contentious matters involving two countries or highly contentious matters involving great issues in one country are concerned. Measures may be hastily conceived and still more hastily introduced. I think that when these questions are taken into consideration it will be seen that the power which the Seanad has to hold up Bills can be extremely useful. So far as criticisms are concerned, I have held the view during the past couple of years that the Seanad would be more useful if its powers had been extended. It might be said to be more useful as far as the majority of this Party or of any other Party was concerned, but if I were looking at it from a Party point of view I should have no interest in opposing this measure at this particular moment, but looking at the thing from the general interests of the country, if there was to be any change in the powers of the Seanad I should prefer to see them extended rather than diminished. I know it is useless, but still I would ask the President not inevitably to take up the attitude that what he has written he has written and it cannot be changed, and that if he does not preserve that literal constancy in mere words he is showing weakness of some kind.
This is not, and need not any longer, be a Party matter—I mean in the sense of either Party looking to advantage from the extension or diminution of the suspensory powers of the Seanad. It is a question, especially with the other Bill there, with the House and with the country being still in the dark as to whether the President is inevitably wedded to one Chamber Government or not, whether he still has any hope of finding that ideal Second Chamber. The Seanad has been criticised for being a mere replica of the Dáil. It is nothing of the kind. There are periods in the life of the Seanad when the majority in the Seanad has coincided with the Dáil but other periods will come when it is not the case. The very method of election now prevailing ensures that, in many cases, the Seanad would not be a mere replica of the Dáil and the only thing that might be considered is whether in practice the Seanad has unduly abused its powers. Not merely do I think that it has not but I think it has acted with great moderation whenever it has acted.
