Phrases that I used last night were described by the Minister as inaccurate in respect to every expression attributed to some Government member. Deputy Norton has quoted these. He did it after the Minister for Finance had broken loose into the Press with a statement about a corrupt bargain. That was the phrase flung around the Committee room on the night the Minister for Industry and Commerce lost his temper. Silence was broken by those who got into conference with the Minister for Finance and got him to write that letter to the newspapers.
Deputy Norton has told of certain things that happened in the Committee. I corroborate every one of them. I also corroborate what Deputy Dillon said this evening. There were one or two points that he missed that I would like to add. In the main, everything Deputy Norton said purporting to be a quotation certainly represented the gist of what was said. I had to follow the Deputy last night. Like him, I had no notes taken and had to speak from memory. Deputy Dillon is in the same position. I have not discussed this with Deputy Dillon, but I agree with what he said as to what happened in the Committee. The fact that members lost their tempers is a very small one in comparison with the particular amendments and proposals that are before us. Let us have no quibbling in this matter. I see that the President is about to institute a fine distinction— that is what he calls it but I call it quibbling—in trying to make out that there is exclusion as between political groups and vocational groups. We need not bother our heads about that. They may be inclusive one of the other. The main point in all this is, what is aimed at? Can we get a Seanad together? Is the primary consideration a political group or a group chosen because people possess certain capacity, have shown experience in certain matters, integrity in regard to their conduct in affairs, and are by reason of these qualifications people who can be and should be put into the Second House in this country in order to polish up legislation and assert whatever powers they may have given to them under the Constitution?
The President's scheme aims at a political Seanad. It is no excuse to say that, by accident, you may not get people of experience and capacity. The essential in the one case is that the person is a politician and that by accident he may have experience and capacity, and in the other the ability to judge in an independent fashion. What is essential in the scheme that depends on registers is that you will get men voted for because they have certain capacity and experience, not primarily because they are politicians with a particular colour. If we are to be convinced that the vocational idea has to be abandoned in total or in the main, then I am for a frank recognition of the introduction of politics into the Seanad. I think that is better than the camouflage that will be worked by adding the local councils to the Dáil. It is only camouflage because it is intended to create the impression of a bigger electorate thinking more along independent lines than the Dáil. In fact, the local councils have been added in because it is believed that they will be more under the political control of the Government than any other Party. The aim of bringing in the county councils is to increase the political strength of one Party. The illusion of course will be that there will be a larger electorate and therefore that it will be harder to control.
If we have reached the situation in which the functional or vocational idea has to be derided or regarded as impossible of achievement, then let us recognise the other alternative, and the only other alternative is that we are going to have a crowd chosen peculiarly and particularly for their political opinions. I do not see why we should give up the thought that we cannot get a vocational Seanad. In Committee we started off with the view that it could be done. We recognised that it might take some time to work out, and we divided our proposals into two parts. I have on the Order Paper, in conjunction with Deputy Costello, an amendment to the Schedule. The suggestion in the Schedule is that these people are worthy of being appointed electors in regard to a set out number of Senators. I have not heard anyone yet comment on that Schedule. I myself will admit right away that in regard to two of the registers suggested that they are only a second best: that they are put up in preference to proposals withdrawn because of objections made to them, not objections that went to the root of them but objections that laid stress on the difficulties and the possible expense that might have to be incurred by people who stood for election under them. Let us take the groups that are set out. Take the cultural panel which is not by any means the easiest to determine. From that category there are altogether five Senators. Taking into consideration the fact that the language is mentioned in the Constitutution, the proposal is that, if people have a certain knowledge of the language as indicated by their membership of a certain group such as the Fáinne, they should elect a Senator. It is proposed that teachers should have the right to form an electorate and to give us one Senator on the cultural and educational panel. It is further suggested that the managers of primary schools and the principals of secondary schools and county and county borough technical educational committees should meet as one group and give us one Senator. It is then suggested that there should be a certain mixed group of the Royal Irish Academy, the National Gallery and the Royal Hibernan Academy voting together and giving us another Senator. Finally, that the professional groups—professions are brought in by an amendment to the Bill—such as the subscribing members of the Law Library, members of the Incorporated Law Society, members of the Institute of Journalists, Licentiates of the Royal College of Surgeons and Physicians, Licentiates of the Apothecaries' Hall, and members of the Pharmaceutical Society, voting as one group, could select a Senator. What is wrong with that, as a group of people having a professional viewpoint, and having a viewpoint that may rise above more than mere political divisions? And that will allow also for lines of political division. Why should we not take this out, as a body, and say that in any event we will split this matter, and say that we will have one thing in one case and another thing in another case? Here is a body that may be added, and why should we not try to see whether or not they will be hard-and-fast politicians, or whether they can be relied upon in the Seanad to pass some sort of judgement not dependent entirely on the three or four divisions that there are here in the Dáil?
I could go through the various other panels and discuss them, but I will take that one as an example. I have not heard any objection to that register. There are vague suggestions against registers, to the effect that people are not properly organised, and so on. We have been told all about the virtue that exists in certain nominating bodies. There is a virtue alleged to exist in the proposal that certain bodies should be elected and should be given more importance in the State, and we should promote their growth by giving them the power to nominate in that way. Now, if there is power to be given to them to nominate, and if there is virtue in such a power, surely they will be given more power if they are given the power, not merely to nominate, but actually to elect? As a matter of fact, I think that the further point was made in the Committee that it would lead to the improvement of these electoral groups if you gave them such importance in the State. If there is any argument in that—and I believe there is—will we not lead more speedily to the evolution of these groups if we give them, not merely the right to nominate, but the right to elect also? Of course, we realise that it will take time to prepare these registers. That is admitted, although I do not think it would take so much time as has been suggested. For instance, in the matter of the Third Part of the Schedule, dealing with Labour, we were going to take Labour, in so far as we could get them bound together in any representative group at the moment, and the view we had at the moment was that those who were found to be contributors to the national health insurance scheme could be taken, in the main, as representing what is described in the Constitution as Labour. It was pointed out, of course, that that might mean registering some 500,000 people, and therefore, in the circumstances, we decided that that could not be pressed at the moment.
However, I want to go a little further into what happened at the Committee. The suggestion was then made that we should take this thing in two steps—the question of a provisional or transitional Seanad, and the question of a Seanad of a more permanent character. Perhaps "permanent" is the wrong word to use, but surely there is some degree of permanence attached to the passing of a measure in regard to the setting up of a Seanad, where the measure does not indicate any doubt as to the quality or position of the body proposed to be set up. As Deputy Dillon has said, if we pass legislation here in connection with a Seanad, after all the trouble there has been about Seanads in the past, we should be careful about fixing the mould for a Seanad in the years to come. Let us consider the progress of this matter up to date. The President quoted certain philosophers, in recollection, and also called to recollection the views—or the misquoted views—of certain politicians, and he has probably learned them as correct quotations. He has called these quotations from philosophers and politicians to his aid, and they all amounted to this: that, really, Second Chamber government was futile. Then, however, stepping back from the rules, he decided evidently that it might be better to have another look at this, and so we had the provision for a new Seanad in the Constitution. Then, after the Constitution, we had the Bill, and after the Bill we had this Committee set up—with a variety of proposals; and after that we had another fresh scheme from the Government. Can anybody say of the present scheme that it is anything but the last thought of the Government on the matter, or can anybody say that it was even the best thought of the Government on the matter? Does the President say that the Bill was better than the amendment, or do each of these three changes represent an advance on the preceding stage? If so, where is the security we have reached? In the circumstances of all these changes having taken place, we are asked here now to take this, and not even to say that it is a transitional proposal, but to put it into a piece of legislation as if it were the best viewpoint that has been arrived at up to the present time.
I think that, if the President were to contemplate even his own performance in this matter, he could not fail to realise that people would ask, after having seen so many changes in such a short time, whether or not there was anything in this latest suggestion to mark it as better than the first. Is there anything in its character to mark it as different—has it any brain-wave, apparently, behind it, or any spectacular marking? Of course not. It is just something that has been churned up and the President's mind has been forced to arrive at this conclusion on this matter by its impact with the minds of various people. Other matters discussed by Deputy Norton in the Committee and here are relevant in this connection also. It must be remembered that in the Committee—and the record of the Committee shows it—we had a definite repudiation of the idea of registers, and then, later on, an acceptance of the idea of registers—so complete an acceptance of that idea of registers that the Minister for Industry and Commerce was to embody his proposals in a letter, and that letter, I think, was to be before the Committee after a week's adjournment. I think that it emerges from all this, at any rate, that at one time the Government nominees on that Committee disliked the idea of registers—they certainly said that they thought the idea of registers was impracticable—and that later they accepted the idea and said—one of them, at least—that he would put the proposals in writing. That can only have meant that some consideration at least was given to the idea of registers and that there was acceptance of the view that such a scheme was a practicable one. What else could it have meant? Then, however, we get a letter to the effect that the scheme is not practicable and that it will not be unless these vocational organisations spring up; and again, I say, the Minister put a term of 25 years to these proposals, when asked about it. However, that is apart from the gyrations of the President himself. On that Committee, there was squabbling back and forward with regard to this idea of registers generally.
There was an offer made to let the first Seanad be constituted in any way the Government thought fit as long as they would mark, when they were doing that, that it was only to last for a year or two. An offer was made to the Government: "Get your Seanad nominated in any way you like; have it completely nominated; have it nominated by the Dáil; have it nominated by the Council of State; take any body as a nominating body to throw up the first Seanad in any way you like; but when you do, mark in the terms of your legislation constituting it that it is only a transitional scheme." What was to happen in the meantime? That a group of people would be put to sit together, that they would be allowed to send for persons, papers and records, and to bring in experts in such matters as proportional representation, constituency divisions, and so on; that they would be allowed to consult experts either in the flesh or in the material they had written; and at some time—we gave them leisurely progress, within about one and a half years— they would report back to the Dáil as to whether it was possible to get a system of special registers. That was the offer made in the Committee: that as long as it was held out that there would even be a consideration and study of the idea of special registers, then, so far as we were concerned, the President could have the first Seanad to himself, nominate every man upon it, do anything he liked with it. That offer was refused.
Why should not that suggestion commend itself? Why should not the President introduce a phrase in this Bill saying that the term of office of these people is to be such-and-such; that the people elected took office on that footing only—make it whatever period he likes so long as it is not too long, say, a couple of years—and say that the intention in marking a limit to the period of office of these people is to have two years during which this matter can be studied better? The aim of the study will be this question of vocational organisations inside the country and the consideration of whether it is possible or not to have special registers. If the President did that at this moment, I believe, so far as this Party is concerned, that he could have any Bill he liked. Is there anything of a flagrantly Party bias in the proposal that the President should take whatever Seanad he likes at this moment, as long as he gives this promise, and this promise only, that he would get some body set up to consider the whole matter of special registers and that the question of the Seanad would be reviewed in a couple of years? I think that that proposal has no flagrant Party smack about it. I think that proposal, when made, might have been accepted and, when made now, might be accepted. I suggest that it is only rejected because the President wants to have a Party Seanad fixed by legislation here and now.
There is a division of principle in the views on this matter. You either want a Seanad built up on political lines or you do not. It is no answer to that to say that, no matter how you get a Seanad built up, it will develop a political viewpoint. It is no answer to say that you must rule out politicians from emerging by the special registers or through nominating bodies. The big point in the foreground of all this discussion, the point alone upon which, legitimately, there may be a difference of opinion, is: Are you looking, in the main, for a political body or, in the main, to avoid a political body so far as you can? If you are looking to have a political body, the Dáil will give you that. If you are looking to have a political body, with a particular Party colouring at the moment, the Dáil, plus the local authorities, will give you that. If you want, in any event, to make it less easy for a political viewpoint to prevail in the new Seanad, then the further the choice of the new Seanad is removed from the Dáil the better. Is there any other ground upon which one might stand in trying to get a Seanad, if you leave out the Dáil, than getting certain people who have viewpoints because of the part they play in life, picking out a certain number and assigning to them, according to opinion, the choice of one, two or three more Senators?
I do not see that there is any room for division of thought on this matter. The special registers will certainly not tend to give a political Seanad as much as choice through the Dáil. If you make a choice through the Dáil, I suggest that it is open to the suspicion amounting to certainty, that you are looking for a political Seanad. If you move away from the Dáil towards the registers, you lessen the suspicion—you pretty definitely avoid the suspicion that you are looking for a political Seanad. People who vote on this will, undoubtedly, find themselves charged, and I think legitimately charged, by the action they take up on this matter that we are discussing, apart from the amendment, with wanting a Seanad of a particular type—that they wanted a Seanad of Party hacks. That is the only reason why people are going to vote for a Seanad of a particular type. Deputy Norton is quite frank about this. He says he does not believe it is possible to get a Seanad composed of other than politicians, that you are not going to get a Seanad built up except on the lines of political Party divisions in this country; and, having that view, he makes the correct choice. He says the electorate ought to be the Dáil. The President simply tries to delude the people with his proposal. He is going to get, not merely a political Seanad, but he is going to see that that Seanad has more of a Party complexion than even the Dáil would give when he adds the local authorities.
The first division in our plan came on that point. Our ideal was registers. For that ideal we would sacrifice a lot. For that ideal we would give the President, as I say, complete control of the first Seanad. But we recognised that we could not attain that objective of ours at once. We felt that if we were forced to put down proposals and were made to face this fact, which had to be faced, that the Seanad had to be in being by a certain time, we could not, with any great ease in our minds, say it would be possible to get the first series of registers which we had in mind. It was not possible to get these established in time for the first Seanad; therefore we proposed the transitional business.
I have yet to hear what is the objection to this electoral college idea. What is the objection to having an electoral college? Quite a number of countries, in thinking of elections of different types, have built their constitutional procedure upon electoral colleges. The idea of an electoral college is no novelty. It may be that the weighting of this committee adds something that is unusual. I do not think it is unusual, but it may be that the weighting of the electoral college is something unusual. But the electoral college idea itself is one that has been thought of many times and operated in quite a number of countries. What is the objection to it? Is there any objection to having a smaller group, even although they are going to have the exact political complexions, the same political differences, as a large group? A small group does its business better.
The electoral college proposed has a couple of advantages. One is that no member of the Dáil should have a seat on it. Is that a virtue or a vice in the proposal? When discussing this in Committee I think the phrase most commonly used about it was that it would only be a shade better or a shade worse, according to the viewpoint expressed, than having the whole Dáil as the electorate. Supposing there is only a shade in the difference, is it not a good thing to have it? Is there not something in this: that they are men who are not attending meetings in Party groups at regular intervals, that they are men who are not thinking all the while along the lines of how they may increase their political influence in the country, men who are constantly getting whips from political Parties, men who are invited to attend meetings where matters are discussed in a Party atmosphere, men who are being told to vote on occasions on matters, to the discussion of which they have not even listened? Is it a good thing to have people who are accustomed to obey Party Whips or to have a group elected by those, even though they are only one remove from the Dáil? Will there not be some little chance of more freedom, of more independence of view, than if the whole matter is to be decided at meetings summoned by the Party Whips?
I found nobody at the Committee who did not agree that there was at least some slight chance of obtaining a better Seanad in that way. Why not take that slight chance? Is it not also an advantage to have a group outside the Dáil and that, when you come to that group outside the Dáil, you remove from them the temptation of being able to vote themselves in, and ensure that they cannot play such a good and efficient Party game that they will get their reward by being put on in some other way themselves? In so far as there is a defect in that proposal, there is only this defect, that the President, who is the head of one Party, in nominating 11 Senators has the power to reward efficient Party action by people, not of the Dáil, but people who represent his point of view in the electoral college. Surely there is an advantage in having these two things done, that you remove the whole thing at least one move from the Dáil, and that any person who acts on the electoral college forfeits his right to be an applicant for Senatorial office?
I think there is a further virtue in the matter that has been discussed here, namely, that each Party will have to propose double the number of nominees to which it is entitled and let others vote on who will be their representatives. When that is applied all round, there can be no injustice done to any party. I think there is more benefit or more improvement to be got from that scheme than can be got out of direct nomination by members of the Dáil. The "weighting" is, of course, a matter that has been discussed. I do not know what position we have got to when so much criticism can be made of such a simple proposal. What is the extent of this "weighting"? The Minister for Industry and Commerce makes a great deal of the fact that any two members of the college can elect two Senators. In opposition to that, if the whole Dáil is to elect 43 Senators, it means that about five members have got to combine before they can elect one Senator. Does anybody here think that with the Dáil as the electoral body, there is going to be any difficulty whatever in so regimenting the House in its Parties, that it will not be as easy as possible to get the willing concurrence of any five minds with regard to a particular Senator? Under Party management will not the getting of the five to vote for a particular man be as easy as anything that has ever been put to the Parties? As far as numbers are concerned, as far as the power of voting is concerned, there is no strength in the argument.
We are told that this is aimed at the Government Party. What is the extent of the weighting? Supposing we were to think entirely along Party lines, and I was hoping that that might not happen when these nominations came to be made. In the end the college would consist of ten members of the Government Party, seven from this side, four from Labour and one Independent. Assuming that each man of them could elect two Senators, and supposing that they were going to vote strictly according to Party lines, the Government would emerge from the election with 20 supporters. There would be 23 against them, if all the others combined. If the electoral college is not weighted in that way, and if the Dáil were to appoint an electoral college composed of 22 members elected by this House on strictlines of proportional representation and that they voted on Party lines, in the end the Government would have 22 supporters and all others 21. The difference then would be a question of two members. At most—there are fractions and let us say that all the fractions are with the Government—there is going to be a difference of three seats. Just consider that in relation to the Seanad. What is there so shattering to the nerves in this proposal, viewed from the rigid narrow Party angle? What is there so shattering in the thought that the Government might be deprived of two or three seats? They have 11 nominees in the background. Supposing even some of the 11 nominees nominated by the President forgot their Party ties so that in the end you got a Seanad which was somewhat against the Government, that is to say, that everybody combined in such a way that you had a majority adverse to the Government. Remember what the Seanad can be in this Constitution that we have now upon us. They can delay any ordinary piece of legislation for 90 days. They can delay a Money Bill for 21 days.
That power of delay for 90 days or 21 days is, however, expressly restricted, because if the Dáil votes that a matter is of a particular type of urgency, and the Taoiseach so recommends it, they can get the period of 90 or 21 days abridged to any point of time he likes. That is the power of the Seanad. What, then, is the extraordinary power of the Seanad, even if we are to view all this from the narrow Party angle? A delay in the case of ordinary legislation of 90 days, and in the case of Money Bills 21 days, and a capacity in the Taoiseach to get this House to get that time abridged to 24 hours. People are being frightened at the thought that a body that has all that enormity of power—a 90 days' delay in the case of ordinary legislation and 21 days' delay in the case of Money Bills, with a possible abridgment—may have, if the President's nominees do not vote in accordance with his wishes, a majority against the reigning Government. Of course, that consideration of the Seanad's powers is so weak that it had to be shifted from that ground, and so we get the argument that this proposal is a breach of proportional representation. To that, remember, the counter is very cogent. If the constituencies had not been gerrymandered, this House would not be sitting with the strength that it now has, or at least with the strength as it was after the election results were counted. Instead of 69 the Government would have 62, or 63 if we gave them the half person, and all other Parties would have 75. The fact that they have 69 members here, while there are 69 in all other Parties, is the result of violation of proportional representation, and remember that was deliberately done. When the Bill was being put through this House it was argued and demonstrated that the proposals in that Bill were completely in breach of the principle and spirit of proportional representation; but the Bill was carried, and the result is shown in the completely unfair distribution of the votes that were cast. This House is a gerrymandered House. This House has no reason to talk in any sort of laudatory terms of proportional representation. The House, in its constitution, defies proportional representation. That is the first point.
The second point is that the President is there empowered to put in 11 nominees of his own to the Senate, 11 people whom he has elected on his own responsibility. As long as that is there—it may we well that it is there —no argument based on the sanctity of proportional representation can be put forward. I am suggesting that for a transitional Seanad this electoral college is the proper device. I am suggesting further that the electoral college in the details of the proposal is even a better device than simply an electoral college, and I am suggesting that, in the conditions of the representation in this House, and in the condition of the President having his 11 nominees, we should forget to elevate proportional representation to the region of principle. As against that, if those phrases that are used in the Constitution were not merely words put in to delude the people, if there was any idea of having those directive principles of social policy ever considered by the House, then surely there is a case to be made for giving adequate representation to small Parties, where those small Parties have a particular strength of viewpoint that cannot be attributed to other Parties, and particularly when that strength of viewpoint is applicable to those matters that were made so much of when the Constitution was being written and discussed. I think the weighting could be done in regard to small Parties generally, and that the weighting in favour of the small Parties should be done at the expense of the large Party; but, viewing the proposal in the circumstances of the present Dáil and the representation there, there is only one Party as such that has to be thought of. The Independents do not cohere to the extent that they could be considered as a Party. Again, remembering the proposal, there is this point: If there is subtraction from the Government in this regard, there is subtraction also from this Party. We yield, and yield without any demur, the right to elect a couple of Senators which we might easily claim on our strength here, and we do that because we think that we would have a better electoral college on the proposal we make than if we adhere strictly and rigidly here to the principle of proportional representation. That is in regard to the electoral college.
The electoral college is only a second best device. The electoral college could be forgotten, and all the proposals about it put on one side, if the President would only agree—his own evolution with regard to this matter should bring him to the point of agreeing—that the proposal he has brought before the House cannot be regarded as representing a sound scheme. He has no security for saying that there is not a better one which further thought could give him in this matter. All we have asked is to mark that this is only a transitional Seanad—we have one proposal for a transitional Seanad —and occupy the interval in getting better proposals considered and a new report made to the House. If that is done, the President would certainly from this side of the House get agreement to almost any proposal he put forward about this first Seanad. The President brings in a worse scheme than any which has been thought of yet. I have said before that, if we are going to divide here on grounds of principle, the only line of division is for or against a Seanad with a definitely political complexion. If we have to admit that we have got to put out of our minds the idea of vocational registers and a Seanad elected in such a way, and take the alternative, that we are going to have a political Seanad, let us be decent and honest about it, and let us say: "The Dáil will give you the best political Seanad possible; you will get a replica of this House." You will get a Seanad that will be of some value even though it is a replica of this House. It is better to have that than nothing. If you want a Seanad that is going to follow the political divisions along which we divide here, then let the Dáil send you up those 43 members. Weight that further along the lines of political division by adding the 11 nominees, and you have a reinforced political Seanad —but do not complicate us by the last minute introduction of the county councils.
I have here one of the leaflets that were issued—I have quite a number of them but I take this as an example —by the Fianna Fáil Party in electoral area No. 5 in Dublin. Under the heading "No Politics" there is this phrase: "The cry of `No Politics' is only a red herring to blind the electorate to Fine Gael's neglect of their interests in the past—and utter bankruptcy of policy for the future. In view of the extended franchise, a smashing majority for Fianna Fáil will be a vote of confidence in the Government and approval of the principle of `a fair deal' for every citizen." That was their request—a smashing majority for Fianna Fáil. About the time that that leaflet was being issued, the Minister for Industry and Commerce addressed a meeting. It was on 6th June, 1936. As is usual with that gentleman, he was very forthright. He said: "The contention that national and political considerations should have no place in municipal affairs is ridiculous." He talked about the view which a few foreigners might take who came in here, not understanding how the Corporation of Dublin was built up. He said: "They would mistake that to be in their political opinion representative of the capital city of the Free State," and he wound up his speech by saying that "It would be a very undesirable thing that there should be any doubt at the present time about the solidarity of the people who support the policy of the Government." That was described by the paper to which the Minister for Finance now sends his flowers of rhetoric as a "vitriolic and somewhat bombastic speech by the Minister for Industry and Commerce." They summed up their view of the speech by saying that the election was to be fought on the narrowest Party lines. It was so fought, and the political majority in those local authorities, elected on those narrow Party lines, is now brought in to buttress up the waning strength of the Government in this House. If we cannot have registers, and if we are going to abandon the idea of a vocational type of Seanad, let us be decent about it and get the political complexion of the country as shown even through this gerrymandered House. Do not add in the local councils to complicate the matter further.
I do not despair of the registers scheme even yet, and I am assisted in that by the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Industry and Commerce. Both of them, on that night in November when the proposal for the electoral college was carried against them, agreed that a scheme of registers was a practicable one. The Minister for Agriculture— I assert it again—went further and said it was a practicable scheme even for the first Seanad. We fell to discuss certain suggestions that had been made with regard to the register. I will call the President's recollection back to this point, that we began to discuss the idea of having the representatives, the delegates, to the Trade Union Congress as the sole electoral body for the 11 Senators who were to be the representatives of Labour. We began to discuss that after we had had a certain disagreement and a certain anger over the proposal about the electoral college, the anger being on the point that it was going to weight that committee in favour of Labour. I suggested that it seemed peculiar that after rejecting the electoral college idea on the basis that Labour would have too much power, we were going to give the Trade Union Congress the complete control of 11 Senators. I wonder does the President remember his colleague's answer to that: "It will be the same result," he said, "but it will look better."
The Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Industry and Commerce had been, by way of repulsion from another scheme, captivated by the thought of these registers, and they agreed it was possible to have them. They have since abandoned that idea, but I do not think that what they say here in the House represents their best or even their last view. I believe this would happen, and I am suggesting it to the President. If this electoral college idea should happen to pass, would the President have any hesitation even then in saying that again he is in favour of registers rather than this electoral college, and would he say he was in favour of the scheme of registers even though he believed it was not possible to get them, or would he say that it was because he liked them better than the electoral college and thought it not impossible to get them? I suggest that is a possibility that might even yet happen in this House.
If this electoral college proposal for a transitional Seanad were accepted, I believe we would find the President again rallying, as he did one night in the Committee, behind the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Industry and Commerce in the idea that registers were possible and practicable. I am not sure that he would not go on to say that he might consider the registers idea practicable even for the first Seanad. I do not want them for the first Seanad. I believe the registers idea would not be worked out to a degree sufficient to give them a chance. Let me put this again to the President. Let me mark his agreement with this view, that we are not at finality on this question of the Seanad; that we are so far from it that we can get agreement that other proposals ought to be considered for a still further time; that we will mark that particular progress in our thought by saying that this first Seanad is only transitional, only for a year or two years; that we will occupy that time in getting other proposals thought out and that we will have this House again proposed; that we will observe the progress of that Committee discussing this matter and getting experts to help them, and that two years hence we will have another discussion and another Bill as the basis of that discussion with regard to the Seanad. All the time we are aiming at what is supposed to be the ideal of all, getting special registers, so that we can get a really vocational Seanad and get away from the idea of politicians in it.
