When the House adjourned last night, I was dealing with the occasions of public scandal associated with the present method of electing the Seanad. I was referring to the manner in which the Taoiseach had exercised his power, under the existing scheme, to appoint Senators. I described his 11 appointees.
Private Deputies' Business. - Method of Seanad Elections — Motion (Resumed).
The Deputy should not repeat his remarks of yesterday.
I shall not repeat them. I shall just refresh the memory of Deputies with the list of appointments which the Taoiseach made. I want to invite Deputies from all sides of the House to take this list, examine it, and ask themselves if there is a single name on the list of a person who might, under any conceivable circumstances, be expected to do anything else than walk into the Fianna Fáil Lobby in Seanad Eireann. Here is the list: Seán P. Campbell, Dr. Farnan, T. Foran, T.V. Honan, Miss Margaret Kennedy, William Magennis, Liam O Buachalla, Padraic O Maille, Miss Margaret Pearse, Matthew Stafford, with the addition of Sir John Keane. There are the ten independent souls, the ten individuals divorced from Party associations, the ten individuals intended to represent elements in the community which might not otherwise be expected to have adequate representation in the Seanad; the ten individuals who were to carry into the Seanad intellectual and administrative capabilities that no elected Senator could reasonably be expected to have in his equipment. Is it any wonder that we say that the present system of choosing the Seanad stinks?
I do not want to depart from condemnation of the existing situation without envisaging an alternative that would be acceptable, at least, to me. The motion requests that a committee be set up to examine this question. That is a sensible kind of proposal. When that committee comes to sit, the first thing to which they will have to turn its mind is as to whether a Second Chamber is necessary at all or not. Then their minds will turn back to Sam Adams and John Adams, because they will doubtless scan the pages of the report of the debate that took place here when the Taoiseach was getting rid of the Seanad. They will read a description of the scene which we witnessed when the Taoiseach struck the desk before him and said: "Adams was in favour of Second Chamber government." It was suggested to him that John Adams clearly was not in favour of Second Chamber government and the voice of the Taoiseach was heard three weeks later to ask: "Did nobody ever hear of Sam Adams?" If I said: "De Valera is the greatest cutthroat and scoundrel in the country," I venture to say that the Chair would call me to order and tell me that that was no way to refer to the Taoiseach.
The Deputy is quite out of order now.
I was just going to say that you would look askance at me if I said: "Have you never heard of Pat de Valera, who was born in the adjoining parish?" That committee will have to read up those debates and make up their mind that, on that subject, we were right when we opposed the abolition of the Seanad and were right when we advocated its revival. If a method of election is to be determined, the committee will have to decide whether, in principle, it is a good thing to have a Seanad or not.
That question will not be before them. The motion refers definitely to the method of electing a Seanad.
"On truly vocational lines."
The Seanad could not be abolished without constitutional amendment.
Whether it is within their strict terms of reference or not, they will have to consider it and, on that question, they will have all the Taoiseach's arguments for abolishing the Seanad and all the Taoiseach's arguments for reinstating the Seanad. They will have a most interesting time reading the arguments on both sides, in respect of which he was very eloquent, and listening to such arguments as he has to advance now. They will, certainly, have to determine what the functions of that body should be. As it is unlikely that I shall be a member of that committee, if it is set up, I venture to suggest to the House now that one pitfall which should be sedulously avoided is the danger of setting up a rival authority to this House and that, therefore, the idea should be to establish a Seanad which would have a delaying function and an advisory function. There should be agreement on that. Members should be swayed to agreement by the consideration that not only are delay and second thoughts desirable, but that the very presence of these things in potentia acts as a deterrent on the Dáil from doing things impetuously which it might, otherwise, attempt to do but which it would not attempt if these impetuous acts were to be subject to the review of such a body.
That accepted, we must ask ourselves what type of person we want in the Seanad. The theory that the legislative authority in the country must be representative of all the people is right, not because it is founded on any great, moral principle, but because every adult person in the State having a right to a voice in the choice of the members of Dáil Eireann, the Government chosen by that Dáil is in a moral position to say to all comers: "We shall not tolerate any attempt to change the law by violence because there is no necessity for violence where every man may, if he can secure the agreement of his neighbours, achieve his ends by constitutional means and by using his vote in preference to a gun." In the last analysis the Government of a free country must be in a moral position to confront those who would overthrow the State by force of arms, with force and, if necessary, order troops under the Government's command to fire on those who would overthrow the State by violence. Unless the Government is in a position to say: "You can achieve everything by your vote that you could achieve by violence," they are not morally in a position to use such force to vindicate the authority of the majority of the people who elect this Dáil.
These considerations, however, do not apply in choosing a Seanad, because there is no suggestion to transfer the ultimate authority of the elected representatives of the people to the Seanad. We want them to advise us, and even to gain time for second thought. Therefore, I should like to see a Seanad established in this country chosen by that section of the community from which Senators themselves must be drawn, persons over 30 years of age. At present we have an electorate designated which might serve, that is, all citizens of the State who hold ration books with the three red stripes upon them. There is a great deal to be said for electing a Seanad, not on the basis of universal suffrage, but on the basis of families —to allow it to be a House representing the heads of households. Oddly enough, circumstances have imposed upon the community the necessity of establishing under the rationing regulations with reasonable precision who these persons are. Hereafter, admission to the roll of voters as the head of a household should be subject to application and adjudication by a body whose permanent function it would be to consider whether an applicant for admission to the roll in fact qualified for that title or not. Of course, if we choose that electorate of heads of families, it would not mean that every person on it would be over 30 years of age, but it would mean that every voter in the Seanad election would be the head of a household with family responsibilities. It would mean that it would be a poll of families rather than of individuals. I think that such a Chamber in our Legislature might have a very positive value.
I know that Clann na Talmhan believes that there is some peculiar value in a vocational Seanad, and I grant you that it appealed to me at one time, but the more I reflected on it, the less I believed in it, because — as far as I see — if you attempt to organise a legislative Chamber on vocational grounds, the only consequence is that you gather in to that Assembly a whole series of powerful vested interests, each vigorously fighting for its own sectional interests, with comparatively little concern for the welfare of the community as a whole. If, on the other hand, you gather into an advisory legislative Chamber all the heads of the families of the State, you have an extraordinarily representative body of persons chosen by an extraordinarily representative cross section of the community, every one of whom shares in a multiplicity of interests represented by the vocations and callings not only of themselves but of their children for the time and in the time to come.
In making that choice I should like to see in this country 32-county constituences—this will shock some of my more orthodox friends — with one or two Senators from each county. Whether it will be necessary to add some other Senators from the boroughs of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, etc., is a matter that could be considered on expert advice. If the right of this country to be united is challenged from outside or within, I think it is foolish simply to make futile gestures on the one hand or, on the other hand, simply to do nothing at all. I do not think it desirable to have in this effective legislative Chamber of the Twenty-Six Counties persons who are not directly representative of those over whom the law of this country is to have effect, but I think it would be quite legitimate to have in a Seanad, which was designed as an advisory body for the Dáil, representatives of the six northern counties to which we lay claim and which we may wish to have represented in some way in our Legislature as a standing reminder to the world that we claim them for our own and, as a salutary help to ourselves, to hear the representations and the advice of the heads of families resident in the Six Counties which some time we hope will constitute part of the nation.
The Deputy is getting away from the motion before the House.
I do not know. Are we confined to a discussion of the question of the setting up of a committee or may we not discuss the kind of Seanad we should like instead of the present one?
In accordance with the Constitution any such proposal can be made only as an Act to amend the Constitution. "Every proposal for an amendment of the Constitution shall be initiated in Dáil Eireann as a Bill." The Deputy is proposing several amendments of the Constitution, but any such proposal must come before the Dáil as a Bill. That is Article 46 of the Constitution.
Well, I suppose I may say this: There was a time when I would have agreed that the choice of persons other than those elected by the Parties resident in the Twenty-Six Counties should be left to the Taoiseach of the day. I would not make that proposal now but I would suggest that some committee of the members of the House or some other body would have delegated to them the duty of choosing two persons to represent each of the Six Counties. I do not know whether that is a proposal to amend the Constitution.
It obviously is, and I think the Deputy realises that.
Very well. I hope that the rules of order will not impose on the committee the self-denying ordinance not to discuss—
Article 19 definitely would allow this discussion.
I shall not press the matter any further. I have made my views pretty clear. I think at all events that we must get rid of the disgusting scandal we have at present. I implore the House to be expeditious in putting an end to it for this reason. It is important to bear it in mind that the repetition of jobbery in the country not only nauseates the public, not only shakes their confidence in the integrity of public men but, what is infinitely worse, it begins to blunt the people's sense of public duty and citizenship. I do not think that the Taoiseach ten years ago would have made himself responsible for the job that has been put through in the last couple of days.
That does not arise.
In my submission it does.
It does not arise on this motion.
Surely jobbery arises on it. I am submitting that the people in this country are getting to believe and, what is worse, responsible public men are getting to believe, that anything goes; if you can get away with it, get away with it. Men whom I expected to find outraged by the recent job——
I do not know what the Deputy is referring to.
I am referring to the appointment of ex-Deputy Micheál O Cleirigh to be Registrar of County Dublin.
I said yesterday that that was not relevant on this motion. I said two minutes ago that it was not, and the Deputy repeats it.
But, sir, is not it jobbery?
The Deputy repeats it. The Chair is not open to question when it says that matter is outside the motion before the House.
The Chair, I know, will accept a submission before it finally rules out a Deputy. I respectfully submit that I am attacking jobbery—jobbery in connection with the appointment of Senators, and other such matters.
"Other such matters" do not arise. The Deputy spent a quarter of an hour yesterday in what the Chair, who had great patience, considers was personal abuse.
Of whom, Sir?
Personal abuse.
Of whom?
When the occupant of the Chair speaks other Deputies are seated and, if they observe the rules of order, are silent. I consider it was personal abuse and I consider that persistence in such personal abuse of Ministers or institutions of State will bring down the institutions of this State. That is my conviction and I consider that that has been going on for a considerable time.
Sir, your past history is not a very good guide on that. May I say that personally? Abuse of Ministers of State—you got where you are through it.
The Deputy will withdraw those remarks.
I will withdraw if you insist on it, but the fact is there, Sir.
The Deputy will withdraw unconditionally.
I withdraw it unconditionally. I will be able to say it elsewhere.
The fact is, Sir, that I am deliberately, designedly, alleging that the present system of choosing the Seanad has been used for the purpose of shameless jobbery. That is something that I conceive it to be my solemn public duty to proclaim and, if you choose to regard that as personal abuse, I, with all respect, categorically reject your interpretation of my observations. I consider it to be the duty of every Deputy to stigmatise jobbery as jobbery whomever it hurts, and I stigmatise the use of the powers conferred upon the Taoiseach by the existing system of choosing a Seanad as jobbery when he put into the Seanad ten individuals who he knew would be his political instruments to do whatever his will was.
The Deputy spent a quarter of an hour on that yesterday and surely it is repetition to come back on it.
Now I want to go on to say that I am confirmed in my resolution to denounce that practice wherever it manifests itself because I see growing up around me a grim spirit of tolerance of that disgusting conduct in public life. I say that ten years ago things that are being done to-day no one would have dared to do in this country because they would have apprehended an uprising of nauseated disgust on the part of our people. But they are done now and those who do them have rightly judged that there is no nausea, there is no uprising of disgust. Why? Because the people's sense of integrity, the people's sense of public duty in their own representatives has become blunted.
Hear, hear!
And they have come to believe that if you can get away with it, that is what counts. I want them to try to wake up to the fact that so long as there are some of us left in this House they will not get away with it in silence. There is a difference between private sin and public sin. Private sins are the individual's own business. Those who do slippery things by stealth have at least left to them their sense of shame, but those who flagrantly and blatantly come out in public and do slippery things, firm in the conviction that they will get away with it and that there is nobody left now who cares sufficiently to fight for standards of decency, rectitude and duty and that there will be no voice raised to challenge things of that kind, they are the public sinners that not only want to do their dirty deeds but want so to corrupt the whole community in which they live that they will be allowed to do them without protest. God forbid that our country should ever be lowered to that depth of degradation. It may be that in every generation we have had a certain measure of questionable practice. At least, in my recollection, those who stooped so low had at least retained their sense of shame; they feared to be found out. So long as I am here in any case, and I think there are others who feel the same, those who want to do those things in public will answer for them in public and they will not get away with them on the ground that they have been done before, why worry about doing them now?
Jobbery corrupts the soul of a people. It is not the first time that an attempt has been made by people in this country to persuade our people to sell their souls for penny rolls and lumps of hairy bacon and the attempt was made to make that act of purchase something that was to be boasted of at the cross-roads as conversion. There are politicians in this country who have learned that lesson but it is not penny rolls and lumps of hairy bacon that they are offering for the souls of our people, but jobs and patronage. Toe the line, climb on the band wagon and there will be a pension or a job or some little concession to compensate you for your trouble. Refuse to submit, refuse to bow down and glorify the Party——
The Deputy might come now to the motion before the House.
Very well, Sir. That is all I want to say. I want to see a Seanad which will represent the decent elements in our country, which will be capable of giving useful advice to this Assembly on which the ultimate responsibility lies. I want to see a Seanad chosen in the open daylight at which nobody in this country will be entitled to point the finger of scorn and say that the occupants of its seats are the recipients of patronage or favour from any executive or political organisation in this country. I do not claim to be any better than any other man in this country. I claim to be just the ordinary type born in the country just the same as the rest of the ordinary Irish people, just as good and just as bad. But, given a chance, our people will choose as laudable and as good a legislative body as any people in the world. Submitted to the insidious kind of corruption to which they have been submitted, I suppose we are not less corruptible than anybody else. The curse of posterity, if not the curse of God, will rest on those who avail of our common weakness to exploit the people for their own glorification.
In the atmosphere which has been created it is not easy to make a calm approach to the motion and amendment before us dealing with the question of the Seanad. Unlike the last speaker, I am not particularly keen as to whether we should have a Seanad or not. I recollect very clearly the convincing arguments of the Taoiseach when he decided, in his wisdom, that the Seanad should be abolished. With that decision I was in wholehearted agreement. With the reinstitution of the Second Chamber I was not in agreement. I was not only averse to it but to the method of formation of the Second Chamber. The history of that Chamber has given me reason to be completely opposed to the method of election. I wonder if the Taoiseach and the Government are happy about the new method of election of the Second Chamber. I am not a doctrinaire in my views, but I did hold then, and I hold now, that the elected representatives of the country in the Dáil ought to be the people.
The previous Seanad had certain powers which were proven clearly by the arguments of the Taoiseach and by common sense to be a menace to the functions of the elected representative Chamber here because of the fact that the members would be willy-nilly supporters or opponents of the Government in power. They could not be impartial in one way or the other. In the first instance, they would be partisans of the existing Government and, with the lapse of time, would become opponents of the Government in power. They would thereby range themselves in opposition to the will and wishes of the people by the operation of their delaying power. I am quite sure that when the Taoiseach decided to reinstitute the Second Chamber, after having decided that one Chamber would be good enough, his intentions were of the best to try to provide a better Second Chamber. But whatever the Taoiseach thinks about it now, I can say that there is not a man or woman in this country but believes that the Second Chamber is an unfortunate imposition on the State. The election which took place recently reduced our people to a status that they should never have been reduced to when dealing with the election of a legislative Assembly.
I do not want to introduce any more heat into this discussion. I have expressed my views as to a Second Chamber. I do not care whether we have one or not. Personally I would prefer to have no Second Chamber. But, if we are to have one, it ought to be elected on decent, above-board lines and the utterly impossible system under which it is elected at present ought to be scrapped. The opportunities for corruption and graft that are being put before our people throughout the length and breadth of the country ought to be taken away. It would not be by any means impossible to devise a method by which a Second Chamber could be elected which would be representative of the best interests of the country and remove the dangers and possibilities of the present system.
If we are to have a Second Chamber, I think a case has been made for the setting up of a committee of all Parties in the House to examine impartially what has been the result of the present method of electing the Seanad; whether it is to continue or what improvements could be made on it; or what is the best method of electing a Second Chamber. That, I believe, is a duty imposed on the members of this House and, particularly, on the Government. I say that this motion and amendment ought to lead to the setting up immediately of an all-Party committee. The interests of the country are at stake; the interests of Parliamentary institutions are at stake. Whether in the Government or in the Opposition, I do not think anyone will stand over what has been happening. I would therefore appeal for a committee to be set up, from all Parties in the House, to inquire into this matter, which would be imbued with the intention to devise a more equitable, simple and easy method of election that will make it possible for the country to elect a Second Chamber, if there is to be a Second Chamber, representative of various interests. The dominating factor would possibly be to have a vocational Seanad. You can call it by any other name if you like. But we want to have the various interests of the country represented — industrial, agricultural, professional and workers. The method of selecting them must be different from what it has been, because the panel system is utterly impossible and should not be allowed to continue. If we cannot improve on the present method, I say we should scrap the Second Chamber. I believe that we can improve on the method. I believe that a committee of all Parties in this House could easily devise a simple method for electing a Second Chamber, and I suggest that the discussion on this motion ought to result in the setting up of an all-Party committee to devise a method of electing a Second Chamber which would remove the objectionable practices incidental to the present method.
I subscribe to the amendment which, I understand, has been adopted by the movers of the original motion. The Deputy has stated his objection to a Second Chamber and, at the same time, implied that he would not oppose the setting up of a Second Chamber. Now I am supporting the amendment for the reason that he suggests, that we should have vocational representation in any Second Chamber. I remember being present with the Taoiseach and others who were appointed as a Committee in this House to go into the whole matter of the constitution of the Seanad. When vocationalism was suggested we found we were presented with very many difficulties, some of which were almost insurmountable. In the case of the commercial panel, for instance, we found that it was very difficult to define who was a commercial person, who should be included on the commercial panel. Then there was the professional panel. I had the feeling during these conversations that we could quite easily have had at that particular period a truly representative Second House.
Now, if the principle of vocationalism is accepted — and in my belief, it should be accepted — it should not be too difficult to decide who are the agriculturists, who are the industrialists, who are the persons who constitute the teaching profession, the legal profession, the medical profession, and so on. There are one or two headings under which it would be very difficult to place certain elements in our community — the commercial panel, for instance — but that could be overcome by having a register of all persons who claimed to come under that category. I have a feeling that that proposal would satisfy both the proposer of this motion and those who seek to have it amended.
I am not going to go into the question of the need for a Second Chamber, nor of its virtues or vices. I know it is almost impossible to get an ideal chamber under present conditions. I know that there was one occasion when, whether it was designed to have a slap at the then Labour Party or not, there was a bogus institution, which received the benediction of the Taoiseach at the time. That was an organisation known as the Cottiers' and Tenants' Organisation, from which body one or two people were selected. It was purely a bogus organisation, and everybody knew that. It kept no books, as far as was known at the time, it had no treasurer or secretary and its organisation was an unknown quantity, so far as I knew or even the Labour Party knew.
But it had two Fianna Fáil candidates elected.
What had I to do with that election?
There are members on either side of the House who know all the circumstances of the election. The idea was to get some members off the Seanad panel and put in some people who were never heard of before that. That cannot be gainsaid, as it is perfectly true.
Would the Deputy be good enough to say what part I played in that, what exactly I did in that connection?
The Taoiseach was President at the time.
But what had I to do with that election?
There were so many persons which the President had the right to nominate — 11 persons — to be Senators, who were taken from amongst the supporters of the Government.
I did not select them purely from that point of view.
I do not think it is necessary to discuss the utility of a Second Chamber now, as it does not come within the terms of this motion, except in regard to the constitution of the Assembly. However, I think it has a useful function under present circumstances as a revising body, which is a necessity in this country. We know that on two occasions the Seanad has proved its worth by withholding measures, and that was afterwards found out to be the correct procedure in those cases.
If the Taoiseach would accept the suggestion thrown out by Deputy Keyes, of establishing a committee to deal with the whole matter of the Seanad, in regard to its functions and the method of selection of Senators, it would be worth while. In view of what we have heard here and what we have heard outside, and in view of the circumstances, which are within the knowledge of many Deputies, it is essential that some other kind of machinery be established to cope with what has become a public scandal. In regard to one particular case I know of, I asked the gentleman concerned if he would make his knowledge public and inform some of the Government Ministers, as it was an open case of corruption; but he told me he was not going to do any such thing. It was a case where a man wrote him a letter — which letter I read — saying that he would vote for Mr. A. provided Mr. A. gave him more than Mr. B. By the way, Mr. A. had not sent him a circular at all. He said the price offered by Mr. B. was rather small and if Mr. A. gave him more he would give him his vote. Now, we know that that was fairly rampant during the last election, that there was a large amount of canvassing and that much pressure was brought to bear here on members of borough councils and county councils to vote for certain persons. That scandal has been brought to light through the agency of the police courts.
I think it is high time we set about putting that particular House in order, by getting personnel of a character that would be a credit to our country. I believe the vocational system is the better one, as then the Seanad would be thoroughly representative. At the present moment, agriculture is not represented to its full capacity. It is our principal industry and yet agriculture has not the representation to which it is entitled. Therefore, I have pleasure in supporting the amendment and supporting in principle the motion before the House.
As Deputy Keyes has said, this is a matter which should be approached in a calm atmosphere and on the merits of the case. The great defect, if not the viciousness, of the present system of election exists in the time-lag which operates between the receipt of the ballot paper and its return to the returning officer. During that interval, pressure of all kinds is brought to bear upon the councillor, member of a corporation, or Deputy who has a vote. The second great defect I see in the existing system is that, whilst we aim in theory at a vocational Seanad by segregating our candidates into various panels on vocational lines, there is no vocational electorate to elect that panel and candidates on the particular panel have to depend for their return upon a political vote.
If there is any merit or virtue in an Upper House, it is that that House should be conservative in its outlook towards legislation coming from the Lower House or, alternatively, that it should be a more expert body through which legislation passed by the Lower House might be sieved. I would deprecate anything in the nature of a House of nominees, the kind of House which, in the later Roman days, deteriorated into a body which assembled simply for the purpose of hearing the imperial decree and then adjourning, or a House of the type of more recent times, of the Reichstag where again a Fuehrer announced his decision and the House endorsed it and then dispersed. There is a case for an Upper House if you regard it purely and simply as a House to review legislation passed by the Lower House, to check perhaps hasty decisions reached on legislation by the Lower House and, perhaps, on occasion to check the rapaciousness of a particular Government.
Looking broadly at the democratic principle, the Government of the day should have the right to have its will endorsed in legislation and executed in the country. Some remedy will have to be found, in times of crisis, whereby the Government will have to get its way, if necessary, over the Upper House. A crisis of that kind once developed in England, but never came to the actual abolition of the Upper House. In 1911, when that crisis did arise, it was clear that the House would have to go or be swamped by nominees of the Government, and when that threat was made the Upper House yielded.
I could not quite follow Deputy Dillon in his argument that a large percentage of the Upper House are political hacks, nominated by the Taoiseach. I think that some degree of nomination will have to exist in any House if the Government of the day are to have their way and I think, broadly speaking, as a democrat, that the Government of the day elected by the people are the superior authority and should have their way and that the Upper House must yield. If that is the position, I suggest some means should be found by which the democratic principle would be preserved and the Government of the day would have their way in legislation. I suggest that could be done by devising an electorate on a restricted franchise, perhaps on the lines Deputy Dillon has suggested, though I do not sympathise with the ration book system. You could get a good Upper House by direct election, giving a vote only to the rated occupier of a house.
Or the heads of families.
That is virtually the same thing. There would be difficulty in establishing a register of heads of families. I think it would be more appropriate to give the vote to the registered occupier, the rated occupier of the house, who is, in 99 per cent. of cases, the head of the family.
The holders of the ration books with the three red stripes.
But the ration books will disappear soon; they cannot continue indefinitely.
You would have to set up a new body.
I am not greatly enamoured of the suggestion that a vocational Seanad will be an improvement. I can see that if you set up a register of agriculturists to give representation to agriculture in the Upper House it is really going to be a reflex of what you have at the moment. The farmers complain that they are not represented in this and in the Upper House but, if you examine the professions of the members of both Houses, you will find that the farmers are well represented here. I do not think they will get any more representation by means of a vocational system than they have at the moment. It would be easy to devise a system by which the agricultural industry could get representation here on the basis of the registered holder of land, but it is not so easy to provide representation for, say, commercial trades, industry and other professions.
Incidentally, if you get an Upper House purely representative of professions, I cannot see doctors or engineers or industrialists taking any keener interest in legislation that does not affect their own professions than under the present system. My suggestion would be an Upper House on a restricted franchise based, shall we say, on the present constituencies, on the basis of one to every three Deputies, continuing the present University representation and the nomination of the balance by the Prime Minister.
As regards Deputy Dillon's suggestion of giving representation to the Six Counties, I cannot see how that would work at the moment, except by nomination. Incidentally, if it were attempted here it would be open to the Six-County Government to prohibit any members so nominated from attending this House. I think that suggestion is impracticable in existing circumstances.
I do not wish to take up the time of the House any longer. I agree entirely with the motion and I ask the Taoiseach and the other members of the Government seriously to consider setting up a Committee representative of all Parties to consider this matter in a calm, cold atmosphere.
My contribution to this debate will be brief.
According to the Standing Order, the debate must finish at 8 o'clock.
It is understood that the debate will finish at 8 o'clock.
Yes, and the proposer must be allowed some time in order to conclude.
I should like to say a few words on this motion, too.
I do not wish to keep the Taoiseach out. Indeed, I would be quite willing to surrender my right to speak in order to let him in.
Would it be possible, by agreement, to extend the time to 9 o'clock so as to give the Leader of the House an opportunity of speaking?
Standing Order 83 can be suspended by agreement of the House.
Agreed.
The Deputy thinks he speaks for everybody.
Surely he is entitled to say "agreed" in his own behalf? I should imagine he is. I assume the regulation with regard to the right of reply still holds, even if the Standing Order is suspended. What is the allowance?
Unless there is some arrangement, I shall have to call on the proposer of the motion about a quarter of an hour before the time at which the debate must end.
Could there be agreement to extend the time?
That is a matter for the House.
Nobody likes to say "agreed" for fear of being snapped at.
For fear of getting eaten up.
I would like to say that we here agree.
Provided the Taoiseach agrees, we all agree.
So far as I am concerned, I am prepared to agree.
Then we are all agreed.
Is there agreement in the House that the motion may continue longer than 8 o'clock?
There is.
So far as the Government are concerned, I am prepared to agree.
What about the matter of a division?
It must be taken before 9 o'clock — any time up to 9 o'clock. Does the House agree to the suspension of Standing Order 83?
I move the suspension of the Standing Order.
Agreed: That Standing Order 83 (Time limit to debate on Private Members' motions) be suspended in respect of the motion and that the debate conclude not later than 9 p.m.
As I said, my contribution to this debate will be very brief. In the main, the motion seeks to have a committee set up for the purpose of having the present method of election to the Seanad investigated and a more satisfactory system of election devised. I am one of those who have never been impressed by the necessity for a Second Chamber. I warmly supported the proposal to abolish the Seanad when the Taoiseach, in his salad days, did not want bi-cameral government. I was most enthusiastic to get rid of the Seanad as it was then constituted. I was appointed on a committee to advise as to what type of Second Chamber we could have in substitution for the first Chamber when the Taoiseach had, as he said, a hankering after a Second Chamber, but when the chairman of the committee told me it was not within my province to recommend that we should not have a Second Chamber, I ceased to take any further interest in the committee.
My interest now in Second Chambers is as cool and disinterested as it was on that occasion. I do not see any necessity for a Second Chamber. What I do see is the pitiful efforts of people who have some kind of a longing for Second Chambers, and who try to justify the necessity for one in this country. Some people think you must have a Second Chamber here, simply because there are Second Chambers in other countries. Some people think that somehow or other you have got to have a kind of legislative aristocracy here, and that you cannot trust the representatives who are thrown up in an election in which the plain people have the determining voice.
I have never been impressed by these arguments, and any knowledge I have of the Seanad sittings, its deliberations, the character of its work, and the duration of its sittings, leaves me completely cold as to the necessity for the establishment of a Second Chamber. I have never once heard an argument of any quality in favour of the establishment of a Second Chamber, and I think the Taoiseach was unwise and unstable, politically, if I may say so, when, having abolished the Seanad on one occasion, he was coddled back to the theory that we could not transact business legislatively in this country unless we had a Second Chamber.
I doubt if any Deputy here will attempt to make a case even for the present Seanad. One would not be impressed by the way the work is done in the Seanad or by the personnel of the Seanad. If anybody cares to look at the Official Reports of the Seanad, and sees the number of days on which the Seanad sits in a year, and the leisurely way in which it deals with business, he will find it very difficult, if he speaks the truth, to show that a body of that kind, by its constitution and by its methods, is essential to the passage of legislation through a House representative of the people.
We are supposed to have a vocational Seanad. There never was a greater fraud, a greater sham, in the public life of this country than to pretend that we have a vocational Seanad. There has never been a more cruel joke upon the credulity of the people than the suggestion that we have a vocational Seanad. The biggest vocation in this country, of course, is the vocation of unemployment, but to imagine that we have in this country vocational groups of a kind to justify us in establishing a vocational Seanad is simply daftness. Nobody has ever made any serious attempt to pretend that such kind of structural vocational organisation as we have had in this country at all justifies the selection of a Seanad on vocational lines.
Of course, in case we should have a vocational Seanad, we make sure that the vocations will have no votes at all. We decide to set up a method of electing a vocational Seanad, but in order to make sure that the vocations do not get too much say in the election, we create an electorate consisting purely of members of political Parties. We throw in the Dáil first, and then we throw in seven members of each county council and borough council, all of whom have been elected on political tickets. We say to that purely political body: "We entrust to you, as the most suitable electorate in this country, the selection of a vocational Seanad."
Does anybody looking at the present Seanad imagine it is a vocational Seanad? You could probably get a better vocational Seanad out of the defeated candidates than you could out of the elected candidates, because political machines work in such a way that those who might most claim to be vocational candidates are all honoured by getting no vote at all, whereas those who know how to pull strings, who have pals here and there, who have good cheque books and can get good election agents, all manage to get into the Seanad and then they adorn our vocational Seanad. Does not everybody, including the Taoiseach, know perfectly well, from our experiences of Seanad elections, that it is, in the main, a kind of casualty station where we treat all the warriors, so far as we can provide for them, who go down in the Dáil electoral battles? Does not everybody know perfectly well that the moment the Dáil election results are announced and certain well-known Deputies are found to have lost the confidence of the people, this House is infested immediately with defeated candidates?
The Seanad is a convalescent home.
County councillors are importuned and the whole set-up is designed for the purpose of getting poor so-and-so who was unfortunately defeated in the last election into the Seanad. Has everybody not got that experience? Take the last election. It was not safe to be in the lobbies. One had to keep out of the way of the main stream of Seanad candidates who coursed and cruised around the House at a disconcerting rate, and when you looked at the Seanad election results and saw the way the ballot papers were marked you found that all the boys who were active around Leinster House, who toured the country in motor cars importuning county council electors, all the lads who had cheque books, who had political managers in the country, romped home and all the poor vocationalists were left wondering why nobody thought of giving them a vote at all.
There is a story told in regard to one of the Seanad elections of a candidate who was certain of five votes. The returning officer counted up the votes and said he had three, and the candidate said: "My God, I bought more than that." That is the kind of thing which is thrown up by this so-called vocational Seanad which we were daft enough to constitute. I know — and I speak from knowledge of the facts — that in County Kildare, the constituency I have the honour to represent, we had three Labour members who had votes in the recent Seanad election. The lives of these unfortunate people were not worth living until the election was over. People with all kinds of motor-cars arrived day and night. They admired their dogs and said they were magnificent dogs. Any poor old tom-cat with its ribs sticking out turned out to be a prize cat while the candidate was there. The children were the most gorgeous-looking children that ever lived in the country. The whole house was admired and the wife was the finest-looking woman in the country — all while the lad was trying to soak the votes out of the poor county councillors. One of the candidates, after spending a very hard day trying to get some of the Labour votes to go in his direction, finally confessed to one of the county councillors: "You are a tough collection of people in Kildare. I did not succeed in shifting one of you." As a recent prosecution in the courts showed, two of the county councillors were actually bribed with money to part with their votes.
If the Taoiseach does not know that the present electoral method so far as the Seanad is concerned reeks with graft and "hoofling", the Taoiseach is a very simple man, and, if he does not know it, he is the only person in Ireland who does not know it. There is a smell from the whole method of electing people to the Seanad. It reeks with corruption, and the sooner we end that method of election the better for all concerned. I am not terribly impressed by, and would not waste very much time on an investigation of the method of electing people to the Seanad. I think the Seanad ought to go, and the sooner the better, but the present method of election cannot be defended on any grounds, and in the interest of public confidence and a clean public life, it is desirable that the present method of election should be investigated by an impartial committee. I support the proposal to establish that committee in order to sift the corruption, in order to end the corruption, and if we must have a Second Chamber, in order that we will at least get one by a system of election which will not reek with the graft which surrounds the method of election to our Seanad to-day.
I did not intend to say anything on this motion or the amendment, because I am not in agreement with the idea of a Second Chamber at all. I feel, from experience, that a Second Chamber is of no value. One is entitled to ask what is the function of a Second Chamber. If it criticises legislation passed in this House and votes against it, the Government has a power of veto, and, that being so, the Seanad has no function whatever, except the function of criticism which does not warrant the money spent on its maintenance. What has been said about corruption is true, but my belief is that no matter what form of election is devised, except on the basis of a properly constituted register, there will be corruption. I am convinced that, even if you were to give to vocational bodies the power of electing a Second Chamber, you would still have corruption to a certain extent. Some Deputies suggested that we should form a kind of register representing the heads of families. I do not see why the heads of families should be given a privilege over and above people who have reached the age of 21. I think that if you had any sort of system, with a register set up for the election of a Seanad, every man and woman over the age of 21 should be entitled to vote. It does not follow that a man must have grey hairs and the responsibility of maintaining a family before he can be regarded as being capable of casting a vote for some individual who is to be one of the members of a Second Chamber in this country.
My objection to a Second Chamber is that it has not a function. If it had, I would be in agreement with it. It is argued that legislation may be passed in haste in this House, and that careful consideration of it in the other House will help to bring out any defects that are in it. That may be so, but still I do not know of any suggestion which has ever been accepted by the Government from the Second Chamber. During the time that I have been a member of this House, I do not know of any suggestions brought forward by the Opposition which have been accepted by the Government. If some have been accepted, they were very few, and not of any great importance. Even supposing that we were able to devise something which would give us a favourable system of electing a Seanad, I cannot imagine that that Seanad would be independent of Party politics and would not be interested as to whether it was the Government or the Opposition that was responsible for legislation, and would, therefore, criticise the legislation on its merits. I know quite well that the Government would be opposed to any Second Chamber that set out to oppose legislation passed by it. In that situation how would a Second Chamber function?
That is what happened in the case of the old Seanad. I well remember the Taoiseach making it very clear that he could not govern, that he could not have legislation of the type he desired passed, due to the reactionary methods of the old Seanad, and to the fact that it had a certain political make-up. The same could happen if you have a Seanad which was elected independently of the political Parties. I listened to Deputy Coogan say that he did not agree with Deputy Dillon's suggestion that the Taoiseach should not have the power or the right to elect 11 men to the Seanad, men that the Taoiseach believed it was necessary for the Seanad to have, men whose outlook, he will say, would be in keeping with the Government. If the Seanad is to have an outlook in keeping with the Government, if the majority of Senators believe in and endorse Government policy, then it is quite evident that they are not going to oppose legislation passed by the Government in this House.
The truth about the whole matter is that the Seanad of to-day, the Seanad in the past, and the Seanad in the future, no matter how the method of election to it may be devised, is a kind of convalescent home for torpedoed politicians, a kind of dry dock for torpedoed T.D.s. We are spending a sum of over £21,000 a year on the Seanad. In my opinion the existence of that Chamber does not justify that expenditure at all. We have a motion before the House for the setting up of a committee to try to devise a better means of electing a Seanad. I do not disagree with that motion. I support it, and I support the amendment, but I do so only because it may be possible to devise a better system. My personal opinion is that no matter what system is devised, the corruption and the political atmosphere which we are trying to make out do not exist and should not exist, will be in the Seanad as long as there is a Seanad. An argument which some people put forward for the existence of a Second Chamber is that some hot-headed Deputies might be responsible for the passing of legislation in this Chamber which would be contrary to good government, and that with a Second Chamber such legislation would be carefully examined and scrutinised, and that anything contained in it which would not be a benefit to the people could be removed. I do not believe it is necessary to have that kind of Chamber. I believe that the elected members of this House give a fair share of their time to a careful examination of the various Bills presented to them here. I think that, if the records are looked up, it will be found that very few useful reforms or suggestions have been made by the Second Chamber. Senators do not help to make a Bill or a piece of legislation anything more perfect than it was before it left this House.
For that reason I myself believe that the wisest and the best method would be to abolish the Seanad altogether and to have a single Chamber. That may seem an extreme view, but we must remember that for a year or more, under the Fianna Fáil Administration, we had only the one Chamber, and I do not think that anything rash or drastic was done during that period. In that time we passed a good deal of legislation, all of which stands good to-day. I honestly believe that the sooner we admit the truth that the Second Chamber is a mere hobby for certain individuals the better: that it is a kind of place for the grandfathers to meet and criticise their sons, the sons taking no notice of the criticism made by the grandfathers. It is slapped back in their faces. The sooner we admit that the better and not be wasting public money on a Second Chamber. I know that Deputy Dillon and men like him do not agree with me in that, because big men, big industrialists and the upper classes in this country, like the upper classes in Great Britain——
And the big farmers.
And the big farmers, believe that such Houses should exist. They believe that without a Second Chamber they all might be executed overnight or thrown into a concentration camp. I do not think they need have any fear of that. If they were to be executed overnight or thrown into a concentration camp, then I do not believe that the existence of a Second Chamber would save them one bit. I do not think they have any reason to remain awake at night fearing that without a Second Chamber their wealth is going to be confiscated. If it were, then I do not think a Second Chamber would save them. The sooner they get such ideas about a Second Chamber out of their heads the better. What good can it be to them since it has not the power of veto? It has no power to veto the Government, because the Government can over-ride its veto. It is from that point of view that I suggest in all fairness that the expenditure of £21,600 on allowances for the members of this Upper Chamber, apart from the expenditure on stationery and various other things which I suppose amounts to another £1,000 or more, is really waste of public money. We have seen no fruit from the expenditure of this public money in the past 20 years.
The last two speakers have expressed a view with which I think it would be found that quite a large number of the people of the country are in agreement. Here on a former occasion, at the time when we were getting rid of the old Seanad, I discussed this whole question of a Second House. I examined as fully as I could the arguments which had been put forward in favour of a Second Chamber, and I think I showed fairly conclusively that they were most illusory — that, in fact, it boiled down to this: that if the Second House were to be opposed to the First, and to have a power of vetoing the actions of the directly-elected representatives of the people, then we were going to have a situation in which there would be a definite conflict, and the Second House was going to become a nuisance instead of any advantage. On the other hand, if it were going to be of the same opinion as the First House, the need for it was hard to prove. I made it quite clear when the new Constitution was coming in that the Second House was introduced not because I or the Government was particularly strongly in favour of it or had changed our fundamental views but because we believed that there was a large section of public opinion which felt that a Second House would be an advantage, and we were not willing to have a big political contest and to have more important matters side-tracked on the issue.
We made it quite clear in the Constitution that the Second House we were going to have would be one which could not effectively interfere with the will of the directly-elected representatives of the Primary Chamber. Then the question was: could we have a Second House which would be of such a character that it might add something to the deliberations of the First House? Could it be of such a character that we might get a different type of approach to some of those questions? Could we have it of a type where the individuals might express their opinions less tied by Party affiliations? It is clear to everybody that the Second House, the Seanad, is a part of the Legislature; that it is dealing with political questions; that the questions which come up for decision are of a political character; that most people in the country, no matter what their avocations or their callings may be, are likely to have opinions on those questions, and that when it comes down to a direct conflict between the views which might be largely represented by one Party or another here in this House, they are likely to take Party views. That must be quite clear to everybody, and you cannot avoid it. The first thing, then, that is quite clear is, that we are dealing with a political question, and that the talk of leaving politics aside is just nonsense. All you can say is that perhaps the individuals who would be dealing with them will approach the consideration of those question less tied by Party affiliations.
It has been suggested here that we have talked about this as if it were a vocational Seanad. We did not talk about it as a vocational Seanad. The Constitution expresses fairly clearly what the intention is in regard to the panels. It says:
"Before each general election of the members of Seanad Eireann to be elected from panels of candidates, five panels of candidates shall be formed in the manner provided by law containing respectively the names of persons having knowledge and practical experience of the following interests and services...."
"Having knowledge and practical experience of the following interests and services." The intention clearly is that, at least as far as the panel section of it is concerned, the House should be built up of persons having practical experience of certain things and personal knowledge of them, so that they might, if you like, have an expert knowledge of them. The Second House, therefore, as far as the panel section was concerned, was to be made up of people having a special knowledge of matters dealing with the national language and culture; of persons having special knowledge of agriculture and its allied interests, together with fisheries, of persons having special knowledge of labour, whether organised or unorganised; of persons having special knowledge of industry and commerce, including banking, finance and so on; and of persons having special knowledge of public administration. The purpose there was clearly to try to get in the Seanad a body in which those interests would have spokesmen, not directly representing them, but spokesmen who had a knowledge of those interests, and who, when matters came up for consideration, would understand the repercussions of those measures upon those several interests — not that they were to be direct representatives of them. They might be, but their duty as members of the Second Chamber is not to look out for the interests of this particular section or that particular section. Their interests as legislators ought to be to consider each measure that comes before them for their consideration from the point of view of the general welfare. From their special knowledge, they would know how far the measure dealt with the particular section.
We have been asked here to set up a committee to examine certain things — to devise a better scheme of election. I should like to point out that there have been very many committees and commissions dealing with this matter, and this particular type of Seanad — leaving the method of election out of it — was the result of a suggestion in a minority report of a commission which was set up in regard to a Second House. It suggested a certain division, so that certain interests might have spokesmen. Again, I want it to be understood that they are simply to be spokesmen as indicating from their special knowledge of certain interests, how any special measure would affect those interests. The commission suggested something of that sort, and we tried to work it out. The working out of it was based on the idea that we could, where there were any of those interests organised, get those interests to nominate people for the Second Chamber who would have a knowledge of those interests.
Somebody, criticising the results of these elections, said that if the president, let us say, of some particular learned body went up for election he might be turned down and another person who might have a knowledge of the same sort of interests might be elected. It is quite possible that the person elected to represent certain interests might be a good one and that the person who had been elected as the head of a learned body or society or a particular professional body might not be the best person to send to the Legislature. We might have an eminent chemist at the head of a learned body, and yet he might not be the best person to send to the Legislature as a representative for the common good or even representing a particular interest. The point was that the people elected on that particular panel would have a knowledge of the interests of the people to be represented and it might happen that the person best suited to do so might not be the person who had been elected as president of that body for the time being.
The point was made that people were being sent to the Seanad as a mark of honour. They are sent there to do a practical job — a job which requires a close knowledge of the lives of our people, and the various ways in which our life is divided. They are not sent there simply as ornaments. Now, as I say, we tried to work that out, and the system devised was that we would get nominations from these bodies — that we would get the nominations partly from these bodies and partly from the Dáil. It might be said: "Why did you not leave it altogether to these bodies?" For the simple reason that we are not vocationally organised, and I wonder whether we ever will be vocationally organised, in the sense which these people are talking about. We are not organised in that way, and it would be quite wrong to give to people who are only partly representative of the life of the country the sole right to determine who the members of the Second House should be. If you confine the nominations altogether to these bodies, it is quite clear that you cannot go outside the nominations, no matter what the electorate is. If the nominations confine you to a certain class of people, you cannot go outside it, and the hope was that if you could get one-half of the members nominated from these vocational and professional bodies, you would get the rest nominated in a way which was proposed, in many cases, as the way in which the Seanad should be elected. There have been several proposals as to the way in which the Seanad would be elected by the Primary House.
This proposal gave practically half the nominations to the members of the House. Theoretically, it seemed all right. We have all seen it in practice now, and I do not think we are satisfied with it. Certainly, I am not satisfied with it. I was not satisfied with it in the case of the last two elections, but I doubt if a single person put his finger on the real weakness of the scheme. The weakness of the scheme is a thing that follows from proportional representation. Whenever you have proportional representation, and the electorate is not very large in comparison with the number of people to be elected, you will get the position in which a small quota can elect a member, and the whole weakness here is due to the fact that a member can be elected by a small quota. When you have a small quota it is possible for people to go around and, by one means or another, get a sufficient number of that quota for election. I think it was the Labour Party that suggested that it would be better to have the Dáil only as the electorate, but I have to confess that, when that matter was being discussed, I was anxious to have a larger electorate, if it could be got, and it did not occur to me at all that the real objection that there should be to the Dáil alone electing it was that a still smaller number could elect a Seanad. That is the main cause of weakness here, because it puts a temptation in the way of people who are candidates to get the necessary quota by any means they can, and if that quota is small they will go through all means to do it.
I deplore what has happened. I felt pretty certain, from what I had heard after the last election and the previous one, that there was something wrong. I believed that there was so much smoke there was bound to be some fire under it. I was determined that we ourselves, if nobody else did it, would begin to propose a change in the method of election to the Seanad. It happened that the last election came very shortly after the first one — almost on its heels, so to speak — and in that case we had court cases which appeared to me to have proved conclusively that there were some Senators elected through corrupt practices — through bribery. Now, the question is: how far has it gone? I believe that there has been exaggeration as to the distance it has gone, but it does not matter if there was only a single case of it, we should take care that opportunities for similar action in the future should not occur, and the occurrence of a single case is sufficient because, in a matter of that sort, it is quite clear that the bad example then set would be followed by others and that, as time went on instead of improving we would probably get worse. So, I agree with everybody who says that the time has come when we will have to change the method of election. It is easier, however, to wish to change it than to get a suitable substitute.
When speaking originally on this matter of the method of election to a Seanad or Second Chamber, I suggested that the difficulty was to get any method by which a suitable Second House could be secured. Many methods have been tried, but the only method that has been tried, with reasonable support, as far as I can make out, is where you have a federal system in which each of the States concerned get equal representation, and where the small States, by the system, are put in equality with the large States. Where that is done, you will find that very special functions have been given to the Seanad in order to protect the rights of the small States and to see that the interests of the small States are not overwhelmed by the power of the larger States. Those are the only cases that I know of where there has not been intense public dissatisfaction.
In that connection I might say that a very interesting thing happened with reference to the election before the last one. A representative of a foreign country came to me and talked about how dissatisfied they were in that country with their Second Chamber. He said: "You seem to have a rather interesting system here. It gives you a sort of semi-vocationalism of a different type. It means that the Second Chamber will not be an exact replica of the First. I was thinking of urging a similar sort." I said to him: "For Heaven's sake, go slowly; don't attempt to do it. We heard that things have appeared in the working out of the system which we did not anticipate when evolving it. I certainly would not recommend you to have anything of the sort of system we have at the moment."
Again, I say that the time has come when we are agreed absolutely that the method of election to the Second Chamber will have to be changed — changed because of the fact that the quota is so small. In other words, the number of seats is so large in comparison with the size of the electoral college, that there is an attempt to get after the necessary number of small voters to secure election. I have given it a certain amount of consideration, and the Department of Local Government, and the officers who have been following the elections very closely, were engaged on it. When it was suggested that this particular motion might be postponed, it was a request of the Department of Local Government to me that we should not go ahead, as there was a number of things they were examining, which they would like to put before us before this debate would take place. However, the Opposition wished to have it, and I do not think we will lose very much by having it at present. Any information they have will be available to any committee we may set up.
I think I have indicated to the House my own views on this matter. I have been thinking how we might improve it. One of the things obvious to anybody who takes part in the election is that the ballot paper itself becomes so large that it is almost impossible to go through the whole of it and attempt to vote in order of preference. That is almost impossible. There may be objections. One thing that suggests itself is: why did we have the system of voting for all the panels together? Suppose we had a separate vote for each panel, would we improve matters? We would improve matters to this extent, that we would have a far higher quota. If you had to vote for each separate panel there would be a far higher quota.
It would be said then, in objection, that the proportional system would not work out, that each panel would have representation based on whatever might be the dominating vote in the electoral college. In other words, that the dominating vote would be more effective than in the series of panels as a whole. It was to give proportional representation greater play that it was suggested, in the first instance, to take the panels as a whole. One improvement in the way of increasing the quota, and diminishing the likelihood of a person trying to get the quota, would be to have voting on each panel separately. It would be a much easier system to handle. The next thing is to try to limit the number of candidates that go up for election. That could be done. There is the system we have used in the case of casual vacancies. In the case of casual vacancies on any particular panel, what happens is that various nominating bodies in the panel send, I think, three representatives to a meeting, and three names selected at the meeting are sent up afterwards to the Taoiseach for his final selection. The idea of getting them together is to limit the number of candidates who go forward for any particular vacancy. You might say that that might be allowed to diminish the number to one or two more than, or perhaps double, the number of candidates that could be elected. In that way you would diminish the number going forward. But you would have diminution of the number brought about by a body which would have certain common interests, inasmuch as they belonged to one particular group, such as agriculture, industry or labour, and would be able to eliminate a number of candidates, and to try to get those who represented the greatest common measure of the interests of the panel as a whole. In ways like that you could improve the present system to give a more workable and more easily handled ballot paper, and by the other method I suggested you could also increase the quota.
There has been strong objection to another aspect which again developed without anybody anticipating it, and that is that in the present system, on account of the local councils having very nearly a quota — I think it is seven from each particular county council— with the local Deputies, a quota could be got. There is very strong pressure used and local influence to form a quota, therefore, giving back something like the geographical representation we have in the Dáil. A question would arise there as to whether you would diminish the number in the county councils. There has been another objection put up against the county councils, and it was raised, I think, in this debate, that they were not trustworthy, that members elected are not trustworthy to vote. I think that is a terrible reflection on the whole of our public life. Personally I think that our whole aim should be, as far as possible, to try not to centralise, but to decentralise, and to give local bodies as much power as we could possibly give them. But any attempt to move in that direction is frustrated, if there is on the part of local representatives any suggestion that they cannot be trusted as voters, that they are capable of being interfered with, or that they can be easily led away by corrupt influences. The suggestion to eliminate local representatives altogether, and to deal with the Dáil as the sole electorate, would mean that we would diminish the number in the quota.
Why not go back to the people the same as in the case of the President and the Dáil?
The trouble about that is that you are getting a replica in the Second House. For instance, take the heads of families: do we not know that we would not get any difference in a house from the decision of the head of the family?
You would be surprised.
I know as much about it as the Deputy. I know that the household in these cases goes very much together.
You must rely on the people.
I am relying on the people, but if we are to adopt that system I say have no Second Chamber.
Abolish it.
If you are trying to have a Second Chamber in that way, you are simply going to make it a replica of the first one. It is suggested that under the present system is becomes that. It could be said that that is what is happening. It is happening because, in the case of the panel candidates, the local bodies and T.D.s with local affiliations, combine to elect some person who is outstanding locally. Therefore, you find, for example, that persons are elected to the Seanad who have been public representatives and who, it is thought, were thrown out by accident. For instance, the leader of the Opposition in this House was defeated in one election and went into the Seanad. Some other ex-Ministers also went into the Seanad. These things occur, and I do not think that, limited to a reasonable number, they do any harm. If people have given considerable public service and if they were regarded as good representatives and had acquired useful knowledge of public affairs, I do not see that there would be any harm in giving them an opportunity in a Chamber with restricted functions of doing work in another connection for the country. We must be careful, however, that the Second House will not have power commensurate with the power of the First House. If that were so, we should defeat the whole purpose of appealing to the people and getting an expression of public opinion at a particular time.
In the Constitution, we have provided for a Second Chamber with limited powers. If there is any question of a change as regards that provision, a Bill to amend the Constitution will have to be brought in, but I take it that that is not the intention of the movers of the present motion. The motion merely provides for the setting up of a committee to examine how, under the Constitution, a better system of election can be obtained. It was suggested at one period that every person in the State should be registered vocationally and that there should be a nation-wide election, with those registered persons as electors, for the different labour and other vocational panels. If you did that, I think you would have a Second House which would not fundamentally be very much different from the First House. That it would add much to the present system, I doubt. I think that it would hardly be worth while to proceed in that fashion. I remember considering that suggestion and coming to the conclusion that, if it were adopted, the result would not be commensurate with the labour involved. The suggestion in this motion is that we set up a committee. The motion does not indicate what type of committee should be set up or how we should proceed to set it up. With the idea that a committee should be set up to examine the matter in the light of the experience gained, the Government is in agreement and we accept the motion from that point of view.
As regards the amendment, I do not think that it would help. The best thing to do is, I think, to leave the wider motion without any particular directive, other than the directive given in the Constitution. There is a directive in the Constitution as regards the panels and I do not think that there is need for any special directive beyond that. The best thing to do would be to set up this committee and give it the widest possible scope in trying to get a satisfactory system of election within the Constitution. If it is suggested that we should change the Constitution, I remind the House that I have many times challenged anybody to put forward a system which would give us a satisfactory Seanad. There is dissatisfaction with their Second Chamber in practically every country, for a variety of reasons. I know that democracy itself can be questioned. People ask why, say, a young girl, under our system, who has thought very little of political matters should have a vote amounting in value to that which an Edmund Burke, an Aristotle or a Plato, who had given deep thought to such matters, would have under similar circumstances. We know that there are weaknesses in democracy but, in the long run, it is the only system that seems to work. It is quite easy to design a rifle which would be much more accurate than the ordinary service rifle but the service rifle is forged for a particular piece of work and is fitted to the situation in which it would be handled. So also in these political matters, it is not possible to get a system that is really perfect. There will be faults in all systems. On more than one occasion, I have given my view that, whatever its faults, the democratic system works out best in the long run. In this country, and in most democratic countries, it is based upon universal suffrage. If we have to depend upon it, I think that it is useless to try by artificial means to introduce checks such as those who are devoted to the idea of a Second House think they can introduce. We did not devise the Second House from the point of view of being a definite check but rather as a House in which a question might be approached from a slightly different angle and in which new views might be expressed in virtue of which amendments would follow.
I should like to stop at this point but an attack has been made — within the limits of Parliamentary etiquette I dare not characterise it as I should like — upon me personally and upon 11 persons whose names I propose to read and to whose qualifications I propose to refer. I shall ask any decent person in the country if the Deputy who attacked those persons is worthy to clean their boots. Some Deputies talk very glibly and very loquaciously here about high principles in public life. If there is anything detestable in public life, it is the action of those who talk of those principles and who behave on all occasions with a meanness which shows that they are unworthy even to preach those principles.
It is an inheritance.
When the question of nomination by the Taoiseach was suggested, in the first instance, here, I pointed out its difficulties. It was not a question of my being Taoiseach or anybody else being Taoiseach. It was a question of the working out of political life in the community. When this was being accepted, it was accepted on the basis that the Taoiseach would have an opportunity — having seen how the panel elections and the other elections had worked out, having seen the composition of the Seanad which these had brought about, to the extent to which it had been brought about before nominations took place, and having surveyed the situation—to use the nomination power to put on the Seanad such people as might represent or speak with a knowledge of certain aspects of the national life which had been neglected or overlooked. That was one basis. The other basis on which nominations were devised was with the clear idea that the Second House was not to be an Opposition House. No Government that believes either in itself or in its policy wants to have shackles and chains put upon the actions it considers necessary in the public interest.
It was deliberately foreseen in the case of these nominations that the power of nomination might be used, as it is used in a number of other cases where nomination by the Government takes place to a Second House, to ensure in so far as it could be ensured, that the Second House was not going to be there to nullify the programme which had been put before the people and for which the Government stood. I have nominated on two or three occasions. The Deputy who made this attack said that it was all right on the first occasion but what does he say about the last occasion? That there was jobbery. Jobbery has a certain meaning in the minds of our people. Where is the jobbery? What did these people pay for it and what did they get out of it? What did they sell themselves for? I shall take them in alphabetical order.
Seán Campbell was nominated by me because he was a fit and proper person in my opinion to be a member of the Second House. He was formerly honorary treasurer of the Irish Trade Union Congress, a position certainly comparable to anything that the Deputy who has attacked him has ever achieved. He was also formerly president of the National Agricultural and Industrial Development Association and he was chairman of the Dublin Printing Trade Group of the Dublin Trades Union Council. He was honorary secretary of the General Branch of Sinn Féin in the old days, when there was not much to be got out of being a member of Sinn Féin. He was honorary secretary of the Anti-Conscription Committee in 1915. He was a member of the Irish Banking Commission and of the Commission on Vocational Organisation and he had been a member of the Seanad since 1938. It was not I nominated him to the Seanad in the first instance. Will the Deputy tell me what was the job I perpetrated and what was the job this man accepted in that nomination?
I pass on to another nominee — Dr. Robert Farnan. He has been for many years an eminent gynaecologist on the staff of the Mater Misericordiæ Hospital. He was Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in University College, Dublin, for many years. He is an extensive farmer, a scientific farmer and breeder of pedigree stock, a man of sound commonsense and a good national record. Will the Deputy tell me what job was perpetrated when I appointed him — when I did myself the honour of appointing him? Again, I say the Deputy is not worthy to black his boots.
Thomas Foran — he was formerly General President of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union. He was a member of Seanad Eireann since 1923. He was there from 1923 to 1936, and he has been there again from 1938. Is the Deputy going to tell me that when I nominated him I made a job for Thomas Foran? Is he going to tell me that Thomas Foran sold himself to me? The Deputy should be ashamed of himself to make allegations of that sort about decent men, but he has the cheek of the devil.
T.V. Honan. — T.V. Honan was at one time President of the Association of Municipal Authorities of Ireland, and for 20 years he was chairman of the Ennis Urban Council. He was a member of the Seanad from 1934 to 1936, and again since 1943. He is from my constituency — Clare. By my duties here I am prevented from doing things in my constituency which other Deputies have an opportunity of doing. If I think that a man who has been chairman of the Ennis Urban Council for 20 years, and who has been President of the Association of Municipal Authorities, is worthy of a seat in the Seanad, am I creating a job, or is he selling himself to me, when I nominate him? Again I say that the Deputy who made the charge against him is not worthy to black his boots.
Sir John Keane.—Sir John Keane is said to be the alibi. Sir John Keane was first nominated by me when he was Governor of the Bank of Ireland. One of the interests supposed to be represented amongst others is the banking interest—those who are in the commercial and industrial life of the country. Again I ask, has Sir John Keane sold himself to me, or have I made a job for him?
Miss Margaret Kennedy.—Miss Margaret Kennedy is President of the United Conference of the old I.R.A. Associations. She was Commandant of Cumann na mBan, in complete charge of Cumann na mBan, in the dangerous years from 1919 to 1921. I made a job for her, too! I appointed her because I thought she would bring to the Seanad a useful point of view and I felt certain that, if it came to a decision on a question where national issues were involved, there would be no doubt of the way her vote was likely to go in the national interest. Have I made a job for her, and has she sold herself to me?
Professor William Magennis.—Professor William Magennis was Professor of Metaphysics in University College, Dublin, from the time the college was founded. He was a Senator of the National University during the whole of that period practically, and a member of the Governing Body of his college. He was here in the Dáil and he did something in this Dáil when here that many people would be very glad to have to their credit. He opposed the proposition with regard to Partition. He did another thing. He and Colonel Moore brought the attention of the public to the fact that £5,000,000 a year of Irish money was being sent out of the country in a manner in which it should not have been sent and without any real fundamental reason for doing it. The result was that these sums — about £100,000,000 was the capital value of the sums involved — afterwards became the subject of an agreement in which, instead of £100,000,000 capital value, the thing was settled for £10,000,000. I think Professor Magennis's services to the country, both as an educationist, and as a public representative, would justify anybody in nominating him as a member of the Second House. Of course, there is a job! My nominating him was jobbery!
Next there is the case of Liam O Buachalla. Liam O Buachalla is Lecturer in Economics through Irish in University College, Galway. He was President at one period of the Gaelic League and a member of the Coiste Gnotha of that body. I nominated him and I should like to ask the Deputy what fault he has to find with that nomination. Is it a job? The Deputy, who does not mind what he soils with the slime which exudes from him, calls it "the father and mother of jobbery".
Pádraic O Maille.—Pádraic O Maille was good enough at one time in this House to have been chosen as Vice-Chairman of it. He has spent the greater part of his life in the national service, one way or the other. He has been devoted to the national language. The first time I saw him was long ago, 1907 or so, at an Ard Fheis of the Gaelic League, in the days when the Gaelic League was strong. Was it jobbery to appoint him or were his merits such that I dare not appoint him?
There was Miss Pearse. I will not soil her name by dealing with it in this connection.
Matt Stafford — Matt Stafford is an old man. He is the longest link we have going back to the Fenian days. He has been in every national movement since then. If we are now and again to use the opportunity that comes for nomination to honour people, why should we not honour an old veteran of that sort? One thing I can say, he may not be as glib or as loquacious, and he may not fill as many columns of the reports as the Deputy who has attacked him, but there is one thing certain — he can be depended upon to know good from evil and to know what is good nationally from what is bad nationally, very much better, I would say, than the Deputy who accused him.
That is the list, the proposing of which is supposed to have been the father and mother of jobbery. However, thank God, fortunately our people know Deputy Dillon. They know his views and they know his judgment. Unfortunately, people outside this country do not know it and the words which he uses are taken abroad by those who want to soil the fame of this country and the good name of this country. When he talks as he does he is talking about people who have been honoured by the confidence of the nation on many occasions, and when he attacks us in the filthy way in which he does it he is damaging, not me, not these men and women who have been nominated, but he is soiling the whole of our national life.
I was to get 20 minutes. It is a very good thing to find that even at this late stage the Taoiseach has now come round to the acceptance of the views which were put up in this House by many members when his fantastic proposals for this fantastic Seanad came before the House. It was then stated that opportunities for corruption would be there and would be used. However, in any event, it is accepted now. The Taoiseach goes further than I would have gone. I am not sure that he has any right to say it. He accepts that certain people hold their seats because they have bribed and corrupted. If that is his condemnation of the system, it is one that we are not parties to, except very unwillingly. We heard the Taoiseach's dispassionate statement defending himself against the charge of jobbery. I have here a quotation from himself as to how nominations would be made under the system which he proposed. Here are his words when he was speaking in the Dáil on the 12th December, 1935, on this question of nominating people:
"Is any person so foolish as to think that the Leader of a political Party is in such a position of independence that he could nominate the persons he thinks best?"
This is before the event — is any person so foolish as to think that that person could nominate the people he thinks best?
"The history of these nominations shows that people are nominated by the Prime Minister for the time being, who puts into the Seanad people of his own way of thinking, people who have rendered service to him in a political way in the Party, and so on."
That is what the ordinary person knows of making or doing a job for a political adherent. That is the way in which the phrase was used. In the minds of these people the Seanad is filled with jobbers of that type, and the nominations are particularly characterised by that.
I had to laugh when the Taoiseach was reading here the list of all those great Irishmen that he nominated. Towards the end of it he mentioned a man that he met at the Gaelic League meeting whose whole service was given to this country. It did not save an attempt being made on the man's life, and it did not prevent an attempt being made, near O'Connell Bridge, to murder another Deputy of this Dáil, who was coming here to do his duty in opposition to the Taoiseach's viewpoint. Although an attempt was made upon his life, with that grand record of his in Irish history, he has now got to the point that he can be put into the Seanad by the Taoiseach, and the Taoiseach feels he can put him in without anybody suggesting that he had recently become an adherent of the Taoiseach and had got his reward in that way.
The Emperor Caligula, according to Roman history, decided that he would make a complete mess of the Conscript Fathers of Rome, and it is on record that he nominated his horse to be a member of the Senate.
History repeats itself. The Taoiseach has 11 hacks — and I use that word in the way in which the country understands it — people who are trotting after the Taoiseach, who will be guided by the pressure of his knees or his touch upon the bridle and will not swerve from the road because he has them bitted and saddled and spurred and under his control. That is the reason why I quote him again — the people who have rendered service in a political way to the Party; they are the people who are to be put in and let us forget the nonsense in the Constitution about practical experience or knowledge. It is Party service that counts. On the 12th December, 1935, the Taoiseach was honest enough to admit that.
We have it now accepted, after many years of warning, that there was corruption. Let it be understood how much the corruption was. The Taoiseach mentioned that our public life is very bad if we have to admit that local authorities are corrupt. I heard Deputy P.J. Fogarty in this House, when the second County Management Bill was brought in, say that everyone in public life knew there was corruption in local authorities. I gave him a chance later to give us examples, but he ran away from it. What did the recent case bring out? A member of a local authority was entrusted with a Seanad vote. He put himself on oath that from one contract he had made £16,000 profit. That contract was given to him by a board, one member of which was a Senator. That Senator was the man for whom he intended to vote and when an attempt was made to bribe him, he turned his car and went to that Senator.
Notwithstanding the £16,000 profit from one contract, he had been in Stubbs' several times, and in the court there was produced a registered judgment. He waived that aside as being due to embarrassment at certain times. Since then he has been in Stubbs' again for about £250. He was questioned as to what were his activities with regard to Seanad elections and he said that it had been his habit always to send his ballot paper over to the chairman of the Party. He was asked why he did that; was it because there was a suspicion that he had voted contrary to the way in which he promised to vote, and his attitude was that that was what everybody did; everybody had to do it because everybody was under suspicion of being bribed unless the Party managers saw the ballot paper. That is what we built up and it is from that we are supposed to get a good Seanad.
The Taoiseach has now admitted that his system has broken down; that as long as you have a small electorate that sort of thing is possible. He admits that that sort of thing possibly was happening. I listened to hear him make suggestions as to how the matter should be remedied. There is one simple way in which a great improvement can be effected. This has emerged to the knowledge of anyone dealing with the matter. Once you got the system of buying votes it became clear that a man who was ready to sell his vote was ready to sell it more than once and when a man went to him with £40 or £50 it was not as a consideration merely to get a promise that his name would go down No. 1; the only safeguard was to get the ballot paper into his hand, because the person who allows himself to be bribed may be bribed a second time. It is very easy to put No. 1 on a ballot paper before a man's eyes and change it afterwards into 100 when his back is turned. The huge ballot paper gave opportunities for that; it was down to 125 the last time.
One suggestion has been made repeatedly, a very simple matter of procedure. Why not insist on the ballot paper being filled in in the polling booth and bring the man up to vote? You certainly then would do away with a great deal of corruption, because the man who wants to spend his £60 or £70 on a certainty will not feel that it is a certainty. If the gentleman who is open to corruption goes to the polling booth, he has to take his ballot paper and mark it inside, according to how he desires to vote. Then the man who wants to buy the vote is at least euchred. There are other suggestions which can be made.
I am very glad to find that this motion has been accepted inside the framework of the Constitution. If necessary, we can debate on another occasion whether it is proper to have a Second House or not. I think there will be almost unanimity, anyway agreement, over the country that it would be better to have no Second House than to have the present one or one elected by the present system. If the matter is to be discussed, and if there are people who think of making such a retrograde move as to abolish the second House, I should like to get an opportunity of putting Opposition views before those who are going to vote upon it.
The Taoiseach gets back to the same two old roots he had, both of the French revolution: the Abbé Sieyès, the unfrocked priest who was described as a by-word for political incompetence, and de Condorcet. It was the Abbé Sieyès who said that if a Second Chamber disagreed with the first it was mischievous and, if it merely agreed, it was then useless. That was put as a syllogism, as a dilemma and a sort of end to the whole question. I think we have better wisdom than that nowadays. We have discovered in this country, which boasts of democracy, that people can be swayed by argument and what has been described as the clash of mind on mind.
There is something to be said for having a Second House with limited powers where arguments can be adduced by people in the hope, not of converting the Government but Government supporters, of creating a public opinion by leading it to certain conclusions. We have a Seanad set up under the Constitution with certain powers. There is no question of that Seanad ever holding up the Government. The power of delay with regard to legislation introduced by a Government amounts to no more than 90 days. There are certain powers with regard to asking the President whether he will refer to the people a piece of legislation that has been passed as being a matter of national importance. There is power to sit in judgment upon a judge, if ever a case should arise where a motion is put down to remove him for misbehaviour or incapacity. There is power to sit in judgment on the President, if ever an impeachment be taken against him on the ground of misbehaviour. These are the only powers the Seanad has.
But the Seanad has this function; it is one of the three this House has. The classical statement with regard to the powers of any Parliament is that it has something to do with passing and moulding legislation and, secondly, something to do with financial control. So far as financial control is concerned, this House rules; the Seanad has very little say in the matter. There is a period of merely three weeks' delay. So far as legislation is concerned, it can only delay it at the highest point for 90 days. But the third function of any Parliamentary Assembly is to inform the public, to be a forum of debate, to be a place where every public grievance can be stated and where public opinion can be created and moulded. The Seanad has that power. Why should it not have it?
Nobody here believes, after the incompetence we have had over the years, that the people who are in power are so good that they can be allowed to go along in their own sweet way without being subjected even to the force of argument. The Seanad has that power. The Seanad has used that fairly well and it would be a good thing still to give it that power.
Inside the framework of the Constitution it is still possible, even without operating Article 19, to get a Seanad better than the one we have. It is easy to make a proposal of a procedural type that will give a better system, and even, by utilising the same panel system, to get a better group of people. It is also possible to make proposals which will enable those who are nominating bodies to become to some extent, to some fraction of the whole assembly, the electing bodies, the electoral college, and not merely nominating bodies. It is possible again to operate Article 19 to the extent that the vocational or functional groups or associations or councils should be allowed, not as they are now, merely to nominate, but definitely to elect. We have to rely in the end upon the honour of certain people.
I do not agree with what has been said here in the loose way in which Deputy Fogarty said it, that people who are interested in local politics in this country must be castigated as being corrupt or open to corruption. In any event, there are ways of making corruption just not so easy by putting temptation away from them, instead of under their noses, as was done by this fatuous scheme of the Taoiseach's when the original Seanad proposal was brought in. It would be possible by transferring the electorate to certain other groups and by taking other safeguards to make sure of getting a Seanad better representative of classes of people than the Taoiseach apparently agrees now the present one is.
I am glad that the motion has been accepted and I suggest that the motion should be adopted as meaning that a Parliamentary Committee be set up, appointed in the usual way by the Committee of Selection, and with the usual powers with regard to calling witnesses and taking evidence. I think the Committee should not be too large in numbers and that it might usefully have attached to it as advisers, or possibly called as witnesses, members of various Senates. I should not like anyone who was ever nominated for a position in the Seanad to come in.
In view of the fact that it has been decided to accept the motion, with the permission of the House I wish to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Motion put and agreed to.
The Dáil adjourned at 9 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 17th October 1945.