I have received an amendment from Deputy Mulcahy which will come on when the Minister has made his introductory speech. The motion before the House is "That the Bill be now read a Second Time", and the amendment proposes that the Bill be read a Second Time this day six months.
Seanad Electoral (Panel Members) Bill, 1947—Second Stage.
This Bill has originated in the need to give effect to the recommendations of the Joint Committee which was set up by the Dáil and Seanad to report on the method of panel elections and the electorate for such elections. As the House will no doubt remember a motion was put down in the names of Deputies O'Higgins and McGilligan asking for the appointment of such a committee. The motion was agreed to by the House in October, 1945, and the Taoiseach's consequential motion proposing the constitution of the joint committee was agreed to in the following month.
It may, perhaps, be no harm to put on record here the terms of reference which were given to the joint committee embodying the terms of that motion. The motion, which was, as I have said, in the name of the Taoiseach, proposed:
"That it is expedient that a joint committee of the Dáil and the Seanad be set up to consider and make recommendations on the method of regulating elections of those elected members of Seanad Éireann who are required by the Constitution to be elected from panels of candidates and the definition of the electorate for such elections;
That 15 Deputies (exclusive of the chairman of the committee) represent the Dáil and seven Senators represent the Seanad on the said joint committee; and that the Ceann Comhairle be chairman of the committee."
To that motion an amendment was proposed by Dr. O'Higgins to delete all the words after the word "expedient" and to substitute the following "that a commission be set up to consider making recommendations for the selection of the Seanad, to be nominated by the Government after consultation with the Leaders of the Opposition Parties and to consist of nine persons of whom not more than four should be members of the committee". That amendment was, by leave of the House, withdrawn, and the main motion standing in the name of the Taoiseach was agreed to on the 14th of November, 1945.
Notice taken 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present,
It may be noticed, Sir, that Deputy Davin's persuasive powers have not been able to augment the strength of the Labour Party by one single Deputy. Apparently he is an outcast.
I have referred to the fact that on the 14th November, 1945, the Dáil, without division, agreed to the motion put down in the name of the Taoiseach to set up a joint committee, the result of whose labours are embodied in this Bill. I think it is essential that that fact should be brought to the mind of the House in view of the terms of the amendment put down by the Leader of the present Opposition Party. Not only did the Dáil accept the motion of the Taoiseach in relation to the election of the Seanad but the Seanad concurred in this proposal.
The joint committee of 15 met for the first time in February, 1946, and the following were appointed to be members of the committee under the chairmanship of the Ceann Comhairle:—The Minister for Local Government, the Minister for Health (then Minister for Agriculture), the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government; Deputies Bartley, B. Brady, P. Cogan, E. Coogan, Dillon, Everett, McCann, McCarthy, McGilligan, D. Morrissey, Norton and O'Connor; Senators Counihan, Duffy, Hayes, Hearne, Magennis, Moore and O'Dea.
In April, 1946, owing to the lamented death of Senator Magennis, Senator Quirke replaced him.
The committee met 15 times and on five of these occasions deliberated in committee on the chairman's draft report.
The subject, therefore, was very fully examined by an all-Party body, which issued an agreed report in May of this year.
I would emphasise this, that the joint committee was composed of all Parties of both Houses and its report was an agreed report arrived at unanimously without division after a very full discussion of all the problems involved in this question.
The embodiment of its findings, in legislative form will, I am sure, be accepted by the House without opposition. The House has had of course full opportunity of considering the terms of the report before it was ordered by the Dáil to be printed on the 13th May last, more than seven months ago.
In the course of drafting the Bill it was decided that it was desirable to repeal the existing Acts of 1937 and 1940, and re-enact them in the new measure, and this has accordingly been done. This course has the advantage of consolidating a very intricate body of law and presenting it in a convenient and compact form, though it has in present circumstances the disadvantage from the point of view of the Legislature of greatly increasing the bulk of the measure to be dealt with. This is, however, rather a notional than a concrete objection, since I assume that the Oireachtas will not desire to consider or to make any changes in the existing law beyond those which have been recommended by the joint committee. These changes have been summarised by the joint committee under ten heads and will be found in pages XXIV to XXVI of its report.
The Bill itself, which contains 84 sections, is arranged in six parts, with three schedules, and I propose to summarise as tersely as possible the main provisions of these parts so that the House may have a comprehensive picture of the proposed procedure for electing future Seanads.
In Part I the panels are defined in the terms of the Constitution and the professional interests for the purpose of the cultural and educational panel which were set out in the 1937 Act are here re-enacted.
Under the permanent provisions of the measure the Clerk of the Seanad will be the returning officer and his expenses will be a charge on the Central Fund.
These expenses have been nominal in the past and will continue to be nominal in the future.
Part II directs that a register of nominating bodies shall be established and maintained.
The qualifications which nominating bodies are required to have are set out in sub-section (2) of Section 8.
This section will afford the returning officer a positive rule in determining the eligibility of a body that may apply for registration.
It will empower him to reject a body that has only an ephemeral existence or which has no standing of any account.
With such qualifications as a standard it does not now appear to be necessary to limit the number of nominating bodies on the register.
A decision of the returning officer on an application is subject to appeal and the board will consist of a chairman who will be a judge of the Supreme Court or the High Court.
A fee of £20 must be lodged with an appeal and it will be returned if the appeal is allowed.
So far, therefore, as is practicable, having regard to the present development of the several vocational bodies which are ultimately to become nominating bodies, every care has been taken to ensure that these will be real bodies serving a definite purpose and representing a true vocational interest. It will be more difficult than it has been, perhaps, heretofore for mushroom bodies to secure registration because the returning officer will have before him definite standards with which these bodies must comply. It may be anticipated that in the course of future developments the standard will be raised and the general characteristics of the nomination bodies take a more concrete form. In this matter we must proceed gradually and we must take into consideration the existing state of affairs. Part III will provide for the formation and maintenance of nominating committees. This is a new proposal based upon the recommendation of the joint committee.
Each nominating body will be entitled to nominate five of its members to a nomination committee for the panel for which the body has been registered. Such members must be nominated at an annual meeting of the body and will hold office until the day before the next annual meeting of the body.
The functions of the nominating committees are set out in detail in Part IV, Chapter II, and Part V, Chapter II of the Bill. Their functions may be summarised briefly as follows:—
At a general election they are to review the proposals for nominations made by nominating bodies to the nominating bodies sub-panels and are to select from them what may be described as a short or final list of the candidates to be nominated as representing vocational interests and submit it to the electorate.
At a by-election necessitated by a casual vacancy they will directly elect a candidate to fill it. The nomination committee for any panel, therefore, may fairly be described as the coordinating organisation of the nominating bodies for that panel.
It enables the nominating bodies to ascertain and crystallise the general point of view of the broad vocational interest of which they are individual components, and it enables them to make a collective nomination which will be truly representative of that interest and which in view of the provisions of Section 51 of the Bill must be electorally effective.
Since the nominating committees and the nominating bodies which they represent are vocational in character, this new procedure should definitely intensify the vocational character of the Seanad.
Part IV of the Bill sets out the general procedure to be followed at a Seanad general election.
The proceedings are initiated by an Order of the Minister for Local Government, to be made under Section 24, fixing times and dates for the various steps to be taken. This Order must be made within seven days after a dissolution of Dáil Éireann.
The last day upon which nominating bodies may make proposals for nomination must not be less than four weeks after the dissolution. I might introduce an amendment on the Committee Stage to reduce this minimum period to three weeks. The last day for nominations by members of the Oireachtas, however, must naturally be later than that fixed for nominations of the nominating bodies and, if practicable, should be fixed a day after the date fixed for the reassembly of Dáil Éireann.
Chapter II sets out the procedure for forming the panels and ruling on the validity of the nominations. Briefly the nominating bodies will propose for the consideration of the appropriate nomination committees the names of persons whom they would recommend for nomination. The nomination committees will consider these and definitely determine which of them are to be ultimately nominated and selected for election.
Section 26 fixes the number of candidates that a nominating body may propose.
I propose to submit an amendment on the Committee Stage to the actual terms of the sub-section as included in the Bill. This amendment will, however, have the same purpose as the original sub-section, which is to permit nominating bodies to propose a sufficiency of candidates to ensure that the nomination committee will have full scope to make a representative nomination. It may happen that the same person may be proposed by more than one body, but if the total number of persons proposed is less than the minimum prescribed, the Taoiseach, under Section 28 (4), must propose such number as will make up the deficiency.
Sections 32, 33 and 34 provide that the proposals for nomination by nominating bodies will be considered at a meeting of the nomination committee for the panel to which they relate. At this meeting a poll will be taken to select from the persons proposed by the nominating bodies the candidates who will stand nominated to the appropriate sub-panel, subject to the nominations being valid and the candidates qualified. The poll will be taken and the result will be ascertained according to the system of single-transferable vote.
The nomination of candidates who stand nominated will be reviewed at a sitting called in the Bill the completion of the panels. Any decision of the returning officer is subject to appeal to the judicial referee who is the President of the High Court for some other judge of the High Court nominated by him. The referee will be present at the sitting and will then and there finally determine any question submitted to him. If as the result of the completion of the panels there is a deficiency in the number of candidates who stand nominated, the Taoiseach will nominate candidates to supply the deficiency.
Members of the Oireachtas—for the purposes of the Bill this means the members of the Dáil and Seanad—may nominate candidates, but the nomination must be by not less than four members and a member of the Oireachtas may not join in the nomination of more than one candidate.
Chapter III of Part IV describes the electorate and the method of taking the ballot. The electorate will be the members of the Dáil and Seanad and the members of every county and county borough council, or, where the members of a particular council have been removed from office, the former members.
There are two such councils whose members have been removed from office—the County Council of Kerry and the County Council of Dublin. In relation to the former members of the Dublin County Council, I took the view that, because of the lapse of time since they have been removed, they cannot be considered to have retained their representative capacity, and I propose to move an amendment excepting them in Committee. The members in question were first elected to the Dublin County Council in the year 1934.
Copies of the panels of the candidates who stand nominated will, of course, be issued to the electors. The Committee have recommended that there will be a separate ballot paper for each panel and the sub-panel to which the candidate was nominated will be stated thereon. This proposal is, of course, embodied in the Bill and all the proposals relating to the issue of the ballot papers are as recommended by the joint committee.
The Constitution requires that the voting at the Seanad election be by secret postal ballot and I have been advised that the constitutionality of the present provisions which have been included in the Bill to give effect to the precise recommendations of the joint committee in this connection is open to doubt. It will be necessary, therefore, to reconsider the scheme for the issue and return of the votes and an alternative proposal will be submitted for consideration on the Committee Stage.
The existing allocation of members to the several panels is continuing, that is, that there shall be five elected to the Cultural and Educational Panel, 11 to the Agricultural Panel, 11 to the Labour Panel, nine to the Industrial and Commercial Panel and seven to the Administrative Panel.
The existing law allocates a fixed number of candidates to be elected from each sub-panel as well. This provision could result in a candidate being elected without any votes being credited to him. It is proposed instead in Section 51 that a minimum number to be elected from each sub-panel be fixed and that, subject to that minimum, the election be determined according to the voting alone. The fixing of a minimum number for each sub-panel has the natural consequential effect of fixing a maximum for that sub-panel as well.
Section 52 of the Bill requires that the votes be counted in accordance with the rules in the Second Schedule. The rules set forth in that Schedule are the rules which apply to the counting of the votes under the Act of 1937 with the modifications necessary by reasons of the provisions of Section 51. The returning officers, as I have already mentioned, cannot elect more than the maximum number of candidates on any sub-panel nor less than the minimum prescribed number.
Part V deals with the filling of casual vacancies. This part re-enacts in the main the existing law with the following important modification, that is to say, where the vacancy arises in respect of the nominating bodies sub-panel, the vacancy will be filled directly by the nomination committee voting by proportional representation. Where the vacancy occurs in respect of an Oireachtas sub-panel, the electors will be the members of the Dáil and Seanad voting together.
Part VI contains certain miscellaneous conditions. A member of the Seanad, for instance, elected under the Act may resign by notice in writing addressed to the Chairman of the Seanad and the resignation will take effect on the announcement of the resignation to the Seanad. If a person is elected as a university member and as a panel member, he must declare in accordance with Section 80 in which capacity he will sit. If he fails to do this within one month after the first meeting he will be deemed to be a university member.
The elections will, of course, be governed by the ordinary rules for the preservation of the secrecy of the ballot.
Section 84 contains a transitory provision to the effect that the existing law will continue in force until the Act comes into operation on the day appointed under Section 7, that is, a day not later than the 31st December, 1949. By this provision it was intended that the Act should come into force as soon as the new nominating bodies register had been prepared and the nomination committee appointed. I propose, however, to introduce an amendment to which I shall refer later dealing with the present exceptional position in this regard.
The First Schedule contains a provision for the issue and receipt of the ballot papers. They are the existing rules with the modifications necessary to give effect to the report of the joint committee. The rules for the issue of ballot papers require amendment consequential on the amendment which I propose to introduce and to which I have referred in Part III of the Bill.
The Second Schedule contains rules for counting the votes, These rules will be found to eliminate any element of chance whatever in the election. Each vote will be transferred, in the case of a surplus, to the candidate indicated as the next preference at a value which is ascertained by dividing the total value of the votes credited to the candidate minus the quota by the number of transferable papers in the parcel or sub-parcel from which the candidate derived the surplus value.
A scheme prepared in the Institute of Higher Studies.
When a candidate is excluded each paper is transferred to the candidate indicated as next preference at the value at which it was received by the excluded candidate. For the benefit of the leader of the Opposition, who is apparently not aware of the system of election counting, I want to say that this is the method in force since 1923.
The Third Schedule contains the rules for the receipt and issue of ballot papers in the case of an Oireachtas sub-panel casual vacancy. These rules are a re-enactment of the rules of the Act of 1940.
So far I have given a general account of the main provisions of the Bill. It might be desirable, however, to refer the House to those sections of it which originated directly from the joint committee's report. The principal recommendations of the committee have been summarised in paragraph 35 of the report. They are, as I have mentioned, ten in number. The first is:
"That a new register of nominating bodies be established on a somewhat broader basis than the present."
The detailed proposals of the joint committee in this regard are set out in paragraphs 4 to 11, inclusive, of the report and these are embodied in Sections 8 to 11 of the Bill.
The second recommendation of the committee is that:—
"...in lieu of the appealed committee as at present constituted to consider appeals in connection with the annual revision of the register an appeal board be established consisting of the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of each House, together with a judge of the Supreme Court or the High Court."
This recommendation is set out in detail in paragraphs 12 and 13 of the report, and it is proposed to implement it by Section 12 of the Bill.
The third recommendation is:—
"That the system of nomination of candidates by registered nominating bodies be continued subject to final selection of candidates by nominating committees for election by the electorate."
The full statement of the joint committee's recommendations in this regard is contained in paragraphs 14 to 20, inclusive, and will be implemented by Sections 26 and 32-34 of the Bill.
In paragraph 21 the joint committee makes its fourth recommendation, viz: "That members of both Houses of the Oireachtas be entitled to nominate candidates." This recommendation is embodied in Section 25 of the Bill.
A fifth recommendation will be found in paragraph 23, viz.:
"That the present division of each panel into two sub-panels be continued subject to provision being made for a like fixed minimum number of members of Seanad Eireann to be elected from each sub-panel of a panel."
It is proposed to give effect to this by Sections 43 and 51 of the Bill.
In paragraph 28 it is recommended that there be a separate election and a separate vote in respect of each panel. Provisions designed to implement this recommendation will be found in the First Schedule to the Bill.
Again, in paragraph 29 the joint committee recommend that the present provisions for postal voting be replaced by a system under which the elector shall attend before a local returning officer to receive his several ballot papers and, forthwith, in the presence of the said returning officer shall mark them and post them in the postal box specially provided for the purpose; Deputy and Senator electors being permitted, on notice, either to mark their ballot papers as above or in the presence of the Seanad returning officer at his office. The First Schedule of the Bill is designed to give effect to those recommendations also.
In paragraph 30 the joint committee recommend that the electorate be increased to include the members of both Houses of the Oireachtas and all the members of the council of each county and county borough. Provision is made in Section 44 of the Bill to give effect to this.
The joint committee's remaining recommendations are:—
"Paragraph 31 (ix): That a casual vacancy caused by the death, etc., of a nominee of a nominating body shall be filled by direct election of the appropriate nominating committee; and that such a vacancy arising among the Oireachtas nominees shall be filled by direct election of the members of both Houses of the Oireachtas.
Paragraph 32 (x): That the Clerk of the Seanad be the Seanad Returning Officer."
These are given effect to in Part V and Section 4 of the Bill, respectively.
I should have thought that, in view of the manner in which these proposals originated, in view of the public attention that was directed some considerable time ago to certain occurrences associated with the election of the last Seanad, there would have been a general desire to have the next election for the Seanad held on the revised basis proposed in the Bill. I still believe that is the general desire of the House. It is certainly, I am sure, the general desire of the people. For this reason I would ask the House to treat this measure as an urgent one and to help in securing its enactment with the least possible delay. The fact that the report which gave rise to it was the work of an all-Party committee which was agreed upon all its findings should enable the House to do so with an easy mind.
The urgency which the Bill so recently acquired leads to two other matters. One is that, no matter how speedily it becomes law, it will not be feasible to operate the new system in its entirety for the next election. In particular, it would be impossible to have the new register of nominating bodies prepared in time, while it would also be unwise to ask the new Seanad Returning Officer to take charge of so complicated a task with little or no preparation for it. These are matters, however, which can be dealt with conveniently and easily by way of transitory provisions designed solely for the next election.
The use of the existing register of nominating bodies and the retention of the present returning officer for one more election will not vitiate the improved method of election recommended by the committee in any vital respect. These nominating bodies were formed for the purpose of the elections of the Seanad which have taken place since 1937. They have all received certain statutory recognition. It is not necessary for us to await the preparation of a fresh register of nominating bodies and we can quite readily allow the bodies on the existing register to set up the nomination committees in accordance with the terms of the Bill and with the recommendations of the joint committee. I propose, therefore, to move on the Committee Stage two amendments covering, first of all, the position of the existing nominating bodies and, secondly, the position of the Seanad Returning Officer for the next election.
The remaining question which should be dealt with is that of postal voting. I am advised that, in order to avoid the slightest doubt that the new method of election would in any way conflict with the Constitution's requirement in regard to postal voting, it would be safer, while preserving the spirit of the committee's recommendations in this regard which are directed primarily to preserving the secrecy of the ballot, to introduce an alternative system designed to serve the same end, while at the same time preserving the essential characteristic of the postal vote. Deputies will agree that in a matter so important as the constitution of one of the Houses of the Legislature the greatest care should be taken to avoid even the smallest uncertainty.
My proposals in this regard would normally appear in the Bill as published before Second Reading, but the circumstances which have made the introduction of the measure urgent did not permit of this. I will, as I have said, introduce those proposals by way of amendment on the Committee Stage. They will not conflict in any way with the spirit of the recommendation or the purpose of the recommendation made by the joint committee. They will only ensure that, not only will the requirements of the Constitution in regard to the secrecy of the ballot be complied with, but also that the essential character of the method of voting by post be preserved.
I move:—
To delete the word "now" and to substitute therefor the words "this day six months".
I should like to make it clear that we stand for having a Seanad, that we stand for having a good Seanad, and that we stand for a manner of electing that Seanad that will free it from any charge of corruption or bribery in its election. This Dáil is under sentence of dissolution and my amendment to the Minister's motion arises out of that fact. On the 21st October, the Taoiseach announced that he proposed to dissolve this Dáil at the earliest possible moment and to have an early general election. There is nothing preventing the dissolution of the present Dáil except any urgent business that, in the public interest, the Government consider ought to be got through. From the point of view of common sense, from the point of view of Parliamentary dignity, and from the point of view of democratic practice, I feel that a Parliament which is under sentence of dissolution should not be asked to consider and decide upon radical changes in the manner of election or in the representation of either one or the other House.
I have no desire to discuss the details of this measure. The Minister indicated that the need was to pass into legislation the recommendations of the joint committee. I submit that is not the need at all. The joint committee was set up to examine a particular question and to report so that that report could be discussed in all its details in each of the two Houses of the Oireachtas. The Minister drew the attention of the House to the genesis of this measure, that it arose out of a motion originally proposed in this House by Deputies Dr. O'Higgins and McGilligan. He rather glossed over the circumstances. The motion to which the Minister refers and which was passed unanimously, was discussed on the 10th October, 1945. Introducing that motion Dr. O'Higgins said:
"This motion has been on the Order Paper since—one Parliament after another—but only on one occasion was it reached in the Order of Business here and on that occasion some prosecutions were taking place in the courts with regard to election to the Seanad and, of course, it would be entirely improper to discuss it under such circumstances. Now, at the end of nearly four years, I move the motion that we should have some system of electing a Seanad other than the existing one and that a committee be appointed to make recommendations."
No wonder he would add in column 124: "I do not think we can be accused of any impatience with regard to this particular motion."
He could be accused of insincerity.
In column 129 the motivating influences leading to the motion which Deputy Dr. O'Higgins and Deputy McGilligan put down is explained in some detail. Deputy Dr. O'Higgins said:—
"It should not be necessary to argue whether it is a good or a bad Seanad, whether it is a vocational Seanad or otherwise. All that should be necessary in a House of representative people, each one having more or less general knowledge of the whole country and that peculiar knowledge of his own constituents, would be to ask them honestly to search their own minds as to the activities that are the accompaniment of every Seanad election and the amount of corruption, bribery and illegality. That is the kind of weapon that has been forged to break down the morale of the representatives of the people. The temptation is there and it has grown with every single Seanad election from the first to the fourth, until, finally, we have reached the point that a man who is straightforward and honourable with regard to his vote, who has regard for it, is regarded as a man who does not appreciate the asset that is put into his hand, while the man who `cashes in', who uses his cheque book, is regarded as a business man."
When Deputy O'Higgins referred to the first and the fourth Seanad election, he referred to the first and the fourth Seanad election under the present Seanad system which is the system perpetuated in this country by this present Government and the foundations of which were laid in the Constitution. Therefore, let the Minister not endeavour to ride away on the pretence that he is now presenting to the House a proposal which is completely accepted by all Parties. He is putting before the House in legislative form the recommendations made unanimously, no doubt, by a joint committee of both Houses of the Oireachtas, and produced to some extent under restrictions under which they worked.
The Minister quoted paragraph 35 of the Report but paragraph 34 said:
"It should also be mentioned that some members of the joint committee wished to raise matters relating to a radical reconstitution of the Seanad as a whole but the chairman ruled that the committee were precluded by the terms of reference from considering such matters."
We ask the Minister, and if the Minister perseveres in his rather persistent attitude to-day we appeal over his head to the Government, that a Dáil that is under sentence of dissolution should not be asked to sit down and consider in detail the proposals that are contained in this measure. We make this suggestion to the Government. The Minister has suggested that one of the main proposals in this Bill intended to prevent corruption in the election of Senators is, as it stands in the Bill, not in accordance with the Constitution. At any rate, he cannot be quite sure that the proposals with regard to postal voting would stand examination from the Constitutional point of view. He proposes, therefore, to make new proposals for so arranging the machinery for postal voting for the Seanad that, while it will be within the requirements of the Constitution, will be such as may help to safeguard against bribery and corruption in the election of Senators. I suggest to the Minister and to the Government that what we do want and what we could undertake to pass in 24 hours is a measure embodying these new proposals so that the Seanad which will be elected after the next general election will be elected under the legislation existing at the present moment but amended in respect to postal voting so as to eliminate whatever kind of bribery and corruption can be eliminated by an improvement of the secret element in the voting.
I do not think that a House that is under sentence of dissolution should be asked to do anything but that. When the Minister made his introductory speech he indicated quite a large number of amendments that even now would have to be inserted in this measure. I ask Deputies to look at the measure. Section 84 of the Bill reads:
"(1) This Act shall not apply in relation to any Seanad general election occasioned by a dissolution of Dáil Eireann occurring during the transitional period, and such election shall accordingly be held under the Seanad Electoral (Panel Members) Act, 1937 (No. 43 of 1937).
(2) This Act shall not apply in relation to any Seanad by-election which is to fill a casual vacancy occurring during the transitional period and such election shall accordingly be held under the Seanad Electoral (Panel Members) (By-Elections) Act, 1940 (No. 20 of 1940).
(3) In this section, the expression `the transitional period' means the period beginning on the day on which this Act is passed and ending on the day before the day on which Section 7 of this Act comes into operation."
That is Section 84 of the Bill. Now, Section 7 of the Bill reads:
"(2) This section shall come into operation on such day not being later than the 31st day of December, 1949, as the Minister shall appoint by Order."
When this measure was drafted it was contemplated that we might have a transitional period running for two years and that inside that transitional period any Seanad by-election that might take place would take place under the legislation as it now stands. Somewhat hurriedly the Minister brings forward entirely different proposals.
On 31st October this year the Taoiseach intimated that he proposed to dissolve the Dáil at the earliest opportunity, when he had got rid of certain urgent measures. It was not until 7th November that the Minister for Local Government asked permission to introduce this measure. It was not until Friday last that this measure was actually issued for anybody to look at. Most Deputies got this measure to read some time about midday on Monday last and quite unexpectedly to-day we were asked to take the Second Reading of it here.
I suggest the Government are being most inconsiderate in this matter. It is quite impossible to understand that any reasonable Government would ask the House, in the existing state of affairs, when a very serious economic situation exists to be thought over and examined, when the electorate generally are notified that they must proceed with the election of a new Parliament immediately after the New Year opens, and when members of both Houses are naturally concerned with the economic and political situation, to discuss the varied and intricate details contained in this measure. It is put to us that this measure embodies the unanimous proposals of a joint committee of the Oireachtas.
They were not unanimous —that is certain. I was a member of the committee and I never signed a report.
That is what the Minister put to us. I have pointed out the implications of Section 34. Whether they were unanimous or not, whether they were restricted in the ground they were able to cover in their discussions or not, the report that comes from the joint committee of the Oireachtas is intended for detailed discussion both by the Dáil and by the Seanad. To ask us in this hurried way to receive this Bill this week, to read, digest and discuss it in the Dáil, then to pass it to the Seanad and have it fully discussed there is, in my opinion, an outrage on Parliamentary commonsense and an outrage on the democratic method of dealing with these things.
I suggest to the Minister that he should approach this matter in the calm way in which apparently he was approaching it before the excitement of the general election came on top of him. He was not here when I made the suggestion that he should take the proposal which he says he now intends to introduce by way of amendment to improve the secrecy of the postal vote and introduce that as a separate amending Bill, to become part of the existing legislation, and that in the next Seanad that shall be elected in accordance with the existing legisation, together with the improvement in the matter of secrecy for the purpose of trying to eliminate corruption and bribery, his proposals for the new postal voting system will prevail. I suggest that it is very important that the consideration of the details of this Bill should be postponed for six months.
I was a member of this committee which was charged with the task of reviewing the constitution of the Seanad and when I started work on it I assumed we were expected to do an intelligent and competent job, but I early discovered that we were hamstrung in our terms of reference by a proviso that we were bound by the Heath Robinson machinery of the Constitution, and all the codology and abracadabra of the panels was riveted upon us before we began our deliberations, all of us well knowing that respectable publicans were appearing on the Labour panel on the ground that they used to chase a hen around the backyard every now and again and that pugilists were appearing on the arts and crafts and culture panels because they used to whistle Cathleen Mavourneen between the rounds of a boxing match.
I exhorted the committee to face the fact that the whole system of the panels was an absurdity and that if we could not get over the preposterous device of panels which had been incorporated in the Constitution, what we should do was to allow anybody who wanted to put himself forward as an artist, to put himself forward as an artist, and let the electors determine, when they came to consider his claim to the Senatorial office, whether he would do as an artistic Senator or not. In place of that, the most laughable machinery has been devised by the joint wisdom of the committee, stipulating a series of examinations. We very nearly reached the stage of requiring a Senator to possess a competent knowledge of Irish——
This is ridiculous misrepresentation.
——if he is to be elected on the Cultural Panel. But by machinery which occurred to the mind of the Fianna Fáil Party, one can be a Senator on the Cultural Panel without a competent knowledge of Irish, but one cannot be a charwoman in the Agricultural Credit Corporation without a competent knowledge of Irish.
As a result, we have this Bill with 84 sections and it is to be recorded on the Statute Book of this country as an instrument devised to limit bribery and corruption in the public life of our country. Now is that not a nice piece of legislation? Is it not a glorious confession for a Committee of this Oireachtas to record for posterity?
I had two proposals for that committee, but as it was abundantly clear that neither would be considered by the committee, my interest in its proceedings ceased. The first proposal was that if we had to retain the panel system—and apparently we had to retain it as it was in the Constitution —we should allow any nominee to have himself put forward for the panel of his choice and have the members of Dáil Eireann then vote on those candidates, elect the Seanad and answer to the country for the quality of the Seanad that they elected. If the members of this House are fit to rule the country, to make the people's laws and protect their liberties and if it is the purpose of the measure to get a Seanad drawn from a series of panels representing culture, industry and agriculture and so forth, I cannot see how you can get a better body to choose the Seanad than the elected representatives of the people.
I am more firmly wedded to that proposal by the realisation of the fact that in the event of an unworthy Seanad being chosen, responsibility could be clearly fixed on the members of Dáil Eireann for failing in their duty. If, for ulterior motives, we chose unworthy persons to act in the advisory capacity in which it is the Seanad's duty to act, the blame for any bad advice we might hereafter get would rest squarely on our own shoulders. I felt that under that spur it was highly likely that Dáil Eireann, bad and all as it is—and I think it compares favourably with any deliberative Assembly in the world, though it is not so highly esteemed in many parts of the country, to judge from what one reads—would do its duty conscientiously and reasonably. I think that, as a result of the choice it would make, we would get a workmanlike Seanad, as far as the Heath Robinson abracadabra offspring of the Taoiseach's mind incorporated in the Constitution permits anybody to choose a satisfactory Seanad.
I would direct the attention of the House to the fact that this proposal would allow anyone to be nominated to any panel for which he and his nominators thought him suitable, that it would result in making the panel system nugatory and of no effect and would restore to the electors the power to determine whether a man was eligible to be elected. I think that in the constitutional position in which we are, the House would have no alternative but to amend the Constitution if that course were to be adopted. If it were adopted, I feel that we would have a desirable kind of Seanad, a Seanad composed of two Senators from each county in Ireland, quite probably including two Senators from each of the counties of Northern Ireland, giving in all 64 Senators. They would be chosen in the Twenty-six Counties within the jurisdiction of this Parliament by the heads of households, because it so happens at this time that we have at our disposal a register of the heads of households.
At other times it might be a very difficult thing to compose such a register owing to the conflicting claims that might arise in certain mixed households as to who the head truly was. We might, I think, with perfect equity have declared that those persons in the State who held a ration book with two red stripes on it should be deemed, for the purpose of the Act, to be the heads of households eligible to vote in the Seanad election.
Why did not the Deputy submit all this wisdom to the committee?
Because he would not be let.
I had to correct this little man before and if I have to do it again I will have to listen to his lamentations ringing through the streets. Do not draw me and I will not chastise you. But I will not be interrupted by the Minister's insolent interjections without putting him in his place.
You can talk about what are the subjects of discussion as well as about what are not.
The truth of this trying person's interruptions is that at a very early stage of the committee's deliberations I desired permission to bring these proposals before it and was informer by the chairman of the committee, guided by his experts, that, inasmuch as the terms of reference did not envisage any change in the Constitution, the committee might not address its attention to any proposals which would involve an amendment of the Constitution. For this reason I realised that no useful purpose could be served by getting them to listen to me when I knew that they were not free on their terms of reference to listen to any such proposals on their merits.
If we had a Seanad drawn from the persons who would be described as the heads of households—for I envisaged that only the heads of households would be eligible for nomination by a body of voters consisting exclusively of heads of households—we would have had a Seanad initially composed of 52 Senators and—though I was not sure of this—I felt that we might possibly have examined whether it might not be desirable, for the time being, to vest in those 52 members the power to co-opt 12 members from Northern Ireland, two of whom would represent each of the Six Counties, until such time as circumstances would permit the holding of a proper election in the Six Counties under the jurisdiction of the Parliament proper to administer the Six Counties, which is, of course, the Oireachtas sitting here in Leinster House.
Mind you I think there could be powerful arguments to which I would listen with respect against that course. If it were advanced that such a gesture would cut across a general policy designed to promote reconciliation between this part of the country and the people in Northern Ireland I would be very favourably inclined to waive what would appear to me a right on our part to summon representatives to the Irish Seanad from the Six Counties in order to promote the cause of conciliation. But on the other hand if it seemed that no legitimate offence could be taken it would have given me gratification to feel that, without exciting internecine slaughter or ill-will between ourselves and our fellow-countrymen in Northern Ireland, we would have 12 Senators to give us the benefit of their advice and counsel in matters affecting the whole State. I would be glad to see it—possibly only as a shadow foretelling coming events, but none the less a visible and enduring token of what everybody in this country some day hopes to see.
The House will note that my proposal involved an electorate from the senior elements of our community and a candidate drawn from the senior element of our community. That purpose I had in mind because, while I believe that for a variety of constitutional reasons which it is not necessary to go into detail about now, it is desirable to have universal suffrage for the sovereign body of Parliament which in this State unquestionably is Dáil Eireann whose will must in the event of conflict ultimately prevail it is no harm, in an advisory way, on a body whose primary function is to advise, to remonstrate, to call for second thoughts, to have representatives of the maturer sections of the community, representatives of those sections of the community who have acquired that quality of wisdom which comes only in the school of experience and which simply cannot be acquired by the young, however ardent and desirous they are of serving the public need. The more one looks around the world in which we at present live the more manifest are the bloody evils of violent revolution and upheaval. The more one looks around the world the more one realises how rarely substantial benefit is conferred upon mankind by action begotten of hasty thought. The more one looks about the world the more one realises how ill-used is the contention that the dictator who acts vigorously, promptly, without hesitation gets results whereas the dilatory democracy comes only trotting after, the difference being that while the dictator gets results and lives a moment in pomp and glory by the mercy of God's providence he dies in the cellar of a burning building, while democracies proceeding more slowly continue their tedious deliberations to arrive by slow stages at decisions that carry consent and at institutions that endure.
We live in a world where there are still gentlemen who hope by incisive, rapid and efficient action to settle all the problems of mankind. By God's providence they also will die in the cellars of burning buildings and at the hands of democracies slowly and reluctantly taking the measures requisite to encompass that end for them. That the democracies of the future will have the capacity to do these things will depend largely on how far these democracies are prepared to listen, albeit not always to accept, to the advice of those who have acquired wisdom by experience. Mark clearly the qualification I make—"their readiness to listen to, albeit not always to accept." In some characters middle age gives rise to petulance, almost feminine petulance; in others to a reluctance to undertake enterprise; in others to an excess of caution. These middle-aged failings of which I am conscious in my own person require the correction of the ardour of the enthusiasm of youth and in the rising generation's hand must ultimately rest the final decision as to what the future will provide. But even the petulance, the feminine petulance, the reluctance to act has a useful purpose provided it claims no more than the right to be heard. Such a Seanad as I had in mind would have room for the petulant, the indecisive, the cautious. In that Chamber they might have their say. Here in the Dáil, in regard to the toleration of petulance of which perhaps I have not always shown the best example, inspiring that respect I should. I take this occasion to say to the Minister for Local Government that if, perhaps on recent occasions, I have used language which has been stronger and more incisive than any grievance under which I suffer would have justified, in so far as I had hurt his feelings by going beyond the limits of what he thought fair, I offer him my apologies. Here we have a mixture of many temperaments and of many ages. We are what the people choose to send. Such as we are, we must take final responsibility for the deeds we do. I am not afraid of that responsibility. Taken by and large, I think we have given a very good account of ourselves in the last 25 years—better than that given by any other democratic Parliament that I know of and very often under greater difficulties than any other democratic Parliament in the world has had to handle. Those are my proposals. It is because they were outside the terms of reference laid down for the committee that at a very early stage of that committee's deliberations I determined the best service I could give was to absent myself from it, and I acted on that. I take this first opportunity of reporting to the House the infrequence of my attendance on that committee and the reasons for it and offering to the House, within the wider terms of reference permitted here, the proposals I would gladly have made to the committee to which the House appointed me as a representative.
I am in some difficulty in relation to this Bill because I find myself in complete disagreement with the Bill and in complete disagreement with the legislation this Bill is intended to implement. The position which the Bill was intended to remedy was a position under which candidates for the Seanad purchased votes and under which electors to the Seanad sold their votes. In other words, it was intended to prevent public corruption in the election of members to the Seanad.
I have only had this Bill a very short time in my possession. But, knowing that the intention of the Bill was to prevent the buying and selling of votes, I looked through the Bill to find out if there were any provisions which specifically precluded public corruption. I find none. Possibly the Minister may consider the advisability of the incorporation in this Bill of certain sections making it a penal offence for any electors to the Seanad to seek support or votes for their candidature by means of direct or indirect bribes. Possibly the Minister might also make it a penal offence for any of the electors to the Seanad to receive direct or indirect bribes. I know that there is ordinary legislation to deal with bribery and corruption but I would suggest that something more is needed here. That ordinary legislation and that ordinary penal code does not stop the buying and selling of votes in this very building. It is obvious, therefore, that something more stringent is needed.
I would like to endorse what the Leader of the Opposition said when he complained of the shortness of the time available to us to consider this Bill before its Second Reading. Possibly I can complain in this regard with greater force because the other members of this House were in on the discussion that occurred some years ago in relation to rectifying the method of election to the Seanad. The Bill provides for an enlargement of the electorate. It provides that members of both Houses of the Oireachtas will be entitled to nominate candidates for the Seanad. I do not think that is a good idea. The tendency may well be that members of the Dáil will tend to nominate possible rivals in their own constituency by way of a quid pro quo in an election campaign. I would urge upon the Minister to reconsider the advisability of that proposal.
The electorate has been enlarged to include the members of the Oireachtas, members of every county and county borough council—that is, the members of every county council in the country. Though great care may be taken to ensure that the ballot paper is placed by the voter into a box, what care has been taken to ensure that no influence of an improper nature will not have been brought to bear upon members of the electorate? It is tragic that we in this House should have to talk in such terms, but we must face realities.
I welcome the suggestion made by Deputy Dillon in regard to the possibility of making provision for representatives from the Six Counties in the Seanad. The suggestion might well have come from the other side of the House in the first instance, but I think it will carry more weight because it came from Deputy Dillon. I would urge upon the Government the advisability of making specific provision for the inclusion of some members of the Seanad to represent the interests of the people in the Six Counties. It is regrettable that the power of nomination so far exercised in relation to the Seanad has never been exercised in relation to the people of the Six Counties. It is regrettable that in our present Seanad there are no representatives from Belfast or Derry or any part of the Six Counties. That could have been done. The powers of nomination exercised by the Taoiseach could have been exercised with that in view. I would urge upon the Government, before coming back to this House for the next reading, to bring forward a proposal for the inclusion of some machinery aimed at securing in the new Seanad definite representation from the Six Counties.
I thought I had made it clear in introducing this Bill that it did no more than propose to give effect to the recommendations which were made by the joint committee set up in pursuance of the resolutions which were passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas. That, naturally and inevitably, ruled out of consideration the suggestion which was first made by Deputy Dillon and which has since been repeated by Deputy MacBride, that we should propose to go outside the Constitution of this State in relation to its effective area and find a new basis for constituting the Second House of the Oireachtas. Quite clearly, a change of that sort is so momentous that it could not be decided upon either by a joint committee or by this or both Houses of the Oireachtas without submitting it to the people. The committee was precluded from consideration of an amendment to the Constitution, and so is this House. Therefore, as Deputy Dillon is an experienced Deputy and Deputy MacBride is an experienced lawyer with some knowledge of the Constitution, I find it hard to convince myself that either of these Deputies intended that proposal to be taken seriously.
There is nothing unconstitutional in having representatives from the Six Counties members of the Oireachtas.
If the Deputy wishes to contend that there is nothing unconstitutional in having natives of the Six Counties members of the Oireachtas, I would be the last to contest that point of view. But, to invite persons to come here specifically as representatives of the Six Counties, would, as the Deputy knows, be repugnant to the Constitution as it stands.
No.
That is a matter that neither he nor I can determine. It can only be determined when a Bill proposing to do that has been submitted to the Supreme Court. For the moment, at any rate, I think that we can assume that, if there were not in present circumstances insuperable objections to the course which has been suggested, it would have been adopted long ago.
I do not know whether it was intended by Deputy Dillon that I should take him very seriously. The main purpose of his speech seemed to be to put before the House a proposal which he submitted to the committee and which the committee, having deliberated upon it, decided could not be adopted within their terms of reference.
I do not know what point Deputy Dillon wants to make when he states that he was informed by the chairman of the committee that his proposal would be ultra vires the powers of the joint committee because, after all, Deputy Dillon knew what the terms of reference of the committee were, knew the limits which the Oireachtas had imposed upon its deliberations. With full knowledge of these facts, he elected to become a member of the committee. He allowed himself to be chosen by the committee of selection to be a member of this joint committee. He went in to sit on that committee with his eyes open and, I presume, with his mind alert and his faculties active. If, therefore, he did put before the committee a proposal which it was incapacitated from considering, what purpose had he in view? It could not have been to assist the committee in its deliberations. It may have been to give to himself an excuse for withdrawing from the deliberations of the committee.
These deliberations were long and arduous and those members of the Oireachtas who addressed themselves to the work of the committee had to sacrifice a great deal of their time, a great deal of their leisure and, perhaps, a great deal of their business interests. I am not suggesting that Deputy Dillon is a man who is not prepared to sacrifice a great deal of his own private interests in the public service But, in general, when he makes that sacrifice, he wishes to be requited by claiming more than his due share of the limelight. Deputy Dillon is a grand performer before the footlights, but a very poor operator when it comes to the drudgery of committee.
The Minister is not a bad performer himself.
Therefore, there may be some explanation for the fact that, though Deputy Dillon was a member of this committee, though it met and deliberated on 15 or 20 occasions, he was present at only three meetings of this committee. I am reciting these facts in order that the public and the House may realise——
Is it in order to discuss the actions of any member of the joint committee here?
The matter was raised by Deputy Dillon himself and the Minister is replying, in passing. I would ask him not to pursue it very long.
I do not intend to pursue it any longer than Deputy Dillon did. Deputy Dillon stated that he had attended two meetings of this committee. He, in fact, attended three and subsequently, about the beginning of this year, he submitted an amendment to the terms of the draft report which he did not even attend the committee to defend. I think it is essential that this House and the public should be made aware of these facts.
Deputy Dillon explained that he was precluded by the terms of the Constitution from formulating his ideas in that regard.
I agree he did, but if his position were that he found it impossible, by reason of the restrictions imposed upon him by the terms of reference, to assist helpfully and fruitfully the committee in its deliberations, surely the Deputy should have withdrawn from the committee and should have allowed this House to be represented on it by another Deputy who would be prepared to accept and discharge the responsibilities which membership of the committee imposed upon him? Now Deputy Dillon, not having attended the committee, not having withdrawn from the committee and having continued to sit nominally on the committee, is bound by the committee's report in exactly the same way as every other member of that committee is bound by it, whether he attended it or did not.
The Minister is entirely wrong in saying that any member of the committee is bound.
In the course of its deliberations, as will be seen from the report, many motions were put before the committee dealing with the draft text of the report and the recommendation which it was proposed to make. The members attended there, discussed them, and did not, I am glad to say, divide upon any of them. They were able to come to agreement about the terms of all the recommendations and in particular—and it applies not only to Deputy Dillon with whom Deputy Mulcahy the Leader of the Opposition is apparently so much concerned—but it applies to other members of the Dáil as well——
Could the Minister state——
May I be permitted to speak without interruption? It applies to that member of Dáil Eireann who first put down the motion to set up a committee of this kind, a committee to inquire into the method of electing a Seanad and who in proposing that motion stated that it had been on the Order Paper for four years and that consideration of it had been reached only after the last general election.
What do you mean by "bound"?
May I be permitted to speak without these unmannerly interruptions? I know the Leader of the Opposition—I am addressing myself to you, Sir, and not to the Deputy——
I am addressing myself to the Chair. What does the Minister mean by "bound"?
The Deputy's question may be intelligible but it is out of order. The Minister should be allowed to continue with his reply.
I submit that one of the things which is out of order is irrelevancy and the Minister's remarks are utterly irrelevant. They have no foundation in fact.
The question of irrelevancy was not raised.
The question of relevancy is one for the Chair and it is one which, so far as this issue is concerned, was decided when Deputy Mulcahy in moving his amendment proceeded to refer to the motion which was discussed in October, 1945, a motion in the name of Deputy O'Higgins. The Deputy quoted the statement of Deputy O'Higgins that the motion had been on the Order Paper for four years and that it was only after the last general election it had been reached. Of course, the Deputy quite conveniently forgot that it had not been on the Order Paper for four years. He forgot that there had been a general election in 1943 and that all motions that were not disposed of prior to the general election of 1943 disappeared and that they had to be moved afresh or reinstated on the Order Paper after the election of 1943. He forgot that there was an election in 1944——
I suggest to the Minister that he should now come along to the Bill.
I am dealing with the Bill. Permit me to say, Sir, that I am dealing with the grounds on which Deputy Mulcahy founded his amendment. His amendment is based on the general consideration that having delayed to deal with this matter for over four years or more, we are now asking the Dáil to rush the matter.
That is not a fact. I never said that.
Am I to be allowed to proceed?
On a point of order, am I to sit down and hear my simple argument entirely misrepresented by the Minister?
I am merely trying to interpret the Deputy's argument.
I submit it would save the Minister's irrelevancy if he would allow me to put my argument again in one simple sentence.
I submit, Sir, the Chair is bound——
The Minister need not give way if he does not wish.
I do not propose to give way and I trust I shall be allowed to continue. In introducing his amendment—I know my reply to this debate will appear to be very disjointed——
I should think so.
It is not my fault. I have a veritable Jack-in-the-box to deal with. I beg the Deputy's pardon; I should not have said that.
Now that the Minister is getting so nice, perhaps he would allow me to put my argument again in one simple sentence?
The Deputy had all the time he wanted to tell the House why he did not wish the measure to be taken now. If he was not able to do it simply in the unlimited time at his disposal, how does he expect me to believe he can do it now?
The Minister absented himself from the House when I was speaking.
I have a full note of what the Deputy said.
The Minister should be allowed to conclude without interruption.
I did hear the Deputy say before I withdrew for a few moments from the House that Deputy O'Higgins, in moving this motion in October, 1945, complained that it had been on the Order Paper for four years. By repeating Deputy O'Higgins's statement and basing his arguments in support of the amendment on that, the Deputy has reinstated, as I have said, that particular point and his argument in this debate is a relevant consideration. I was pointing out that in fact Deputy O'Higgins's observations in that regard were ill-founded by reason of the fact that there had been a general election in 1943 and that any motion which had appeared on the Order Paper prior to the date of the general election, fell immediately to the ground.
By reason of the fact that there was a general election in 1944, those motions, which had been put down prior to that general election, likewise disappeared and, therefore, the motion which Deputy O'Higgins moved in October, 1945, was a motion, at that date, of comparatively recent origin. It was a motion which was made of major importance by reason of a certain occurrence which directed the attention of the Government, members of the Oireachtas and members of the general public to the need for reforming the existing method of election to the Seanad.
What was the argument which Deputy O'Higgins used in support of his motion? He really used two arguments. He stated, first of all, as will be seen in column 125 of the Parliamentary Debates, volume 98——
On a point of order. It is entirely irrelevant to discuss the matter that the Minister is now discussing.
I must rule against the Deputy. I think the Minister is quite in order.
The motion Deputy O'Higgins moved was to this effect:
"That the Dáil disapproves of the present method of electing the Seanad and calls for the appointment of a committee to make recommendations on the subject."
Out of that motion, and in consequence of the Taoiseach's acceptance of the principle that we should have a committee, there followed a motion under which the joint committee was set up and that motion read:
"That it is expedient that a joint committee of the Dáil and Seanad be set up to consider and make recommendations on the method of regulating elections of those elected members of Seanad Éireann who are required by the Constitution to be elected from panels of candidates and the definition of the electorate for such elections."
That motion was agreed to in both Houses without a division. In moving the motion which gave rise to it, Deputy O'Higgins said:
"Anyone... will see at a glance that the vocational side of the present Seanad is a mere sham and humbug—just a false dummy in the window. We have a Seanad far more politically concentrated than is this Dáil itself."
He also suggested that corruption had grown so continuously that candidates who bribed had come to be regarded as "business" men. It was on these two grounds that the House decided that we should have this committee, in order to devise machinery, first of all to prevent corruption—to make it more difficult, if we could not prevent it—and, secondly, to try to improve the vocational characteristics of the Seanad. Those were the two purposes for which this joint committee was set up.
The Oireachtas first moved in this matter in November, 1945. It is true that we are putting the legislative proposals to deal with these problems before the Oireachtas two years later, on the eve of a general election, but the recommendations of this committee, the recommendations which are embodied in this Bill, were submitted to Dáil Eireann on the 6th May of this year and were ordered by Dáil Eireann and Seanad Eireann to be printed on the 13th May of this year. Every Deputy and Senator was furnished with a copy of the joint committee's report and every Deputy and Senator is bound by the obligations attaching to his position as a member of the Oireachtas to have made himself familiar with that report, so that we are not considering this legislation hurriedly or without having full cognisance of what it is proposed to do.
As I said in my opening speech, the proposals in particular governing nomination to the vocational sub-panels by nominating bodies will undoubtedly strengthen the vocational character of the Seanad. We know that one of the greatest difficulties which we have had in regard to that matter has been the fact that we had a great number of nominating bodies each entitled to nominate at least two, some of them even entitled to nominate many more than two members to their respective panels, so that we had a superfluity of nominees, many of them very worthy persons in their own narrow sphere of vocational interest, but a great many of them, worthy and all as they were, completely obscure so far as the general body of the electorate was concerned and, therefore, people with very little chance under any system of election of securing election no matter how important the vocational interests they represented might be.
The first problem the joint committee had to consider was, how persons could be got who would be broadly representative of particular vocations. It is quite obvious we could not have a legislative chamber in which every trade and occupation in this country would have direct representation. You could not have, for instance, a chamber in which you would have bootmakers, tailors, cotton spinners, ironmongers, or machinists with direct representation. You could not have a chamber in which every learned profession in this country, as well as every other profession, such as the pharmaceutical chemist and so on, would be represented. Besides, such a body would be enormous and its very size would prevent it from ever becoming a deliberative Assembly. The first problem which this committee had to face, therefore, was how, from this plethora of candidates put forward from nominating bodies, there was to be got a compact and rational panel of such a convenient size as to allow the electorate to consider it rationally. The panel would need not only to be of a convenient size but also to be sufficiently large to be broadly representative of the vocational interests to which they were to give representation, that is, industry and commerce on one side, agriculture on another, administrative interests on a third, labour on a fourth, and cultural and educational interests on a fifth. That was the problem, to winnow or narrow down the wide range of nominations which, election after election, had been made by the nominating bodies, so as to have a ballot paper and panel which the electorate could consider intelligently and which would, at the same time, be broadly representative of the main vocational interests concerned. The measure, which the committee adopted in order to secure that, was to allow the nominating bodies for a particular panel to make proposals to a nomination committee, a nomination committee which would be representative of all the nominating bodies on the register for that panel. Take the case of industry and commerce. All the nominating bodies on the panel —I think they are some 15 or 16—can submit proposals for nomination to a nomination committee, which is then constituted, to a nomination committee to which they send five designated persons who will be selected each year at the general meeting of the nominating bodies. The nomination committee will consider all the names submitted to them and then select for actual nomination and submission to the electorate the appropriate number of names as set out in the Bill.
The first thing which that does is to solve the problem of securing vocational representation within the narrow limits of a deliberative Assembly.
The next thing was to try to secure that the abuse made manifest in one instance subsequent to the last general election should not recur. It is all very well to talk about corruption: it is all very well to impugn the honour of public men, but in this particular instance, however, we must remember that not merely the honour of the candidates for the Seanad in general was impugned, but the honour of every member of a county council or of the council of a county borough who had the power to select members of the quota of seven which went forward as component members of the electoral college. It was the honour of every man who gave service to the people on these county councils and county borough councils which was being impugned, and, in so far as these people were representative of the voters and ratepayers who elected them, it was the honour of the voters and ratepayers of the counties and cities which was impugned. In fact it was the honour of the Irish nation.
I wish that those people, who talk about corruption in the light and easy way in which they do talk, would remember that it is not the few specific individuals who sit in the Dáil or the Seanad or even on the county councils who are being attacked and assailed, but the honour of the Irish nation.
In every country and in every community we will get black sheep and it is not to be wondered at that we get them in public life in this country, as elsewhere, but, as Deputy Dillon said, our standards here are as high as anywhere else.
Hear, hear!
Our country and our public life are a great deal freer from corruption than we may suspect it to be elsewhere, but we do not hear Englishmen, or any man with any regard for the reputation of his country, flinging charges of corruption broadcast without having a scintilla of solid evidence to go upon. Because one instance emerged we are not justified in believing that everyone is corrupt. It is just as when one murderer is discovered, we are not justified in believing that every man who lives in the same street as the murderer is a murderer, or a potential murderer. So, because one instance was discovered, we are not justified in believing that corruption was general, or even that it occurred in more than one case. But because of that case which occurred, we were bound to take what steps we could to ensure, and to secure, as far as we could secure it, that it would not occur again. It was with full knowledge of that fact and with that aim, purpose and intention that the Oireachtas set up the Joint Committee.
The first thing which became clear when they began to consider was this. The smaller the electorate the easier it is for dishonest and corrupt persons to try to seek out electors as dishonest and corrupt as themselves. I think that the occurrence to which I have referred should make us all realise, that if we were going to continue to have an electorate in which the quota required to secure election would be as small as it has hitherto been, it would continue to be to that extent so much easier to be guilty of corrupt and improper practices. It was decided, therefore, in order to make corruption more difficult, that the first thing to do was to enlarge the electorate.
We could not, however, proceed very far on that basis because we could not have the Second House drawing its mandate from exactly the same source as the Dáil. At least from the point of view of the working of the Constitution and from the point of view of practical purposes it would be very undesirable that both Chambers of the Legislature should draw their mandates from exactly the same persons, when, in fact, the two Chambers have radically different functions. If ever there was a conflict of powers or if a conflict arose between them as to what was right or proper for one or the other Assembly to do, and both were entitled to refer back to exactly the same source of authority, you might quite easily have the beginning of a civil war and the Constitution could be made completely unworkable. Since this House represents the people of Ireland—and that is based on the adult manhood and womanhood of the country—we had to find some other basis of election for the selection of the Second House. We wanted it at the same time, to be in one sense representative of the people and we decided that the best thing, perhaps, since it was impossible that they should be elected directly by the people, that they should be representative of the people at least one remove, so we decided that the best thing to do was to try to base the election of the Second House upon an electorate consisting of the elected representatives of the people as a whole. We took as the basis for that electorate the members of the Oireachtas who had already been elected, ourselves immediately, the Oireachtas at a further remove, and with them proposed to incorporate in an electoral college the members of the county councils. There were some practical considerations why we should confine the electorate to these three classes of persons— members of the Dáil, members of the Seanad and members of the county councils—because if we had gone outside the county councils and had taken the wider range of local authorities we could not have got any basis of election which would have been equitable as between one part of the country and one interest in the country and another. Therefore we confined the enlarged electorate to these bodies. But the Electoral College will now number about 977 or 980 persons.
In order, again, to ensure that the quota required for election would be sufficiently large to make an attempt at corruption difficult, and not only difficult but dangerous, we decided that there should be separate panels for each vocational interest and that every member of the electorate would have a separate vote in respect of each of these panels. There has been a great deal of misunderstanding about this in the Press. Some newspapers have said that under the new system of election the quota will be 20 for some of the panels. In no case will the quota be less than 81 or 82. In the case of the Cultural and Educational Panel, the quota to secure election will be 163 plus. In the case of the Labour Panel, the quota will be 81 plus. In the case of the Agricultural Panel, the quota will be 81 plus. In the case of the Industrial Panel, the quota will be 98 plus. In the case of the Administrative Panel, the quota will be 125 plus. These quotas are sufficiently large and the electorate is sufficiently widespread throughout this country to make it very difficult and certainly very dangerous for any person to go out and try to secure election to the Seanad by corrupt means.
We have thus the dual purpose for which the committee was set up fulfilled. We have devised a machinery which will strengthen the vocational character of the Seanad and which, I believe, will make it very difficult and very dangerous for any person to endeavour to secure election to the Seanad by corrupt means. What justification is there for deferring for a moment longer than is necessary putting this new system of election into operation? We know that one instance of corruption, of improper conduct, occurred in connection with the last Seanad election. The attempt to buy votes was not successful, but it was tried. Do all those Deputies who have been posing here as the protectors of honesty in public life want the next Seanad election to be conducted upon the same basis as the last Seanad election, knowing now full well what the dangers associated with that system are? They have been telling us that they want to purge, to clear up, public life. That is what we have been told by every Party in opposition. They are pretending that there is a mass of corruption here to be cleaned out. Yet, when the Government comes along with proposals that are designed to prevent corruption and to make any attempt at it more dangerous and more difficult, these are the very people who oppose it. I should have thought that in view of the professions made when Deputy Dr. O'Higgins moved his motion in 1945, in view of the professions which they made when the Taoiseach moved his motion to which the House agreed in November, 1945, these proposals would have had an unopposed passage through this House.
Of course, I do not believe Deputy Mulcahy's amendment is meant seriously. I have been told that one of the reasons why it has been put down is that, if this Bill goes through, the character of the next Seanad may be changed: that it will become so much more strongly vocational that a number of old political friends of his may find themselves in the wilderness. Deputy Dr. O'Higgins has professed to condemn the present Seanad because it is too political. If that is the case why does he not welcome this Bill and these proposals which will make the Seanad definitely less political and definitely more vocational? That is what they have been asking for. Yet when we propose to give it to them it is the very thing they want the House to reject. I suggest that we ought to accept this Bill. It is based upon the recommendations of a joint committee. Many members of the Seanad and of the Dáil attended that committee. They gave a great deal of consideration and a great deal of their time to the analysis of this problem and to securing a remedy against the evil which became manifest last year. I do not think those who asked that the joint committee should be set up, I do not think any member who was placed by the Committee of Selection upon that committee, I do not think, in fact, that any person who is concerned to improve the institutions of our country will defer or is justified in asking the Dáil to defer the enactment of this measure one day longer than is necessary.
There is one question which, with your permission, a Chinn Comhairle, I would like to ask the Minister. It is rarely I find myself in agreement with him. I agree with and endorse all that he has said——
What is your question, Deputy?
The Minister has said something about corruption being made difficult and dangerous, to use his own words——
More difficult and more dangerous.
I endorse that. But in what way does the Minister propose to make it more dangerous? Deputy MacBride suggested that it should be made a penal offence for any wrong-doer who is guilty of any corruption in regard to election to the Seanad.
I am very grateful to the Deputy for having raised that point and with the permission of the Chair I would like to deal with it. Deputy MacBride said there is no specific provision in this Bill to make corruption a penal offence. It is not necessary to put it in this Bill because there is a special enactment which deals with the prevention of electoral abuses. The Prevention of Electoral Abuses Act, passed in 1923, makes bribery, or an attempt at bribery, or the receiving of bribes a penal offence subject to very severe punishment. I may say in that connection, it is not always easy. A mere enactment of a law will not prevent the breaking of that law. All we can strive to do is to make it more difficult to break the law and inflict condign punishment when the law is broken. The Act of 1923 does inflict condign punishment. We are going to make it less easy and more difficult to infringe the law or the provisions of that Act by the proposals which are embodied in this Bill.
Would the Minister not consider consulting the Attorney-General as to embodying specific proposals in this Bill? The provisions in the Electoral Abuses Act are mainly intended to deal with the ordinary type of elections and electoral abuses and were not devised to deal with a complicated system such as is embodied in this Bill. Will the Minister think over that?
I certainly shall, but I want to say that the case which occurred in 1944 and under which proceedings were brought was dealt with under the Act of 1923 and, therefore, that Act covers all the procedure of an election.
The Minister knows that apart from that case there were several others.
Question put: "That the word proposed to be deleted stand."
The Dáil divided: Tá, 62; Níl, 14.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Anthony, Richard S.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Dan.
- Brady, Brian.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Buckley, Seán.
- Colbert, Michael.
- Colley, Harry.
- Corry, Martin J.
- Crowley, Honor Mary.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- De Valera, Vivion.
- Everett, James.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Friel, John.
- Furlong, Walter.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Heskin, Denis.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Humphreys, Francis.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kilroy, James.
- Kissane, Eamon.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick J.
- Loughman, Frank.
- Lydon, Michael F.
- Lynch, James B.
- McCann, John.
- McCarthy, Seán.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- McGrath, Patrick.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Connor, John S.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Leary, John.
- O'Loghlen, Peter J.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- O'Reilly, Patrick.
- Ormonde, John.
- O'Rourke, Daniel.
- O'Sullivan, Ted.
- Pattison, James P.
- Rice, Bridget M.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Mary B.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Ua Donnchadha, Dómhnall.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Beirne, John.
- Blowick, Joseph.
- Commons, Bernard.
- Coogan, Eamonn.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Costello, John A.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Hughes, James.
- Keating, John.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Redmond, Bridget M.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Rogers, Patrick J.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Kissane and Ó Briain; Níl: Deputies McMenamin and Giles.
Question—"That the Bill be now read a Second Time"—put and declared carried.
Amendment negatived.
When will the Committee Stage be taken?
Next Wednesday.
I submit that it is futile to ask a Parliament that is under sentence of dissolution to receive a Bill of this nature on Monday last and to expect it, particularly after the elaborate description of the details given by the Minister and the elaborate outline of the amendments, constitutional and otherwise, that he is to make in it, to deal with this matter on Wednesday next. The Government are proceeding in a most absurd and irresponsible manner.
The time is short. Will you say Tuesday week then?
The Minister can do anything he likes with the Bill so far as I am concerned. I made the point that it is absurd that an Oireachtas that is under sentence of dissolution should radically change the whole position with regard to one of the Houses. The Government should take the responsibility for what they are doing. They are patching up a Seanad which is their own creation and which was built to their specification. They are doing that in a way which will in no way improve it so far as I can see, and doing it under circumstances in which neither House could give it any consideration of any kind, or indeed the country.
The House has already decided on the merits of the case by 62 votes to 12. I do not want to reopen that.
That is Second Reading, in any case.
If it does not matter to the Opposition, as the Leader says. Shall we put it down for Wednesday?
My protest is only made to drive home to the Government, over the head of the Minister, the absurdity and the futility of their action.
We shall order it for Wednesday next and we probably shall not take it until the following Tuesday.
I have said as much as I want to say on the Bill— that the consideration of it ought to be postponed for six months.
Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, November 26th.