A provision which gives the power to override the decision of the Seanad. However, I shall leave it. In relation to this measure, we must consider if there is any public demand for it and the lack of such demand from any section of public opinion, coupled with the lack of any mention of it in the course of the last general election by the Government Party, affords the proof that there was no demand. If it were in the minds of the Fianna Fáil Party at the last general election, they carefully kept it from the public whose will they now purport to respect so very much. There was no public demand, and I challenge the production of one title of evidence from any Fianna Fáil Party member to show that at any level of national or local government, in borough council or urban council, in Muintir na Tíre, Macra na Feirme or the Country Women's Association, in Church or State, in any shape or form, there was any demand for this change, or even any debate prior to September last in which P.R. was the subject matter of discussion.
If we had any doubt that the Taoiseach's press conference last September was the first time this proposal was mooted to the public, that doubt was dispelled by the recent letter which was published over the signature of the Minister for Industry and Commerce appealing for funds for the referendum and for the Presidential election. In that, he is asking for funds that will ensure a vote "worthy of Mr. de Valera," as he puts it, and "sufficient to carry the proposals in the referendum which he has proposed." There we have it from the Tánaiste himself that the proposal comes from the Taoiseach.
That leads me to the attempt of Deputy Booth yesterday to distinguish between boss control and Party discipline. Deputy Booth sought to tell us and to impress on us that boss control was entirely absent from the Fianna Fáil Party; that Party discipline was their guiding rule. He defined Party discipline as "that discipline that emerges after a full, free and frank discussion within the Party of any contemplated changes" and that "after a vote in the Party upon such changes, majority rule was accepted and made the Party policy". How can anybody dare to say that Party discipline, as so designed, guided the introduction of this proposal into the House from the Fianna Fáil Party, when the Taoiseach himself in September told the members of the Press that he had not even discussed it with the Government, that his own Ministers did not even know what was in his mind at that time? Eventually, I suppose it came to them. Then it came to the Party meeting at which we were told there was unanimity. We have also heard otherwise, but that is of no consequence because, as Deputy Norton put it yesterday, when paint and feathers for war are required, every member of the Fianna Fáil Party dons the necessary equipment and prepares for battle at the Chiefs slightest exhortation.
We had the same thing at the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis—not a dissenting voice—and now we have been debating this subject in the House for practically six months. Why was this House summoned for January 7th this year instead of in February, as usual? Deputy Loughman told us today— and I take it he was speaking with the authority of the Fianna Fáil Party —that were it not for the fact that Opposition speakers spoke for so long and obviously so ridiculously this referendum would be taking place in this month, and that that was the intention of the Fianna Fáil Party and, obviously, the intention of the Taoiseach.
Why were we recalled on 7th January? It was a fraudulent move to secure a fraudulent objective. The Fianna Fáil Party had taken into full consideration long prior to the Christmas recess that there was a possibility that they might be beaten in the Seanad. They had taken into consideration the 90 days' delay that would be the inevitable consequence of such a defeat and, making allowance for the actual speaking power on the net talking days in Dáil Éireann, they made certain, by recalling us on 7th January, that the referendum would take place on the same day as the Presidential election and that it could not go beyond it.
I solemnly believe that; I believe that the vast majority of the country believe it, in spite of Deputy Loughman's pronouncement to-day that it was the intention of the Fianna Fáil Party to hold it this month, in which month, by the way, the Presidential election could not take place.
We must examine, then, in the absence of demand, in the light of the Dáil being summoned unusually early, in the light of all that has taken place and all that has been said, the motive behind this proposal. We are asked to believe that its purpose is to give effective government. We were told the other day by the Minister for Education that it means our economic survival. We have been told by various Government speakers, including their Ministers, that it is an effort to avoid the calamities that overtook other European countries as a result of P.R. Nobody has proved in the course of these debates that, where countries did suffer calamities, P.R. was responsible. Neither has anybody proved that the particular form of P.R. —of which there are upwards of 200 forms—being used in those countries where violent changes took place politically was the same form of P.R. as we have here.
In regard to the form of P.R. we have here. Deputy Dillon has been taken to task for being at one time opposed to P.R. and now seeking to defend it. If I interpret what Deputy Dillon said on all the occasions which are brought up against him now, he was opposing P.R. as debauched by the Electoral Acts of 1943 and 1947 by the Fianna Fáil Party in reducing the multi-seat constituencies, coupled with gerrymandering in some of the constituencies, in order to effect a Fianna Fáil majority at all costs.
The motive is pretty clear. Whatever we may hear about economic survival and whatever we may hear about other countries, the motive is the very simple one of trying to get rid of any possible circumstance wherein the Fianna Fáil Party might be defeated again and to ensure—I use Deputy Norton's words deliberately—that they rivet themselves in power on the votes of something around 35 per cent. of the electorate. Last evening, Deputy Loughman solemnly avowed that he understood the P.R. system. He gave us examples and tried to make deductions to prove a certain point. All he succeeded in proving, in fact, was that either he did not understand the system or that his case was not sound.
Deputy Loughman took the constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny as an example. He sought to prove that the five persons elected for that constituency were the five persons who secured the five highest number of votes and that the single non-transferable vote would make no difference in Carlow-Kilkenny. However, he omitted to demonstrate that the people there with the five highest number of votes were three Fianna Fáil and two Fine Gael Deputies. But if the Carlow-Kilkenny constituency is divided into five neatly-arranged strips, the result at the next election will be not three Fianna Fáil and two Fine Gael candidates but five Fianna Fáil candidates, which is exactly what the Fianna Fáil Party want on a 35 per cent. vote.
On the Second Reading of this Bill, Deputy J.A. Costello asked the Taoiseach what had brought about the change of mind since 1937 when he used the now well-known phrases "The system we have we know. We have to be grateful that we have P.R." Everybody knows these phrases now. At that point. Deputy Dillon interjected and said "1948". The Taoiseach, apparently for once off his guard, gave a straight answer and said "Precisely". His attitude was: "P.R. defeated me and my cohorts in 1948 and again in 1954 and I am determined to abolish it, lest the Party I am now attempting to leave should, without my wisdom, counsel or almost mystical presence, suffer similar defeats again."
This is not a question as between single-Party government and coalition government. Nobody has proved here that coalition Governments are any more unstable or less effective in the implementation of policy than the single-Party Government or that, even going further, in countries where the Straight vote operates or, as I prefer to call it, the "limited" vote, there are fewer coalitions. In England, in the period from 1924 to 1942, it is a fact that in only 5½ years of that time did a single-Party majority operate in the House of Commons. As Deputy Norton also said, I fear that appeals to the Taoiseach at this stage to pause and listen to the voice of reason, to give the matter further consideration, would be useless having regard to his history in all those respects.
Deputy Loughman said yesterday that all symposia arranged by chambers of commerce and other bodies had been arranged beforehand obviously in collusion with various members of the Opposition. I have spoken at some of these. There was no such collusion. Everybody who came to them was interested. At some of them, votes were taken. As they went on, it was remarkable that it was the Fianna Fáil Party that first objected to votes being taken at such symposia.
I am going to a symposium shortly, organised by a voluntary organisation. Before the Fianna Fáil Party agreed to send a speaker, they sought to impose three conditions—(1) that there would be no vote; (2) that there would be a neutral chairman, which is normal enough, and (3) that the Press would be allowed to give only a summary. There is an example of muzzling the meeting with regard to a vote and muzzling the Press with regard to what would be said at the meeting. I am happy to say that that voluntary organisation did not accept those conditions. I am equally happy to say that Fianna Fáil, having failed to establish those conditions prior to sending somebody, are now sending a representative.
The very latest argument by Fianna Fáil as to what might emanate from P.R. was given to us yesterday afternoon by Deputy Booth who said that P.R. might give Communism. He quoted a gentleman named Togliatti, who wrote an article in the real Pravda under the heading, “The Possibility of Using the Parliamentary Path for the Transition to Socialism.” That is the brand new reason for abolishing P.R. Side by side with that. Deputy Booth sought to tell us that the evil of proportional representation was that it created a political minority and cited and named Deputy Dr. Browne as an evil of proportional representation. I wonder what the 6,000 or 7,000 people—I am not certain of the figure—in Dublin South-East who voted for Deputy Dr. Browne think of Deputy Booth's indictment of them? Deputy Booth says: “Much worse, it allowed him to create a political Party”.
To what end are we moving? Do we propose, through the medium of Parliament, to stifle all independent thought? I would have thought that it would be better to have a Parliament made up even of independent men of widely divergent views, irrespective of what those views were, once they were sent here by the various people in the various constituencies rather than that the people in those constituencies would be deprived of the right of electing whomsoever they wanted to elect. Deputy Booth bewails this opportunity, inherent in proportional representation, as he says, to create political minorities. Why cannot there be political minorities? What is wrong with them once the people will it?
I have already referred to the obsequious pandering in words to the will of the people on the part of speakers on Government benches. What is wrong with the will of the people once its result is either to create or to elect minorities? I find Deputy Booth very much at variance on this minority question with the Minister for Health and Social Welfare who, as late as 1951, on the occasion of the General Election, said they wanted minorities. He was referring to P.R. when he said that Fianna Fáil did not want to destroy minorities, that they wanted to have them represented. Again, of course, they have changed their minds in that respect.
Deputy Booth also referred to the operation of this system of the single-member seat and the single nontransferable vote in the Six Counties of North East Ireland. He was quite complacent about it. He said it was right there, that the result was right and everything was grand and that if the Opposition had lost face in any way, had lost strength in any way, it was their own fault. I do not know if that is the view of the Fianna Fáil Party now or not, that the situation in Northern Ireland is to be approved through their spokesman, Deputy Booth.
I asked him a question, "What about the uncontested seats?" He ran away from that. Really, the big trouble in the Six Counties resulting from the uncontested seat is the absence from the minds of the people of any idea in relation to Parliament or its relationship with them. Such a situation cannot be other than frustrating in the extreme. It drives people into channels of thought and action into which they might not be driven if they were afforded the opportunity of sitting side by side with, or even opposite to, the representatives of other interests in the Northern Ireland Parliament. I am firmly of the view that if proportional representation obtained in Northern Ireland, even with three-seat constituencies, in most of the constituencies there would probably be two Unionists and one Nationalist elected. I do not care whether you identify Unionists with Protestants and Nationalists with Catholics or not. If there were a situation in Northern Ireland whereby, say, the three members, two Unionists, Protestants, one Nationalist, a Catholic, would be going on deputations to the Minister and would be conferring together about matters of common interest, it would start that healing and unifying influence within that area much better than the present frustrating situation admits of and, indeed, actually impedes.
I want to be perfectly clear on this. In a country of our history, whose political maturity is not as yet of the highest, by reason of historical movements and various consequences of political changes, the initiation of native government, civil war and all the other things that go to make up our political history, I would not support the system if it meant, for instance, that there were to be three Fine Gael Deputies in the area which now makes up my own constituency of North Mayo. It would be embarrassing in the extreme. The ease with which a person can appproach the person who represents him in Parliament is very important in the political life of a nation, particularly in our political life. In the present scheme of things, those who elect me in North Mayo write to me when they want anything done. When I am in Government they write to the other Deputies. In the main, the people go to the Deputy for whom they vote.
It would cause considerable embarrassment if the people had to move away from that system and had to go to Deputies for whom they did not vote and ask them to do something for them. Eventually, after a few elections—this could happen in favour of Fine Gael or of Fianna Fáil or of Labour—we would have a situation where people would stop contesting elections in certain constituencies and you would be faced then with the problem of a discontented minority who would lose all interest in the public weal, who would take no part in public life, good, bad or indifferent, who would say: "Let them carry on from one election to another". That is the situation which obtains in Northern Ireland at the present time. It is certainly not a situation that I would welcome here.
There is another point. Assuming that the referendum goes through, a great majority of constituencies will be built around towns or heavy centres of population and the result could be that there would be an urban Dáil as opposed to a rural Dáil. In certain parts of the country there would be vast numbers of people who would be unrepresented. It is possible that on the reorientation of all these matters you might have a stretch of country for which there would be Fine Gael Deputies only and another vast stretch from which you would have only Fianna Fáil representatives in the Dáil. The opposing people outside Parliament in both stretches would be unrepresented and their voices never heard. I do not think that is a situation which the rank and file of the Fianna Fáil Party appreciate—I speak particularly now in relation to rural Deputies—but it is appreciated by those who represent the towns and cities.
You will not bring about any unity as a result of this referendum—that unity of which the Minister for External Affairs spoke here yesterday. With the exception of the natural antagonism of the Labour Party, as a minority, to the abolition of a system and its replacement by one designed to make that minority a still smaller one, I think—this cannot very well be denied—this whole campaign both inside and outside the House is being fought on the resurrection of hatreds, bigotries and indifferences of opinion which should have long since subsided.
Not for one moment do I profess to be a saint because, under provocation and in the heat of argument, one thinks up the counter-argument—an argument that very often would be better left unsaid. But, human nature being what it is, one will have that heat in debate, in argument and counter-argument, engendering further hatreds and bigotries and resulting in a situation in which unity and unified effort become well-nigh impossible.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce in the course of the Budget debate spoke of his longing for the day when this House will really become a deliberative assembly. The amendment in the names of Deputy Costello and Deputy Mulcahy asks that this House should act as a deliberative assembly now. Speeches have been made, principally by Ministers, in the course of this debate which would have been better left undelivered. They were calculated only to revive bitternesses which might prove useful in a subsequent electoral contest.
I cannot leave this discussion without referring to Deputy Haughey's speech. I want to know principally whether it is the Fianna Fáil creed that policies are something to be implemented for the good of the people, or whether they believe they are something deliberately conceived to bluff the people? Here is what Deputy Corry said at Col. 1399 of Vol. 174:—
"Surely no one will tell me that if Deputy Mulcahy, Deputy John A. Costello, Deputy Dillon and the rest of that Front Bench spent a third of their time thinking out a decent policy for the next election—if they could agree on it—they could not bluff the people?"
Is that what is inherent in policy? Is policy something with which to bluff the people? I should hate to think that even the Fianna Fáil Party would have that view and I should like some responsible Fianna Fáil speaker in the course of this debate—whatever little is left of it—to disown that statement categorically, a statement which more than impliedly asserts that policies are something conceived deliberately for the purpose of bluffing the people. At times, we know that they do. People are bluffed. Nevertheless, I should hate to think that it would be a sustained and progressive part of our political development that the bluff would go on proportionately to still greater lengths, until eventually we would reach the stage wherein Parliamentary institutions and the public men who constitute them would be in the same position as the boy who cried "Wolf!" too often.
Parliament, as Deputy Faulkner pointed out correctly, is the manifestation of the will of the people. It is something sane. It is something sound. It is something that should be preserved. It is something in which opposition, whether it be made by one Party or by several Parties acting together, is essential to ensure that very necessary vigilance vital to the national life of any democratic country.
In this debate on proportional representation we have rambled all over Europe. I heard the Minister for Health say at a disputation in the Marian College in Ballsbridge that proportional representation was something, in the last analysis, designed by mathematicians. That, I felt, was a statement of gross disloyalty to his mathematician leader. In all the ramblings all over Europe, France was pretty well abandoned fairly early on when it was discovered that proportional representation was in operation in France only for a few years after 1945.
The arguments in relation to Germany and Italy are unsustainable when viewed in their proper perspective. Mussolini rose to power in Italy in 1922. Hitler was well on the road to power in the early '30s. Ascribing their rise and the tragedy that followed to proportional representation merely has the effect of belittling the intelligence of those responsible in the Fianna Fáil Party for putting proportional representation into the 1937 Constitution after the example of the 1922 Constitution.
I do not think one needs to go outside our own country at all. It is a geographical unit and within that unit, a singular contrast exists. Contrast what happens on one side of the Border with what is happening on the other side. If the desire is to abolish proportional representation here to achieve the set of circumstances, which Deputy Booth holds rightly obtains in the Six County area at the moment, then, surely, the motive is to give an assured long-standing majority to one political Party and a voice in the affairs of the nation to no other Party, or Parties.
I view this whole proposal with suspicion in face of the avowed statements by the Taoiseach and those supporting him that this is designed to prevent coalitions and ensure stability when neither of these arguments can be made to stand in face of analysis. Deputy Gilbride gave a fair interpretation of these proposals when he came into the House on the Second Reading debate and said that the Fianna Fáil Party were loyal to their leaders, loyal to their country, loyal to those who sent them here, namely, the Fianna Fáil voters, and it is for that reason they are willing to take a chance: "We are loyal to those that come after us and we are willing to take the chance to give them security." That kind of security is riveted in Craigavon and Brookeborough or the succession of less safe heads in the Kremlin.
I do not believe you will achieve any unity by this. I do not believe you will achieve anything in the way of national well-being or advancement. I believe that once again a division is being created among our people that will have no other result than the impeding of the national effort, the destruction of public confidence, an added impetus to emigration, and no cure for the unemployment which besets us.
I do not know whether it is too late —in fact it might be even too early— to make a final appeal, not to the Taoiseach, but to the younger people on all sides of the House, to consider the matter in this way: Do they know any shopkeeper or any farmer, big or small, who, having arrived at the end of his effective days, calls his sons together and says to them: "The system which made my shop or my farm a success over all these years was a bad system; you change it now to another system which I think will serve you better"? Do you know anybody like that, and if you did, would you not suspect his motives, and would you not think that such a desire for such a change was far removed from the advancement or betterment of his family?