Seanad Éireann debate -
Friday, 12 Dec 1947

Vol. 34 No. 18

Seanad Electoral (Panel Members) Bill, 1947—Second Stage—(Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. Hayes

This Bill, as the Minister has told us, is a very large and rather complicated one, and is based on the report of a joint committee. That statement is true but it is also true to say that the terms of reference of the joint committee were restricted and that, apart from the terms of reference, the joint committee was restricted by the terms of the Constitution. I think it was extremely ill-advised to put into the Constitution details with regard to the constitution of the Second House. The scheme for panel members, which is the only matter dealt with by the joint committee, is actually in the Constitution, is very restricted, extremely foolish and will prove, as many other provisions of the Constitution have proved, to be a boomerang on the farmers. For that reason, it was not possible in the joint committee, as will be seen by the report, for members of the joint committee, who had a view of their own as to the kind of Seanad we should have, to put their views before the committee.

The present Seanad is not in any sense vocational and this large and elaborate Bill will make the Seanad still less vocational than the present body is. The electors of panel members are, as at present, all politicians. What is happening in the Bill is that a greater number of politicians are asked to elect panel members and a very elaborate and complicated machinery is devised by which qualified bodies will put up candidates but these bodies have no power to elect candidates to the Seanad. The electorate is entirely a political electorate and the election will produce an entirely political body. It is proposed to give every county councillor not only one vote but five votes for the Seanad. The Fianna Fáil Party have consistently and persistently stood for the introduction of politics into local elections so that the result of this scheme is to preserve the entirely political and entirely non-vocational character of the Seanad, no matter where nominations come from. The Constitutional provisions for the present panel system seem to be, in fact, a mockery, a delusion and a fraud and this Bill, in its bulk, is also to my mind a fraud.

What I want to suggest very briefly is that we require an entirely new system based upon our experience. I would say that I have no sympathy whatever for those who decry politicians nor do I think that this House, or any Second House, could work, except it had among its membership people who were interested in politics and who had definite political views. I think the Seanad should be completely different from the First House, and one of the first differences I would make between this House and the other House, the Dáil, is that I would not pay to its members a monthly stipend. I would pay members reasonably good expenses for attending the Seanad and I would increase the number of members of the Seanad. I would first put into it a number of frankly political persons on the nomination of the Dáil or the Parties in the Dáil or, perhaps, on the nomination of the Head of the Government in the Dáil. These people would be frankly political. In addition to them, it seems to me that there should be a considerable number of persons ex officio members of the Seanad—ex-Ministers for example, who, in the nature of things, have a certain experience of public business and should have something to contribute to a Second House, the heads of the three Colleges of the National University and the Provost of Trinity.

On that matter, it is interesting to reflect that three of these four gentlemen have had Parliamentary experience. The present President of University College, Dublin, was Leas-Chathaoirleach of this House and a member of the other House; the present Provost of Trinity College was a member of the other House and also of this House, and the President of University College, Cork, was for a time a member of the other House. You could add to these ex officio members the representatives of a number of other bodies, such as the Trade Union Congress or if, unfortunately, there are two, the Trade Union Congresses; the Federation of Irish Manufacturers, and a number of cultural bodies, such as the Royal Irish Academy and the Society of Antiquaries, giving them direct representation, not inviting them to put up people as cock-shots for a political electorate, which is what is happening in this present Bill.

Minister for Local Government (Mr. MacEntee)

It is not.

Mr. Hayes

——Not putting them up to make, so to speak, a political holiday for the people. It should be possible to arrange that people coming from the country to do the business of the Seanad would be paid just quite reasonable expenses. If they did not come, they certainly should not be paid. One of the scandals of the present situation is that members of the Seanad need not attend, yet they will be paid, or they may attend and they may do nothing and still they will be paid.

It seems to me that the question of what the powers of the Second House are, constitutionally, is not of major importance. What is really vital for a Second House is that it should be composed of representatives of different interests in the State who would have power and influence based on the authority and the proved public capacity of their members, and their ability to contribute to debates and to contribute to legislation.

I think a House such as I have suggested would be different from the Dáil and would supplement the Dáil in carrying out the functions of legislation. It would require to have more members than the present Seanad and, although the members would not be paid a monthly stipend, the cost might prove to be not very much less; but it would do the work and it would command respect. I am convinced that until some such scheme is put into operation by an amendment of the Constitution, the Second House of the Oireachtas will lack both reality and the respect which is due to a Second House of a Parliament.

With regard to the present Bill, I think it simply perpetuates the fraud which is in the Constitution, whereby you call this House a vocational House, making an elaborate facade or pretence that it is a vocational House, but you take elaborate precautions to see that it is no such thing. That is one point. Secondly, I doubt whether the provisions of this Bill in giving five votes to each elector is in accord with the provision of the Constitution which says that the Seanad shall be elected on the single transferable vote.

It is not possible in our present situation at this particular time to discuss this Bill in all its details, but that it needs discussion in all its details is obvious when you consider that the Minister introduced into the Dáil more than 40 amendments. If we sat on here last night I am sure he would have let us pass it through all Stages. I do not see any possibility of amending it in the course of next week. I think it ought to be made law as an experiment and only for a limited time, say, 12 months. I shall put down an amendment to that effect, so that, having had experience of one election under this system, the new Parliament, the Dáil and Seanad, would have an opportunity of discussing a better scheme. With regard to other amendments, I think they are not of any great value.

I want to give a good example with regard to brevity. I think we need a House different from the Dáil. We need a House where there would be certainly a political basis and where, in addition, there would be representatives of other interests in the country. We do not need to have as small a number as 60 and we do not need to have the Seanad in the position where it would afford a livelihood to any member—that is one of the things which should be avoided—but I think expenses should be given.

If we could get consideration for that type of scheme, and the necessary amendment of the Constitution, we would get out of the strait-jacket into which the Seanad provisions of the Constitution have put us and we would get a Second House which would work efficiently and which would command respect in the country.

Mr. Douglas

I agree with most of what Senator Hayes said, though I view this Bill from a somewhat different angle. I was not a member of the committee. When its main sittings took place, certain members, with the knowledge of the chairman, were very courteous in letting me have some information as to what was taking place. Unfortunately, I had a three months' illness in or about that time and I found it quite impossible, simply from the typed reports, to know what was happening. I do not say that that would have made any difference. When I received the report of the committee I looked at it with an entirely fresh and independent mind, forming my own opinion of the scheme they put forward.

It is, I think, very little less than a political tragedy, there having been agreement, practically unanimous agreement, that the present system of election to the Seanad was unsatisfactory, and with that agreement existing after the last general election, that we should now find ourselves, a few days or weeks or whatever it may be before the next general election, bringing in, and attempting to pass without discussion, a scheme for a new system of Seanad election.

While I agree with Senator Hayes that before you get a satisfactory Seanad, one which will meet with pretty general approval, it will be necessary to amend the Constitution, I would not go quite so far as to say that it would not be possible, even within the somewhat unsatisfactory limits of the Constitution, to have made a substantial improvement. I cannot see that substantial improvement in this Bill. I am inclined to think, having regard to the fact that the Government wish to have an early election and have repeatedly said so, and having regard to the fact that there is only one week between now and Christmas, that the wise course, both from the point of view of the Government and of the Opposition, would be to go through this Bill once in Committee, see if there are minor points that might be corrected, and then, agreeing that the Bill required full and frank discussion before it became permanent law, to limit its duration to one year. This would be for the purpose of reintroducing it after the next Seanad election, when we would have more knowledge and experience of the difficulties and how it might be worked.

That would be a wise procedure and I put it seriously to the members of the House to consider, before the Committee Stage, whether it would not be better—whether you like this particular scheme or not—to allow it to pass with, perhaps, some minor points which would arise in Committee, and bring it forward again in its present form, not at the end of the next session, but at the beginning, for a full discussion. The new Seanad would, I think, judging by previous experience, not have a great deal of business at the beginning of the session and, if this Bill were reintroduced next March or April, or other convenient time, into the new Seanad—there would be no need to have it first dealt with by the Dáil— it could be discussed leisurely in a genuine effort, in which I hope all Parties would share, to make the best possible scheme.

That might be a way out of what I think would otherwise be a situation in which the Seanad would rather stultify itself. To have unanimous agreement that the present scheme is bad, is faulty in many respects, and then to take a new scheme and pass it through in one week would, I think, open this House to criticism from all sides, which it would be extremely difficult to answer effectively.

There is another important—I think an extremely important—factor. Since this committee reported, the Government have decided to make drastic changes in the system of election to the bodies which are to be the principal electorate of the new Seanad. To the best of my belief, the committee had not that information before them. I do not know, of course, to what extent, even if they had that information, it would have influenced them in their decision. I, for my part, do not believe that four-fifths of the panel members of Seanad Eireann should be elected by local authorities. I do not believe that is the way that you are going to get the best type of Seanad. Whether you like it or not, in so far as members of the Seanad are representative at all, they represent those who vote for them and not those who nominate them, and in the very nature of things, while you will always get, particularly in a House of this kind, a certain number of people who really do not care whether they come back again or not—or at any rate are not going to do very much about it—the fact remains that it is natural that members should have their eye on the people who are likely to re-elect them or who will fail to re-elect them. That being the case, I ask Senators if they are really convinced that four-fifths—if that is the proposal in effect— of the panel members of this House should be elected by local bodies? Are they convinced that that should be so, having regard to the fact that, for all practical purposes, proportional representation is now disappearing in the case of most local councils.

Under a Bill which has received a Second Reading in this House, and which has passed all its Stages in the Dáil, the new Minister for Local Government, after the general election, will decide on the constituencies for the various local bodies. He will not even have to submit the Order to Parliament under which he does so, and for the majority of councils there will be one-member constituencies. I am not now going to debate the merits or otherwise of that proposal. It is one on which there can be a fair difference of opinion, but I do want to suggest that, whereas it may be excellent from the point of view of the local authorities, it does not make it a better electorate from the point of view of electing members to this House.

I should like to say at this stage that I, of course, agree with Senator Hayes that a Second Chamber must have, if it is going to be effective, a considerable number—personally I would say at least one half—of persons with political knowledge and experience. I have no more sympathy than Senator Hayes has or than probably any other member of the House has with the ordinary common gibe about politicians. It is much like the stage Irishman and nobody takes it seriously because we know that politicians are just like businessmen, teachers, university professors or any other section—that is to say that you will find amongst them a number of people who are extremely selfish and also a number of people who are high-minded, people whom one must admire for their personal character. In essence, politicians are no different fundamentally from anybody else, but they are different in this sense that they have an interest in the very large number of matters which have to be dealt with by Parliament. A strictly vocational representative, if he is an expert—we have some in this House for whom I have, and I think all of us have the greatest respect—will, of course, be particularly interested in his special subject, but then he may not take much interest in matters on which he does not regard himself as an expert. Unfortunately or fortunately, under democracy Parliament does not, and cannot, consist of a large number of experts, but when a man or a woman is an expert in one subject, and a real expert, the natural tendency for that person will be not to express his or her views on a subject to which he or she has not given deep study, and that is because that person is a specialist in one subject.

I place little importance on the word "vocational," but I do believe that it should be desirable and that it should be possible to have in a Second Chamber a considerable number of persons who, though generally interested in politics, would have what I call the independent type of mind. We had, I think, an excellent illustration of that last night in the case of Senator O'Dea. The Senator is not in the House at the moment, but he was quite hurt because he thought it was suggested that he would vote for the Government when he disagreed with it. Now, you will not get a House full of people who are going to be hurt in that way, but it would be a good thing if you had a number of them. It would not weaken a Second Chamber as a Revising Chamber.

I am not going to go into minor details on the Bill. As to the larger details, there is one to which I would like to refer, the one which appeals to me most. What I like best in the whole Bill is, I am afraid, unconstitutional, or at any rate I see the very grave danger that it may be held to be unconstitutional. The Constitution in relation to the Seanad is a very strange document. It provides for the method by which the Seanad shall be elected, but it does not provide the electorate. It leaves the electorate to be provided by law, but it provides how they shall vote, and it provides that the election shall be by means of a single transferable vote.

Minister for Local Government (Mr. MacEntee)

May I correct the Senator on that point and ask him to read the precise words of the Constitution?

Mr. Douglas

I will get a copy of the Constitution and read them.

Mr. MacEntee

Because I think that either the Senator's recollection is at fault or else he misunderstands the precise terms of the Constitution.

Mr. Douglas

I am quite willing to admit That may be wrong. This is a point of sufficient important to be made quite clear. The Constitution says that:

Every election of the elected members of Seanad Eireann—

and that includes the university members with whom we are not concerned in this Bill, the 43 panel members are the elected members—

shall be held on the system of proportional representation by means of the signal transferable vote——

Mr. MacEntee

"Of the".

Mr. Douglas

Just a moment,

—and by secret postal ballot.

There was a doubt with regard to the secret postal ballot. The Minister thought that himself and introduced amendments in the Dáil. We do not get a copy of Dáil amendments so that it is extremely difficult for us to find out exactly what changes are being made in a Bill after it is introduced in the Dáil and as it comes to us in the amended print. I think it is rather a pity that Government amendments to Bills in the Dáil are not circulated to members of the Seanad. If that were done it would enable us to see readily what changes had been made. I have read this Bill but in view of what I have just said I intend to re-read it afresh over the week-end.

I gathered from the Minister's speech last night that the amendments made to the Bill were largely of a transitory character, and designed to deal with this question of postal voting. He said that he believed that he had made that position satisfactory. I think he probably has and I am not disputing it, but when you come to the system by which each elector is to have five transferable votes it might be held, I think, that that does not fit in with the plan of the single transferable vote. I want to make myself quite clear. I am not attempting to say that that is right.

The other view is that you could have five panels, that there could be virtually five separate elections, each having a single transferable vote and that that meets the provisions of the Constitution. I hope that is right, because I think the system of virtually five separate elections, if the electorate were satisfactory, would be good. The old system was muddling to voters, no matter who the electorate were. I should like to see that view held, but I am doubtful and other people to whom I mentioned the matter have grave doubts about it. I want to put it to the House that it is a very dangerous thing to bring in a new Bill for the election of a Seanad if there is the slightest doubt or the slightest possibility that it could be held to be unconstitutional. I do not think that anyone would be at all likely to spend money in going to the courts to have it proved that this particular point is unconstitutional, simply for that purpose, but if there were a big moneyed interested which questioned the validity of an Act passed after this Bill because law, it is quite conceivable that it might be prepared to spend money for the purpose of showing, in effect, that the new Seanad was not a Seanad at all, that it was not elected in accordance with the strict terms of the Constitution. I suggest to the Minister that he cannot be certain on this occasion, as on other occasions, as to exactly what the Supreme Court might decide.

I must assume, as, I am sure, is a fact, that the Minister's legal advice is that this is not unconstitutional, because the Minister would not have brought the Bill in otherwise, and I am not setting myself up against his legal advisers; but I am saying that after the experience we have had in some cases in which the matter was raised in Parliament and in which legal advice was against it, and in other cases in which it was not raised and the Supreme Court decided it was unconstitutional, it is not very wise, and in fact is definitely unwise, if there is a doubt, to put a Bill through in a hurry. It would be very much better even to put up with one more election under the old system, much though I hate it personally, than take the risk of the legislation passed by the two Houses in the next six months turning out to be void. Under the Constitution, every Bill has to be passed by both Houses, and if the new Seanad was held not to have been properly elected it could be very serious.

I do not want to raise a scare because it is quite possible that my interpretation is wrong, but the view that it could be held to be one election in which each elector had five transferable votes is not solely my view. It is the view which other people with experience have expressed and I think it only right that I should give expression to it here. I do not propose to argue with the Minister that I am right in this. The only point I want to put is that there is a doubt, and if I were to argue it would be only as to whether there is that doubt and not as to who is right, because I do not feel in any sense competent to argue that point.

I have already expressed my objection to the system under which the electorate is to be, as to four-fifths, members of local bodies. I think that, within the Constitution, the committee could have avoided that. It would have been much better—I am not putting forward what I regard as the ideal scheme, but something which could have been done within their terms of reference and within the Constitution and which, I think, would have been preferable—to have divided the panel members roughly into two— say, 21 and 22—and to have said that half of these are going not only to be nominated by the Dáil, but directly elected by the Dáil and Seanad together. That would be frankly and openly the political half. It could not be unconstitutional, because it is the way in which by-elections have been conducted up to the present, so there is no doubt that it would come within the Constitution. The other half could have been elected, if so desired, by the local authorities. It would not have been idea—I am not convinced that the local authorities are the best electorate—but it would have got over this peculiar situation in which there is this enormous preponderance of four-fifths of the electorate represented by local authorities.

I have no objection at all to a proportion of the House being elected by local authorities. I personally would go further and say that I would not mind having a proportion—I do not think I would go as far as one-third direct representatives of local authorities, apart from nomination by bodies outside. The Constitution does not prevent direct election by vocational bodies, if you want it. Apparently the committee was opposed to that. It is one of the things which the Constitution definitely provides could be done. I would not like to see too large a proportion of the Seanad elected directly by outside bodies, because, if the proportion were too large, it might introduce too great a political elements into these outside bodies, but I do think it a pity that the committee and the Government went whole-hog for an electorate of 1,000, of whom approximately 800 will be members of local authorities and the balance members of the Oireachtas.

When I expressed the view that for my part I should agree to have one more election on the existing basis, I do not think I made it perfectly clear that that was only because of the doubt as to whether this provision is constitutional, but, if you were to have another election on the existing basis, you would at least introduce the new provisions for postal voting and secrecy, which I think nobody would question; but if the danger of its being regarded as unconstitutional is not regarded by the House as serious—I think it is a serious danger—rather than have the election on the old system, I should prefer to try one on the new system, and then have the whole Bill examined carefully and slowly, having regard to the new experience, and see if we cannot get the best possible system.

There are one or two other matters in the Bill about which I have very considerable doubts. Instead of having nominations by certain registered bodies in the further, we are to have proposals for nominations, and apparently—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong and I think will be sympathetic with my difficulty in understanding all the details—according to my understanding of it, after the transitory period, the number of bodies which can propose for nomination is not limited. That means that, on the commercial panel, say, instead of having 15 bodies, we might have 50. We will assume, not that there will be 50, but, what I think is probable, that there will be 30 or 35. I am taking one panel only because it is the one I know most about. Those 35 will include, probably, the present 15, who are the most representative, or believed to be the most representative bodies—there is always a slight argument about one or two—out of the large number of commercial bodies who might otherwise qualify. Under the new scheme you will get another 15 or 20, less representative, smaller less important bodies, added. You will give to each of these bodies the right to propose two for nomination. Their proposals for nomination will go before a new committee on which all the 30 or 40 are to have representatives. What does that means? It means that the smaller and less important bodies will be able to vote out the more important ones and their nominees may not be sent forward. I am speaking from the point of view of the commercial panel. I would respectfully suggest that that is a danger. What do you gain by it?

The present system, I think, is better. It was not perfect. It would require some adjustment, particularly with regard to the committee that was to decide appeals, as to who should be on the register. I am confining myself for the moment to one panel, but the principle is probably the same in all the others. I think it would have been much better to have stuck to your 15 and to have removed the provision by which they must nominate two. I am not sure whether that is removed in the Bill or not. Under the old Act they could not nominate one, which many bodies would have preferred to do. I think Senator Summerfield will agree with me that there were several bodies who would have preferred to have nominated one but were obliged to nominate two and found themselves in a difficulty.

I do not think that out of the 15 you would have too many candidates and, with the large electorate which is now proposed, I do not think that would be any very serious harm. I regard it from the point of view of getting the best representatives and of getting the independent-minded type of person, who may of course have his Party affiliations, which I do not object to for a moment.

I think it is a mistake to have this special, or preliminary election, simply because it will reduce the number of persons nominated because I do not believe it will improve their quality. It is much better to be quite frank about it and what I think will happen is that, assuming you have 30 bodies, you will have two nominations each from the 30 making 60; the less suitable will start a vigorous campaign amongst the members of the committee so that they may get nominated and the most independent-minded will regard that as infra dig and will not do it and may not be nominated. As I said, I am talking of the commercial panel.

I would very much like to know from some member of the committee what they thought they were going to gain by that particular system. In that matter, I think it would have been much better to have left well enough alone, subject to some minor amendments which experience had shown to be necessary.

There are quite a number of smaller matters which perhaps will arise on Committee but my greatest objection to the scheme is making the Second Chamber in this State largely dependent for election on local bodies when at the same time the tendency, for good or evil, has been more and more centralisation and to lessen the powers and authorities of local bodies and when, in addition, you are providing for single-member constituencies. I suggest that it will be extremely difficult, after the new scheme comes into operation in 1950, for any person who could be regarded as representing minority interests, to get elected.

Mr. Summerfield

This Bill is a big Bill. Because of its size it would be hard to expect that it would be free from blemishes but I think whatever blemishes it has are far outweighed by the obvious fact that it is going to remove those abuses which brought elections to the Seanad in the past into the bad odour they had. I find it hard to see how, under the new procedure outlined in the Bill, it would be possible for those abuses of the past to continue and, for that reason alone, I am delighted to see this Bill before the House. At the same time, I join with Senator Douglas in having some little criticism of the procedure with regard to the nominating bodies.

I feel the joint committee which is largely responsible for the basis of this Bill started off in great fashion and then, for some reason or another, broke down halfway. I had hoped that in new elections for the Seanad we would get away from the fact that representatives of important interests, whether they be commercial or any other of the five groups, should again be left to the mercy of political vote. I could speak with great feeling on that. I have had the honour of being nominated for every Seanad election since we got our own Constitution. I have had the equally great honour on many occasions of getting no single first vote at all and yet at the only by election held in my section, when the voting was in the hands of the nominating bodies, I headed the poll. That was when the vote was divorced from political background.

Here, it is well to point out that the nominee of any of the nominating bodies must in fact run three elections. He first must be elected by his fellows who know him best. Then he, with the others proposed for the particular panel, will have his name submitted to a nominating committee which will sift down the nominations to, in the case of the Industrial Panel, 16, I think, to compete for nine vacancies. Then, having got through these two ordeals, the nominee will have to submit himself to a big electorate to many of whom he may be entirely unknown. That is a little defect because, if there is any virtue in the nominating bodies, if they are responsible bodies, and it is assumed that they are because they have been selected as nominating bodies, then they know best the type of men best fitted to represent their particular interests. If, as we all desire, this House should be in fact a more definitely vocational type of body than it has been in the past, then I share the doubts expressed by Senator Hayes and Senator Douglas that under the new procedure the best men from a vocational standpoint will be assured of election.

It is obvious that the voters in the country may know some of the outstanding men in vocations in the City of Dublin, for instance, or in the City of Cork or in all the other important centres but they will not have that intimate knowledge that the bodies which nominate the men have. It is a minor criticism, if you like, but I think it is rather an important one. While I welcome the Bill as a Bill, I feel the good work it embodies might have been better done if some more regard were had to the vocational organisations which the State itself has recognised by making them nominating bodies instead of depriving them of the opportunity of putting the men into the Seanad whom they would best like to see there.

Mr. Counihan

I am surprised at the speeches which I have heard. I think portion of Senator Hayes' speech meant that we should abolish the Seanad completely rather than continue it in its present form. There is one point on which I agree with him, that is, with regard to allowances to Senators. If members of the Seanad were paid only their expenses we would have a very much better Seanad and people would not seek election solely for what they could make out of it. Senator Douglas completely surprised me. A joint committee has been considering this scheme for a Seanad election for a year and a half but Senator Douglas says that we must put it back and consider it again.

Mr. Douglas

I never suggested sending it back to the joint committee. That is the last thing I would dream of doing.

Mr. Counihan

If I understood the Senator aright, he wants this scheme postponed until after the election and that means that it must receive further consideration. If the scheme is all right as it stands, why put it back until after the election? This joint committee was set up at the request of the Leader of the Opposition in the Dáil. I have experience of committees of one form or another and I am proud to be able to say this: the only consideration of every member of that committee was to procure and devise the best possible scheme for selecting a Seanad.

Senators

Hear, hear!

Mr. Counihan

The joint committee was composed of all political Parties of both Houses of the Oireachtas and I do not think that a single consideration to gain any advantage for any particular Party was put forward by any section of that committee.

When I came in to-day I did not intend to say anything on this Bill because I thought it would pass through without any difficulty at all. The joint committee considered every point and part of that scheme. Every member of that committee and every outside member could, if he wished to put forward a scheme, send it in and it would get all the consideration possible and—if Senator Douglas had a scheme to put forward—the committee was sitting for perhaps 18 months and he had plenty of opportunity of putting it in. When I was going to put forward a proposal to that committee I was told that it was no use as the Taoiseach had a cut-and-dried scheme in his pocket and would put it forward as soon as it had reported. I am glad to say that we put forward a unanimous report, which was an extraordinary thing for all the Parties that were there. That Bill is on that unanimous report put forward by the joint committee and now we are asked to come in and pull it to pieces when we all had opportunity——

Mr. Sweetman

We all had not opportunity. That is the whole trouble. The terms of reference kept us within this scheme.

Mr. Counihan

There was no objection to anything put up either within the terms of reference or outside them. We can go outside the terms of reference occasionally. I never heard anyone oppose anything because it was outside the terms of reference, and I give my support to the Bill.

Mr. Duffy

This scheme has already created a split in the Fine Gael Party and judging by the number of resignations in the Fianna Fáil Party in the country it has had a disastrous effect on their fortunes too.

Mr. Sweetman

People in glass-houses——

Mr. Duffy

There are no glasshouses, I am glad to say. We have all got to face the storm but some of us are facing it cheerfully while others are facing it in a most melancholy fashion.

Senator Counihan was right, however, in saying that the Bill represents the implementation of the report and he is correct also in saying that the committee had nothing imposed upon it and that they agreed with regard to the terms of their report. That does not say that the committee were inspired or that they were very wise, but at any rate the Bill reflects the best solution at which they were able to arrive. It can easily be argued by Senator Sweetman that the committee were circumscribed by reason of the fact that they had to report within certain constitutional limitations, but this House is circumscribed in the same way. No proposal can be made by Senator Douglas or Senator Sweetman which would not be examined with relation to Parliamentary provisions. It may be true—and I think it probably is true—that it would be a good thing to get rid of the constitutional restrictions imposed on the Oireachtas in framing a plan for the election of the Seanad.

My own view is that the Bill will not provide an ideal or even a terribly efficient Seanad. No method of getting a Seanad devised in a period of 25 years has provided an ideal Seanad, or even an over-efficient Seanad. If we could hope that certain abuses connected with the present method of electing the Seanad were removed, I think that we would achieve a good deal. I venture to say that what the committee endeavoured to do was to evolve a scheme which would get rid of abuses and which would provide the machinery by which there would be some sifting done between the points at which nominations were made and the nominated persons were elected, and I think this has achieved that. I think in that regard that Senator Douglas has fallen into a very commonplace error. He assumes that the newly-added nominating bodies would be all small bodies which would form an unholy alliance against the existing and more important bodies. The suggestion, as I understood Senator Douglas, is this. There are now 15 nominating bodies entitled to make nominations for the Industrial and Commercial Panel. He assumes, I think, that 15 more nominating bodies will qualify and that thus we would have 60 candidates from which a vetting committee will do some weeding.

He assumes that the newly added bodies are all going to agree amongst themselves that their opponents are the nominees of the existing bodies. Is that not a bit fantastic? Is there not going to be as wide a divergence of interests and of views between the newly added bodies as there is to-day between the existing bodies? I do not subscribe to that view and I think Senator Douglas will feel he has been in error in regard to it.

I would say too, in passing, that by some strange lapse of memory Senator Douglas fell into a serious error when he said that in this discussion we have no interest in the university representatives. Of course we have interest in the university representatives. The biding interest in considering this Bill is the university representatives.

Mr. Douglas

I think I said that in this Bill we are not concerned with them.

Mr. Duffy

I say that in this Bill we are concerned with them. There are six of them in this House and they can join in making nominations to the Seanad. They will have votes on each of five panels for the election of Senators. I do not know whether it has been contemplated or whether it has been adverted to that the university representatives who are not elected under the Bill will, in fact, have an important say in determining who will be elected under the Bill.

Mr. Douglas

So will the nominees of the Taoiseach.

Mr. Duffy

Quite so. I was coming to the point that the 11 persons who are nominated by the Taoiseach will also be entitled to join in making nominations to the Seanad and that they will have 11 votes on each of five panels. In other words, they will have 55 votes in determining who will be elected to the new Seanad. I am not objecting. I agree with the scheme, but I draw attention to this fact because of the observation which fell from Senator Douglas which seemed to me to suggest that he had overlooked the fact that the university representatives, like the Taoiseach's nominees, will, in fact, participate in all the functions of this House in relation to the election of new Senators although they themselves will not enter the House through the avenues provided for admission in this Bill. I think we can claim for the Bill that it does a certain number of things with which we can be generally in agreement. In the first place, it provides a wider electorate. That is important. I think it is an advantage and I think it is something for which we ought to strive.

I am in agreement to some extent with the observations made by Senator Douglas regarding the character of the electorate. It is doubtful wisdom, I think, to extend so considerably that portion of the electorate which represents the local authorities. It is doubtful wisdom to extend that electorate at a time when we are engaged in changing the character of the local authorities. When the committee made the report they were up against certain difficulties. For instance, they were up against agricultural versus industrial interests, country versus town interests, farmers' versus manufacturers' interests. This plan was devised after a good deal of discussion to strike a balance between these various interests in relation to a Seanad electorate. They were not, of course, conscious of the fact that the local authorities in future will not, themselves, be elected under the system of proportional representation. Hitherto the local authorities have been elected on a system of proportional representation, just as members of this House and of the other House require to be elected on a system of proportional representation. That system now goes, as far as the local authorities are concerned.

Mr. O'Donovan

It does not.

Mr. Duffy

Senator O'Donovan says that in this Chamber? It is the most outstanding statement to which I have ever listened.

Mr. Hawkins

It is true.

Mr. Duffy

We have single-member constituencies——

Mr. O'Donovan

The president of this country was elected to a single-member constituency under the system of proportional representation.

Mr. Duffy

The thing is insane. Proportional representation surely means giving proportional to minorities.

Mr. Douglas

You cannot elect one person proportionately.

Mr. Duffy

It is so fantastic——

Mr. O'Donovan

The system is defined as a single transferable vote.

Mr. Duffy

We are not talking of that. I am not talking about the method of counting votes. One of the disasters of the Constitution was to have provided specifically for the single transferable vote because it is regarded as the worst method of expressing the public will under the system of proportional representation.

Mr. O'Donovan

By whom?

Mr. Duffy

By the people who established the system. I would refer Senator O'Donovan, and anybody else who is interested, to a book which was written 30 or 40 years ago on this subject by the late Judge Creed Meredith who examined that system in relation to Ireland in a very thorough manner. He expressed the view then that the single transferable vote was a bad method of expressing the wishes of the people in relation to an election. However, that is not the point which I want to develop. I want to make the point, and I want the House to grasp the point, that in the interval which has elapsed between the completion of the report by the committee and the enactment of this measure the character of the electorate, in relation to about four-fifths of the total electorate, has been completely altered. Let us assume for instance what will happen in an electoral area in County Cork under the new Local Electoral Bill. That area now elects five members to the Cork County Council under the system of proportional representation. In other words, each electoral has one and only one transferable vote. It is wrong to think he has five or six or seven votes. He has one vote. Each person elected requires to get a quota of the total votes cast in the district. Let us assume that the district is a prosperous one in which there is a very considerable number of farmers. It is almost certain that one of the new county councillors under the present system will be a representative of the farmers. If there is in the area a number of small towns and villages in which there are shopkeepers and shopkeeping interests it is pretty certain that there will be one representative on the county council in respect of these interests. Similarly with other interests such as, let us say, agricultural workers. Probably, if there is a small industry or two scattered in the area, the people connected with it may find them seleves with a representative on the county council, and so forth.

Under the new system, whatever may occur in the case of minorities, there will be single-member constituencies in which the person elected must get 51 per cent. of the total recorded votes in the area for which he is a candidate. Now, that may be a good system or it may be a bad one. I am not going to argue the point. It is not the system which operated when the committee made its recommendations giving four-fifths of the Seanad votes to the representatives of local authorities. Let us get that clear in our minds. That was not the position when the committee made its recommendations. I refer to the desire of the committee to secure a wider electorate and I approve of the view that we should seek for a wider vote. The electorate now would be somewhere in the region of 1,000. That is a big improvement on the old system. The new electorate would be approximately four and half times as large as the present Seanad electorate. That may present difficulty to some people but for the country as a whole I think it is a good thing. I do not suggest it will give us an ideal Seanad. I only claim for it that it will give us a more representative Seanad. It should have the effect, too, of removing the risks to which the smaller electorate exposed the country.

There is another matter of considerable importance contained in the report and subsequently carried into the Bill; that is the proposal dealing with the secret vote. Hitherto, whatever else might be said about the Seanad, nobody could say the voting was secret. As a matter of fact, I think it was no uncommon thing for the candidates to mark their own papers in certain instances. It had, at least, reached the stage where certain people felt they had a commodity of some value and handed around a virgin paper for valuable consideration. The proposals in relation to the secret ballot are an improvement in that regard. I am not sure whether the system is going to be a convenient one or not. I am not sure it is the best arrangement. I have a personal view. I do not think it would commend itself to everybody, but I thinks it has its merits. My view is that there should be a specific day for voting, just as there is in the case of Dáil Eireann, and that all the electors should be invited to travel to Dublin, go to a particular office, get their ballot papers in that office and post them under certain conditions in a receptacle provided by the returning officer. The Minister, of course, will say that this would cost a lot of money. Even so. The Seanad is costing a lot of money as it is.

Mr. P. O'Reilly

What percentage would you have then? You would not have 30 per cent. of the votes recorded.

Mr. Duffy

As a matter of fact I think you might have 100 per cent if you provide them with a sufficient inducement to come and vote. You could provide them with a ticket to Dublin, pay them for coming and give them a ticket to the Theatre Royal or the Abbey Theatre. I see nothing wrong with that.

Mr. P. O'Reilly

Enclosed with the ballot paper.

Mr. Duffy

Senator O'Reilly does not approve of my suggestion. It might be a cheap investment in the end. The Seanad costs a good deal of money now. I do not know whether or not it is giving good value for the money. I know sometimes the Minister gets very angry with us and tells us we have no authority to challenge his administration. In fact he sometimes tells us that we would be better off at home instead of wasting our time talking here. Unless we can make some contribution to legislation I think we are wasting our time.

Mr. Douglas

That does not apply to everybody.

Mr. Duffy

Definitely not. At the same time I think some of the Minister's Colleagues do not accept his view and they consider that the suggestions put up here are helpful to them. Sometimes they resist all our suggestions at the commencement as foolish; but they very often finish up by accepting them. We had a satisfactory illustration of that this week where a Minister came along here with a Bill which had passed through all its stages in Dáil Eireann without a single attempts at amendment. When it came in here there were a tremendous number of criticisms and the suggestion was made that the Bill could be altered with advantage. The Minister accepted that view and last night he went back to Dáil Eireann with a whole sheaf of amendments which that House willingly and, in fact, enthusiastically accepted as the considered views of this House.

The next point I would like to mention in relation to this Bill is the question of the allocation of the actual nominating body to a particular panel. I do not think that can be covered as it is a matter of administration—and it certainly is not covered to any great extent in this Bill. I expressed the view to the committee which made this report that certain bodies appeared to me to have been allocated to the wrong panel. I still take that view. I do not want to specify particulars, but I take the view that there should be a different evaluation of the status of a particular body seeking the right to be a nominating body in relation to the various panels and that there should be a more realistic approach to the limitations suggested in the Consititution regarding the qualification for nomination of a nominating body to the panel. I think that applies equally to the qualifications of Seanad candidates. I drew the attention of the committee to one or two extraordinary changes which took place in the character of candidates between the time they were candidates for Dáil Eireann and the time they were candidates for Seanad Éireann. Apparently, they are both adjusted to local circumstances. It is, however, more or less a matter of administration. It is something which we cannot control though we are entitled to draw attention to it.

The next point to which I wish to refer is that raised by Senator Douglas as to whether it is constitutional to I permit for the use of say five votes in relation to five separate panels. The I point raised by Senator Douglas had already been raised in the committee. The committee rightly or wrongly accepted the view that the proposal was within the framework of the Consititution. I do not profess to have any competence to express a view on that. The information conveyed to us was that the point had been examined and that the law officers of the Government were satisfied in regard to it. If they are, I am not prepared to argue one way or the other.

I consider, however, that, unless it is obviously unconstitutional, the method is far preferable to the existing one by which a voter carries his vote down one long sheet of 60, 70 or 80 names. He cannot do justice to his vote because he has lost interest; he has lost count after he has marked eight or 12 preferences. As I said, unless there is an obvious constitutional objection to this proposal I prefer it. I think it is better. I think it is right that the elector should be able to take a concise decision in relation to the people he wants on each panel; that he should not, if he has voted, say, on the Commercial Panel, be asked to exercise his preference in relation to 15 candidates on the Commercial Panel and then pass on to the Agricultural Panel where there are 15 more. I entirely agree with the system. I think it is a good and a wise one and that it is one we ought to support, unless, of course, it can be shown that it is unconstitutional, in which case we have got to accept the law. In conclusion, I wish to say that I endorse what Senator Counihan said. The committee started under a handicap. It started with a disparagement of this House, because there were 15 Dáil members and only seven Seanad members, which I think was the cause of a row at the beginning and probably placed the committee under a handicap in relation to the claim that there should be equality between the two Houses. Notwithstanding that, I think it can be said and ought to be said that the committee acted in a most harmonious manner; that there was little if any indication that the members of the committee were influenced by political considerations or that any particular member of the committee endeavoured to score a Party point or secure Party advantage. I think that ought to be said because I am satisfied it is true.

Pádraig Ó Siochfhradha

Níl Mórán le rá agamsa ar an mBille seo. Maraon le formhór na ndaoine a labhair, aontaím gur feabhsú mór ar an ngléas toghcháin i gcóir na Seanaide an Bille nua, agus molaim é agus traoslaím don Choiste a cheap ar dtúis é agus don Aire a thug os ár gcóir é. Tá feabhsú cinnte ann ar an modh toghcháin agus tá ann cosaint a bhí ag teastáil, do réir gach tuairisce, i gcoinne aon chomhaontachtú toghcháin a mbeadh fonn ar dhaoine é a thriail nó a trialladh roimhe seo. Tá an chosaint sin ann agus is feabhas mór ar an ngléas toghcháin é.

Tá lochtanna sa ghléas seo, ámh. Ag machriamh ar an scéal do dhuine, dáiríribh, is deacair dó gléas níos feárr a mholadh agus is deacair aon chóras eile ná beadh chomh lochtach, bhféidir, a lua nó a mholadh. Caithfimíd glácadh leis, maráon leis an bhfaillí ann, agus an Bille a thriail, agus, ar ball, leis an méid tuisceanna agus eolais a bheidh fachta ag na daoine ó oibriú an Achta, is féidir é fheabhsú arís.

Is ana-dheacair ar fad, taobh amuigh de thoghcháin forleitheadúla ar fuid na tíre go léir, gléas a cheapadh chun Seanad a thoghadh gan locht éigin ann. Sé an locht is mó is léir dhomsa ann ná na gairm-phainéil agus na daoine is rogha de lucht na bpainéal d'ainmniú an chéad lá. Na daoine a thoghann ionadaithe i gcóir na bpainéal ar deireadh, tá siad ró-scartha amach ar fad ó eolas na bpainéal agus a riachtanaisí chan a bheith tuisceanach chun daoine oiriúnacha a thoghadh. I gcás na bnainéal a bhaineann le tráchtáil, le talmhaíocht nó le cultúr, nuair a hainmnítear iad sin ar dtúis, ainmnítear go cruinn iad ó dhaoine a bhfuil baint acu leis an abhar atá i gceist, leis na gnótha, leis na riachtanaisí agus le saothar lucht na bpainéal san. Ansin, cuirtear na hainmneacha sin ar aghaidh le toghadh a dhéanamh as an liosta agus cuirfear breis leis an liosta ó lonadaithe eile chun daoine a thoghadh ón bpainéal sin. Ní dóigh liomsa gur toghadh fírinneach é sin nó gur freastal fírinneach é ar riachtanaisí an phainéail. Bfheárr liom go dtoghfadh an painéal féin ó na daoine is áil leo bheith mar ionadaithe sa Tigh seo. Bheadh sé i bhfad níos sástúla agus níos fírinní, bhféidir, do riachtanaisí na bpainéal a bhíonn i gceist.

Taobh ainuigh de sin, thugas rud faoi ndearna sa Tigh seo a chuir Díomá orm an chéad lá á tháineas isteach. Pé painéal a bhí i gceist agus pé fáthanna a bhí le painéal a chur ann agus a rá go mba chóir go mbeádh ionadaithe uaidh sa Tigh seo, ní hé sin is sóléíre sa Tigh nuair bhíorin gnótha an Tí ar siúl ach gur ionadaithe de ghnáth de dhream poilitíochta de shaghas éigin atá ann agus gurb é sin is bun leis an idirdhealú a tharlaíonn anseo. Cheapas nách mbeádh ceangal poilitíochta ná drong phoiliticiúil ariseo ar chuma ar bith, ach is eagal liom gur amhlaidh atá sé. Is eagal liom faoin scéim nua seo gur mar sin a bheas sé, mar má tá lucht poilitíochta in Eirinn le haithint is iad lucht na Dála agus lucht an Tí seo agus lucht na gcomhairle contaé na dreamanna is so-aitheanta faoi ghnéithe agus faoi dhrong poilitíochta sa tír.

Anois táimid ag cur toghadh an Tí seo go hiomlán i seilbh daoine atá ceangailte go dearfa le poilitíocht i bhfoirm éigin. Beidh toghadh an Tí seo ar fad faoi dhaoine a bhfuil comhcheangal poiliticiúil le dream éigin acu agus sé a thoradh sin gur mó a bheidh éileamh agus tionchur na poilitíochta ar an dtoghadh ná mar bheadh éileamh nó tionchur riachtanaisí na ngairmphainéal le feiscint sa toradh.

Sin é an rud is léir domsa sa Bhille agus i mórán slite is cúis díomá dom é. Tá an-chuid tagairte agus teoraice i dtaobh riachtanaisí gairm-phainéil, go mbeadh toghchán dáiríribh níos feárr ná ionadaithe de dhreamanna poiliticiúla. Sin é an locht is mó atá agamsa air ach mar adúirt mé, ní léir dom conas is féidir dul as, go dtí go mbeidh toghadh Seanad Éireann ar an bpobal ar fad fé mar tá toghadh na Dála. Dá mbeadh sé faoin bpobal ar fad, bheadh an drong phoiliticúil i bhfad níos treise fós sa Tigh sea ná mar tá faoi láthair.

Bíodh go bhfuil na lochtanna sin ann, tá feabhas chomh mór san curtha ar ghléas toghcháin an tSeanaid go bhfuilim an-shásta ar fad an Bille seo a mholadh agus, más gá é, guth do thabhairt ar a thaobh. Ach ní mheasaim go bhfuil deireadh feabhsuithe déanta fós ar an ngléas, agus, mar dúirt an Seanadóir Ó Dubhghlasa, de mholfainn nach mbeadh sé buan ann ach go dtriailfíí é agus go mbeadh gléas eile nó leasú an gléis seo, laistigh de bhliain no dhá bhliain.

Mr. Tunney

I welcome the Bill as an honest effort to make the House representative of all sections of the community. I also welcome the extension in the electorate. After the next election, no reflection can be cast on the members of the House, whomsoever they may be. The Minister said that the ballot paper is filled and sealed in the presence of the Garda officer and if there is any interference with the seal the paper is disqualified. If some maliciously inclined person did interfere with the seal when the paper was going through the post, would that disqualify the paper? I hope it would not.

I rose principally to appeal to the Minister on behalf of the electorate of County Dublin. I agree thoroughly with his proposal not to reconstitute as electors those people who were members of the previous county council because I am satisfied that they do not represent any interest now, such a long period having elapsed since they were elected, but I do feel strongly that a grave injustice is being done to the residents of County Dublin in being denied any voice in the matter of who are to be the future Senators of this country. I can assure the Minister that these electors expressed in the recent by-election their protest against the fact that they are not allowed to elect a county council. After all, if the electors of County Dublin are good enough to elect Dáil Deputies, they should be capable of electing county councillors. The injustice is still greater from the fact that had members been elected to the Dublin County Councils, their votes could be a deciding factor in every panel of members elected to this House. I would appeal to the Minister to speed up an election for the Dublin County Council. Speaking from a long association with public life in County Dublin, I can assure the Minister that the people are very anxious about this matter and I cannot understand why there should be any difficulty about it. I therefore appeal to the Minister to take the earliest possible opportunity to have a county council elected.

Mr. S. O'Donovan

The previous Seanad Electoral Act was very complicated and I am sure any Senator who thought he under stood it and tried to explain it to people outside, even those who were electors, had to throw up his hands in despair and say: "I cannot follow its complications." Actually, this amending Bill simplifies the procedure to a great extent and I should like to join with other Senators in congratulating those who took part in the deliberations of the committee on the fact that they came to an unanimous decision in making these recommendations to the Government. I think that was a good day's work and showed that the members of the House can cooperate satisfactorily in doing a job of work on behalf of the nation. I think they deserve to be congratulated on that fact. I assume that, as a unanimous report was received from this committee consisting of representatives of both Houses, the Government accepted the recommendations in globo and accordingly introduced this Bill.

I cannot understand a member of the committee, such as Senator Duffy, speaking to such a great extent on the question of the validity of the recommendations within the terms of the Constitution. He expressed grave doubts as to whether this system of having a separate election for each panel of five was within the terms of the Constitution. Naturally this must have been considered by the committee and one would expect that a member of the committee, coming to speak in this House subsequently, would not express doubts as to what was done in the committee. I am not a lawyer but to my mind the matter is quite clear because the Article of the Constitution dealing with the elected members of the Seanad is in very specific terms. Article 18, sub-section (4), says:

"The elected members of Seanad Eireann shall be elected as follows:—

(i) Three shall be elected by the National University of Ireland.

(ii) Three shall be elected by the University of Dublin.

(iii) Forty-three shall be elected from panels of candidates constituted as hereinafter provided."

Then sub-section (5) says:—

"Every election of the elected members of Seanad Éireann shall be held on the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote and by secret postal ballot."

If we were to question the single transferable vote as appllied to the five panels of the elected members, we should also apply that to the representatives of the National University and Dublin University. I think the thing is quite clear, that if we were to say that the single transferable vote could be applied to each of the panels constituting the 43 members, we should say it should apply to the universities as well. I do not know whether I have made myself quite clear on that but I think if members study sub-section (4) and sub-section (5) they will see quite clearly that it is quite within the Constitution that a separate election can be held by means of a single transferable vote for each of the five panels which elect the 43 other elected members because they are only a section of the elected members. There are two universities electing the remainder of the elected members.

I see some defects in the recommendations of the committee and I should like to refer to them now. The difficulty I see and anticipate is in the constitution of this nominating committee. You have at present on the Cultural and Educational Panel 15 nominating bodies, each of which has to nominate two representatives. That may mean 30 candidates on that panel. The nominating committee, consisting of five representatives from each of those nominating bodies, must reduce that numbers down to ten, and now I see it must be reduced to six. Senator Summerfield, apparently, had not the amended figures. On the Cultural and Educational Panel there will be six, on the Agricultural and Labour Panels 14, on the Industrial and Commercial Panel 12, and on the Administrative Panel eight. These figures have been reduced from what they were in the Bill was introduced.

I do not think it is work that five-members representing professional bodies will be a bit keen on doing; when they have 30 names before them and, at a committee meeting, they have to reduce that number down to six, it is just the sort of thing that they will not be keen on doing. I do not know what Senators Hayes's feelings will be on that matter. I feel that five doctors, veterinary surgeons, architects and others from the others nominating bodies will not be a bit keen on having this duty imposed upon them of reducing that number from 30 to six.

There is the further difficulty that if this system is to be continued each nominating body actually ought to nominate only one person. That was memtioned by one Senator, that instead of nominating two representatives and subsequently having the nominating committee reduce that number, it would be better for each nominating body to nominate only one. My argument in that connection is that when you have a professional body nominating two representatives, five of them then have to support those two as best they can. It will mean that if they are not unanimous with one and reject the other they will have to divide their votes at the subsequent nominating meeting. It would be more easily worked if each nominating body simply nominated one and, when the five representatives came to the nominating committee meeting they would support their own representative and seek support from the representatives of other professional bodies. Having two there will be a difficulty. They will have to divide their support between the two or else support one altogether with their five representatives and the other, who will be superfluous, will be just put up to be knocked down. I suggest that if this is to be implemented in this way it would be better to have only one nominee from each of the nominating bodies. That will apply amongst the vocational bodies who nominate the representatives of the other panels, just as well as it applies to the bodies that nominate representatives on the Cultural and Educational Panel.

I thoroughly agree with the increase in the number of the electors and the proposal to include the representatives of local authorities. I think it is not right for members of this House, who have so often spoken of the mania for centralisation, to object now to extending the electorate so as to include the representatives of local authorities. It does raise the prestige of a member of a corporation or county council to have the right to elect the Upper House of the State. It is an additional obligation attached to any public representative; it is an additional liability or responsibility on him. It is really commendable that the electorate should be so increased as to include those persons.

This does away with the terribly complicated procedure where each local authority had to reduce its members to seven in order to constitute the electoral college with the members of the Dáil. When we have this recommendation for the separate election of each panel, I cannot see any difficulty. With the reductions that have been made, we are reducing the ballot paper, so to speak, from its terribly complicated form down to what is, perhaps, a too simplified form. It will not be difficult for the elector to mark his paper for the person he wishes to elect. He can decide on the new ballot paper, without any difficulty, the person for whom he wishes to vote.

The recommendation which I have to make is that each nominating body will nominate one person. That will make the procedure more simple still. I recommend the Minister to look into the system, first of all, of duplicate nominations by nominating bodies, and then the system of reducing these numbers down to the appropriate figures as suggested in the section. I think that is the most inadvisable portion of the recommendations. I appreciate that the committee recommended it to the Government in order to make the persons selected more representative of the vocations and, perhaps, give the nominators a certain amount of electoral power.

As has been said by Senator Summerfield, a candidate has to run three elections. He first must be nominated by his nominating body. His name must then be submitted to a nominating committee and finally, if he gets through that, he goes on the panel for election by the electoral college. I believe the nominating committee system could be eliminated or amended.

I think this Bill is bound to be an immense advance on what we had previously. It simplifies the system of election. It simplifies it immensely for the person who is casting his vote that he will not have a ballot paper the size of a newspaper containing a long list of names. But, in some respects it is made more complicated for the nominating bodies who have to send forward representatives for selection and election.

If the Constitution provided for it and if the time should come that a vocational body could elect its members direct to this House, some professions would be in a position to do that. Bodies who have a register of members would have no difficulty in selecting a person to represent them in this House which is, of course, of a vocational nature.

In conclusion, I wish to refer to the remarks of Senator Ó Siochfhradha. He said that he thought when he came into this House that he would see a body constituted of vocational representatives but that he found political representatives. Naturally, every member of this House has political affiliations. Certainly, he must be for or against the Government and while some will be against the Government others will be for the Government. Notwithstanding that, the majority of us who have been nominated by vocational bodies represent the professions that nominated us. Personally, any time I have spoken in this House I have indicated on whose nomination I am here and I have spoken on those subjects with which I am conversant. I have also spoken on matters of political consequence and of interest to the nation.

Mr. Hayes

With which the Senator was not conversant?

Mr. Duffy

Which nation?

Mr. S. O'Donovan

With which I was very conversant, as conversant as Senator Hayes is with them. I am as conversant with the country as Senator Hayes is because at least I am a member of a majority Party and he is a member of a rejected minority Party and I fancy that when the general election is over he will find himself still in that position.

Mr. Hayes

We have gone away from the Bill altogether now.

Mr. S. O'Donovan

You have asked for it and you have got it.

Business suspended at 1p.m. and resumed at 2p.m.

Mr. Hawkins

I wish to join with other Senators in paying tribute to the committee, which gave so much consideration to the question that was referred to them. They certainly gave us a scheme and the most significant thing about it is that the committee have approved of the system that has been in operation, even though it has often been criticised in many places. They have approved of that scheme and have suggested various extensions to it. The suggested extensions which we are now before us in the form of a Bill were criticised by some of the Senators who spoke this morning. Senator Douglas, for example, does not approve of giving our county councils such influence in the election of members to the Seanad. He would prefer a scheme that would be based more on vocational lines.

I put it to the Senator and to the House that the members of our local bodies throughout the country do really represent vocational interests. Apart from whatever political affiliations they may have and in many instances they has none, they are members of county councils, urban councils and corporations, all bodies which are comprised mainly of what are termed independent members. In other words, they are elected because of their knowledge of local government or because of their standing locally in a town, city or county. It is because they have a vocational outlook, apart from their political affiliations, that I believe they are the best people to undertake the task assigned to them under this Bill. After all, the members of the county councils are farmers, labourers or industrialists, and when the time comes to select persons to represent the agricultural community, or labour interests or any other interest in the Seanad, they, in my opinion, have as good a knowledge of the type of person that should be selected as any other group that might be formed for the purpose.

Senator Douglas also objected to that part of the new scheme which increases the number from 15 to 30. He suggested that, because we are bringing in those smaller interests, they may combine to oust the representatives of the larger groups. I suggest to him that it is not because a man is a member of a large group that he is going to be a better type of representative than the man put forward as the representative of a smaller group, or that he will make a better type of Senator. You can get the very best type of candidate from the smallest group in the country, while the biggest interest in the country may put forward a most unsuitable type of candidate. I think that, whether candidates are put forward by large groups or small groups, the selection committee will be able to select those who are best fitted to be Senators, so that when Senators are elected all will stand on an equal footing whether they come from the large groups or the small ones.

Senator Duffy referred to the new method of election for members of local authorities, and suggested that the new system of election will mean the abolition of proportional representation. I hold that that is not correct. In the new system of county council or local elections it is not correct to say that they are all single-member constituencies. All the county boroughs have three seats and urban districts also. Proportional representation was not introduced to give small or large groups representation, but to give the electorat or the voter, if the person of his first choice was not elected, a second and a third choice. If Senator Duffy's argument holds that it was introduced to give representation to smaller groups, then we should not vote for candidates at all but on a party system and let the parties decide who would represent them.

Mr. Duffy

How about those who would not belong to any party?

Mr. Hawkins

Take the case of a local council where all the candidates are independent; because there is no minority to get representation does Senator Duffy hold that they were not elected under proportional representation or that proportional representation was abolished.

I welcome the proposed scheme. Under the system at the present time very large areas are entirely unrepresented, but that matter will come before us on another occasion and Senator Duffy will put his views on proportional representation even more eloquently than he has done to-day.

Minister for Local Government (Mr. MacEntee)

It always strikes me as rather extraordinary that there are so many members of this legislative House who are prepared to deny its essential characteristic. This is a House which deals with public affairs— solely with public affairs. It is not interested in the concerns of private, individuals as such; it deals with proposals for legislation which are good or bad according to the particular aspect from which they are regarded. Naturally, since we deal with public matters our judgment will be influenced by one fact, or perhaps by two. If we are disinterested, then by their general relation to those principles which we think ought to direct and inform the conduct of public affairs; if we are interested, perhaps the motive of self-interest may enter in and we may tend to approach matters less dispassionately, less impersonally, by giving a greater regard to the part which we think our particular interest ought to play in shaping or being shaped by-governmental control. But fundamentally this House is concerned with public matters, and therefore those who feel—as, apparently, the speeches of some Senators would suggest—that this House is to be composed of people who have no definite views about the conduct of the public business, that it should be constituted very largely of those whose sole concern or whose main concern is with the particular interest or vocation which they represent, are, in fact, asking for quite a different kind of Assembly, for some thing of another genre. They are asking for a council or corporation which would manage the affairs of industry and trade and which would be less concerned, or perhaps not concerned at all, with the enactment of laws which affect the general body of the people. I think that Senator Hayes would share my views upon that though, of course, he would not put them forward in, shall we say, such an unqualified way as I have stated.

The Senator must always endeavour to make a little political capital out of everything that comes before the House for consideration. He condemned this Bill because he said it was a Bill which was making an appeal to a political electorate. He condemmed it because, he said, it would tend to politicalise the Seanad. Then he proceeded to give his views as to how the Seanad which he would regard as if not the ideal one at least the one that was best in the circumstances of the time should be constituted and they were, shall I say, rather astonishing. They were rather astonishing coming from the representative of a Party which professes to say: "A plague upon all Parties and upon all politicians"— whenever theirs is not the Party and they are not the politicians who are concerned.

Senator Hayes started off by saying that he would put into the Seanad frankly political persons. I think that that at least was a recognition of the fundamental character of this House with which I shall not quarrel— because I think if people come in here avowedly as persons who are interested in the conduct of public affairs they are likely to devote more time to the conduct of that business than those who say they are not interested in politics at all. Then, in order to reinforce the political character of this House, Senator Hayes proposed to add to it a number of ex officio persons. All ex-Ministers, for instance, he said, should be included. I would be the last to deny that ex-Ministers can and do play a very useful part in the deliberations of this Assembly. However, if I were to say that the compossition of the personnel of this House and the deliberations of this House would be improved by the inclusion of all ex-Ministers I know that I should hear from Senator Hayes the criticism that I was trying to make this place a home of rest for political hacks.

Mr. P. O'Reilly

Perhaps he thinks he is making provision for the Minister after the election day.

Mr. Douglas

Surely that would not apply to "hack."

Mr. MacEntee

I think it will not be necessary. All this is very interesting and I think it is a contribution to the debate which is worth meditating upon and considering. It is very interesting but it is not in the circumstances of the time and under our Constitution as it stands a practicable proposition. The fact of the matter is that under this Bill, in a moderate and acceptable form, all the advantages which Senator Hayes would claim for the method of constituting the House which he has outlined can be secured. The difference between them is that, whereas Senator Hayes would depend upon nomination and privilege to determine the personnel of this House, we rely upon getting a similar result by the democratic system of election.

In order that he might bolster up the attack on the Bill with which he opened his speech—and before he opened his mind—Senator Hayes attacked the special electorate which henceforward is to make the final choice as to who ought to sit in the Seanad as elected members. He said that the proposed electorate was wholly political. Well, that is not the case. The electorate proposed is not wholly political. I agree that it contains a great many members the majority of whom are associated in one way or another with the several political Parties which exist. However, an analysis which was made after the elections of 1945, and which bore out previous analyses, indicated that more than one-third of the people who sit on the councils of county boroughs and county councils are people who have proclaimed themselves to be independent of parties. I am not prepared to say that they are not without views upon public questions. No person who can be regarded as an effective citizen is without such views. I think it would be an ill day for democracy if the management of our public concerns and the settlement of our public problems were to be entrusted to persons who had no particular views in regard to them.

The electorate which has been suggested by the committee is one which is in no way to be despised or condemned.

Mr. Hayes

I did not condemn it at all, Sir.

Mr. MacEntee

It contains men and women with a certain experience of public affairs. Senator Hayes in the course of his speech said that if he had his way a Senator would not be paid a fixed allowance. He would get a certain allowance for expenses. He therefore seemed to think that a Senator should give his service wholly voluntarily and without any sort of recompense for them or without any contribution towards the loss he must inevitably suffer by devoting to public business the time he should devote to his own concerns. He seemed to regard that type of Senator as much more acceptable, from the public point of view, than the Senator who is not in the fortunate position of being able to disregard entirely his own affairs and the conduct of his own private interests. This electorate, of which both Senator Hayes and Senator Douglas were critical, contains all who are members of the Oireachtas in the first case and also—to the extent of no less, I think, than seven-ninths, perhaps even more—men who give voluntary service by serving without fee or reward on our local authorities and who, by reason of the experience which they have gained there and by the general knowledge of public matters which they have acquired in the course of their service on these local bodies, can take a better and a broader view of what the public interest requires than any group, organisation or body which has a narrow vocational interest to look after. Therefore I would say, offhand and without reservation, that the electorate which the committee have recommended is perhaps the best electorate that could have been devised for the purpose of electing the Seanad.

Senator Douglas—and I shall only make a passing reference to his criticism—has objected to the Bill and to the provisions in the Bill in relation to the electorate on the grounds that when the committee was meeting it had no knowledge that a change was going to be made, not in the method of election but in the distribution of the representation on the county councils. The old county councils were elected by the single transferable vote. The existing county councils have been elected by the single transferable vote. The county councils under the Local Government Elections Bill of this year will, if the Bill is enacted, continue to be elected by the single transferable vote. But experience has shown that under the existing system of large constituencies, particularly on the county councils, the representation for the ratepayers tends to be concentrated in the persons of those who live in urban areas or in areas immediately contiguous to urban areas. Under that system there are wide expanses of rural areas which have no representation at all. I do not want to anticipate what I may be saying in the Seanad on the relevant section of the Local Government Bill but, if that Bill goes through, what we are going to have henceforward as constituting the main body of the electorate will be men or women who will have been selected by their immediate neighbours as the persons best suited to represent their locality and to look after the interests of that locality upon the local county council. In that way we hope that we shall reimpose upon the members of the county council that feeling of special responsibility which, I believe, they lost when the present large county electoral areas were devised. We are going to take in, therefore, in the new electorate, people who are more generally representative, more fairly representative, more equally representative — perhaps that is the word I am looking for—of the ratepayers and of the people of their respective counties as a whole. I think that will be an improvement from the point of view of those who wish to see this House not represented solely by narrow vocational interests, narrow commercial or industrial interests, or narrow agricultural interests but who want to see the House—while having regard to these special concerns of the various classes of our people—representative of the people as a whole, through an electorate as it will be constituted if the Local Government Elections Bill becomes law. And that will be a great improvement and will, I think, strengthen this House. I think it will root it much more firmly in a mandate from the people.

That mandate will not be as immediate and direct as that which the members of the Dáil secure. It will not be a mandate which will enable this House to override the Dáil in any way but it will be a mandate which will give this House a greater authority to speak than it enjoys at the moment. I am afraid we are all conscious that because of the narrow electorate, and because of its special composition, which at the present moment returns members to the Seanad, the position vis-a-vis the general public and the other House is, perhaps, a trifle ambiguous and somewhat insecure.

I would like now to go a little further into the question of the vocational character of the House. I will endeavour to show how, so far from the proposals in the Bill tending to divorce the Seanad from the idea of vocational representation, which the Constitution undoubtedly designed should be embodied in the character of this House in whatever form may be most practicable, the proposals in the Bill tend to intensify the vocational character of its personnel. I should first of all, perhaps, emphasise that however suitable the electorate may be, however fitted to its task it may be, the electorate has not in fact the sole voice in the election. It has not an unrestricted choice. The number of nominees who can be put before it is limited and they are carefully selected. They are selected first of all by the members of the Oireachtas in so far as the sub-panels which are to consist of candidates nominated by the Oireachtas are concerned; and, on the other hand, so far as the other nominating bodies are concerned the selection is to be made by bodies who have a definite vocational interest. The electorate is not free to reject in toto the candidates who appear on the nominating bodies sub-panels. The nominating bodies, we know, are non-political. They are non-Party. They are not formally affiliated with Parties. But as their members are not only men who are engaged in business or in agriculture but are also citizens of this country, I am sure that naturally they are composed of men who will take some interest in the affairs of State; but in character the bodies are non-political.

The nominating bodies have the right to make proposals for the inclusion upon the panel of candidates, proposals which they will submit to a special electorate— an electorate composed of members of the several nominating bodies, not of all the members, but of representatives of the nominating bodies. These representatives of all the interests that broadly come within one vocational category will then consider the several proposals that come before them with a view, I presume, to ensuring that their joint vocational interests secure the best possible representation in the Seanad. They will then proceed to select the candidates who will be finally nominated on behalf of, say, labour, on behalf of industry and commerce or on behalf of agriculture and the candidates so put forward by the nomination committee on behalf of these broad vocational categories will then go before the electorate. Now the electors, as I have already indicated, will not have power to reject in toto the candidates nominated by the nomination committees. They must elect some of them. They are not bound to elect them all, but they must elect some of them. The number varies in the case of the individual panels from three out of nine in the case of the Industrial and Commercial Panel to three out of seven in the case of the Administrative Panel. On the other hand, as many as four seats out of seven on the Administrative Panel and six out of nine on the Industrial and Commercial Panel may be filled by candidates nominated by the nominating bodies. But whether the nominating bodies return the maximum number of candidates permitted by the Bill or not, they will certainly return a minimum proportion. In that way, I think that the vocational character of the House will become, as I said, intensified. It will never, I hope, become so intensified that the House will tend to lose sight of the larger public interest with which it has been formed to deal.

Before I leave that question of the nominating bodies, perhaps I might deal with a point which was raised by Senator Douglas. Senator Douglas, I think, was under the impression that the joint committee was inclined to diminish the part which the nominating bodies should play in the election of the Seanad. He asked why, instead of introducing this system of compound nomination which we have embodied in the Bill, we did not allow the nominating bodies to elect directly; why we did not recommend that the nominating bodies should be permitted to elect directly and immediately to the Seanad. The reason why we did not is a plain and simple one: that we, having examined the proposal in all its aspects, came to the conclusion that, in present circumstances, there could be no real election and there could be no statutory regulation and no control of such election as would be necessary to prevent the privilege being very grossly abused, because the nominating bodies as they appear on the present register are in many cases somewhat unformed, without any sort of really definite character and, may I say, somewhat amorphous.

However, we had to take the nominating bodies as we found them. We had to try to lay down rules which would tend to compel these bodies to acquire certain essential characteristics. We had to make certain that they would adopt a regular constitution, that they had a regular method of government, that they were in fact truly representative of the interests which they claimed to represent, and that they were not in fact bodies which were more or less moribund the year round and then revived for the purpose of securing election to the Seanad. Perhaps there has been some reason to suspect that something may have happened in one or two instances previously. For that reason, in order that this matter might be advanced a stage, we did embody in the Bill certain conditions which nominating bodies must fulfil if they are to be inscribed on the register. I frankly confess that the conditions were not nearly as stringent as I should have liked to have seen; but they are there as representing the agreement to which we all came after a great deal of discussion, not as to what was desirable, because about that there was no doubt, but as to what was possible in present circumstances, and that proposal is embodied in the Bill.

Then, in order to ensure that at least there would be a fair scrutiny of the candidates put forward by these nominating bodies who have not yet developed to the stage at which, I think, any member of the committee felt there could be direct election, we introduced this other device of having a nominating committee, hoping that when the representatives of the bodies met, on the average the general standard of the nominating committees would perhaps be a great deal higher than that of some of the bodies who might be entitled to be on the register, and that the question of candidates and the final nomination of candidates would be approached by the general body of the nominating committee in a serious and responsible way.

Two other suggestions have been made in connection with the Bill. Both of these touch the question of its constitutionality. I cannot understand how the suggestion originated that the provisions of the Bill in relation to the voting for the panels are unconstitutional. I can only assume that those who have any doubt in the matter must not have read Article 18 of the Constitution and, particularly, Clause 5 very carefully. I did hear Senator Hayes talking about "a transferable vote." That is not the phrase that is used in the Constitution. The Constitution does not say that every election of elected members shall be held on the system of proportional representation by means of "a single transferable vote." It says something quite different. It says: "by means of the single transferable vote", and the difference becomes significant if we turn to sub-clause 4 of clause 1 of Article 16, where there is a definite and expressed prohibition imposed upon any elector having more than one vote for Dáil Eireann, because that sub-clause says: "No voter may exercise more than one vote at an election for Dáil Eireann, and the voting shall be by secret ballot."

There is nothing in the article dealing with the constitution of the Seanad prohibiting the electors from having more than one vote in electing the Seanad. Furthermore, whereas Article 16 is very explicit as to what persons constitute the electorate for Dáil Eireann where it is provided that every citizen, without distinction of sex, who has reached the age of 21 years shall have the right to vote at an election for members of Dáil Eireann, there is nothing at all in Article 18 about the electorate. Therefore, in no way is the Oireachtas fettered either as to the number of votes or as to the composition of the electorate which will elect Seanad Eireann. That electorate may have one vote or more than one vote if the Oireachtas so decides.

Some suggestion has been made also that we are wrong in having separate elections for the several panels. While there is a reference to the panels in Article 18, the significance of it is this: it relates only to the number of persons who may be elected from any one panel. Sub-clause (2) of Clause 7 of Article 18 says:

"Not more than 11 and, subject to the provisions of Article 19 hereof——"

which Article, of course, puts a coach and four through the suggestion that there cannot be separate elections or more than one vote per elector for the panels——

"——not less than five members of Seanad Eireann shall be elected from any one panel."

That is the only reference to the method of election from the panel.

Mr. Duffy

In regard to the question of the limitation of the number of votes, would the Minister advert to the provision in the Constitution which deals with the election of a vocational Seanad, properly so-called? It seems to me to knock the bottom completely out of the argument of the single vote.

Mr. MacEntee

That is what I said. I drew the Senator's attention to that. It seems to me that we may give the electorate more than one vote. We may set up any sort of electorate we desire. There is no limitation even as to age or as to sex. We can allow that electorate to vote for one panel or two or three or more panels, independently or jointly as we desire.

Mr. Counihan

Is there not a legal opinion on that already?

Mr. MacEntee

Yes.

Mr. P. O'Reilly

Is there to be one ballot paper or separate ballot papers?

Mr. MacEntee

Separate ballot papers. I have dealt with the two legal points. The other suggestion made was that this Bill, being experimental and brought forward in the way it is, its operation should be limited in time. I think we could not accept that proposal. I think if we were to do that, the Bill might be challenged on the grounds of constitutionality because we must always have a law to elect a Seanad, but we have no law which can compel the Oireachtas to legislate. We must have a law to elect a Seanad but we have no law which can compel the Oireachtas to legislate, except indirectly, within a specified time. I think it would be quite impossible to amend a Bill of this fundamental character so as to fix any definite period during which it would be effective and after which it would cease to be effective. We can only do that by repealing the Act as a whole and substituting another Act for it. In any event, I submit that even, in view of the arguments put forward in support of the proposal that a time limit should be embodied in the Bill, the proposal itself is unjustifiable, because what has been said is that this Bill is largely experimental. We admit that and we are quite prepared to state that we are giving it a trial. If we are going to try the experiment then we must try the experiment under normal conditions.

It has been suggested that the time limit should be for a period of one year, but the next general election to the Seanad will not be conducted with all the provisions of the Bill in full operation. For the purposes of the election, the existing nominating bodies on the existing register are going to be taken as the nominating bodies for the purpose of making proposals under the Bill. Therefore the conditions which the Bill would impose on groups or organisations seeking to be registered on the register of nominating bodies will not be applied in the case of the existing register. The Bill cannot be fully operative until we are in a position to compile a new register of nominating bodies. It is hoped that will be done within 12 months but we are not certain whether it will or not. Until we have had an election with all the provisions of the Bill in full operation, including those relating to the registration of nominating bodies and the nominating committees which will be constituted by the representatives of those bodies, we cannot be said to have tested the Bill at all.

Therefore I would suggest, since the House realises that the Bill is the work of the representatives of both Houses, meeting in council and in calm discussion trying to carve out a method which would be acceptable and workable, that it should take the Bill as it stands, without any reservation in regard to time, and that we should apply it not merely for one impending general election but at least for one election thereafter. After that has been done it will be open—indeed it will be open prior to the next election— to any member of the Oireachtas, if he feels it incumbent upon him to do so, to bring in a Bill to remedy any defects which experience at the next general election may show to exist in the Bill. Until we have actually seen the Bill working, not merely at the impending general election but working at an election which has been held after the register of nominating bodies has been compiled in accordance with the terms of the Bill, I think we cannot have a full tryout of the Bill. I do not think there is any merit in the proposal that we should now insert a time limit clause in the Bill.

Question agreed to.

An Cathaoirleach

Committee Stage now?

Mr. Sweetman

No.

Mr. MacEntee

Then perhaps the Committee Stage could be taken on the first sitting day next week.

Committee Stage fixed for Wednesday, 17th December.