Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 17 Feb 1960

Vol. 52 No. 6

Seanad Electoral Law Commission: Implementation of Recommendations.

Professor Stanford

I move:—

That Seanad Éireann is of opinion that the Government should introduce legislation to implement the recommendations of the Seanad Electoral Law Commission.

Perhaps I should first say one or two words about the background to this Commission. The Commission was appointed by the Government after a debate in the Dáil which took place on 20th November, 27th November and 4th December, 1957, reported in Volume 164 of the Dáil Debates, column 835 and what follows. The motion was fairly direct. It was simply this: "That Dáil Éireann is of opinion that Seanad Éireann as it is at present constituted should be abolished." Some pretty hard things were said about Seanad Éireann in that debate. I think it is unnecessary for me to repeat them. But I shall mention some of the more constructive things that were said.

First of all, the proposer of the motion, Deputy Noel Browne, did say in connection with the vocational organisation of the Second Chamber: "In the vocational bodies, there must be a fund of experience and a special knowledge which would be of great value to us here in formulating legislation, amending legislation and perfecting legislation." The difficulty as he saw it was how to find a way to enlist this valuable help to the legislature.

In the course of the debate, Deputy O'Donnell praised the Seanad to some extent and pointed out that Fine Gael had always been on the side of the Seanad. Later, Deputy McGilligan justified, as he thought and as I think, the expenditure of some £50,000 a year which he reckoned was the cost of the Seanad to the country. Then towards the end of the debate, the then Taoiseach, Mr. de Valera, spoke. I quote Volume 164, column 1454-5. He was speaking about his aims in 1937 in the new Constitution:

My hope at that time was that, after a period, we would be sufficiently organised vocationally in the country, and that the panels which were indicated in the Constitution would be such, that the members for these panels could be elected directly by vocational bodies. I still have a hope that that day may come, that it will be possible, after we are organised sufficiently, to allow the vocational bodies to elect members for these panels directly. I thought that, in the meantime—and there I have been completely disappointed—the method of nomination would so limit the number of persons who would be going up for election that, in fact, no matter what the electorate was, as the panels from which the electorate had to select would be definitely of a vocational character, the electorate would not matter very much. In that I was disappointed, because the tendency has been for the bodies which have the right to nominate the panels to have regard to the electorate in selecting people to represent vocational groups. They look forward to having persons elected by the electing body, and since these electing bodies comprise members of the Dáil, the county councils and so on, since the electorate is of a political character——

With great deference, I challenge the use of the word "political" in that sense; and I shall challenge this later on

——the names are thought of rather from the political Party angle than the purely vocational one. It is that that has prevented the aim I had in the Constitution from being achieved.

He went on to say that he would agree to appoint a commission. On the basis of that, Deputy Browne withdrew his motion and the debate ended. The Commission was set up shortly afterwards. Obviously this debate reflected a good deal of public discussion in the country for the past 15 years. As such, it deserves both the respect due to a debate in the other House and as voicing widespread public opinion. I think we should keep that in mind clearly in our debate this evening.

The Commission was appointed on 8th May, 1958 and concluded its work on 26th February, 1959. Here I should emphasise the terms of reference of the Commission. It will save some unnecessary argumentation this evening, if we keep this closely in mind. The terms of reference of the Commission were these: to make recommendations regarding any legislative changes within the provision of Article 18 and 19 of the Constitution which the Commission would consider desirable. Now, those were the terms: "within the framework of the Constitution," and although we need not restrict the debate to those terms this evening, in discussing what the Commission did, it is important that they should not be criticised for going outside the terms of the Constitution because in fact they were not entitled to do so.

In the Report, there was a very large measure of agreement, although it was a varied and representative body. There were only two dissentients,—one was Deputy Corish who represented the Labour point of view, that the Republic did not need a second Chamber—and the other, a point, by Major de Valera I shall refer to later. The Report is complex in detail. It would be quite impossible to go into the numerical abstrusities underlying it in our debate this evening. I think we may get somewhere if we confine ourselves mainly to general principles and to the one chief recommendation.

Let me first say something about the general principles which are involved. First of all, we are committed in the Report of the Commission to maintaining a second Chamber. We know that one of our political Parties does not believe that a second Chamber is desirable. But I would appeal to the members of that Party who are in the House to join the debate on these terms—I think it is a fair proposition—to join on the formula that as long as Seanad Éireann remains with us, it should be made as effective as possible for the purpose of promoting good legislation, of influencing public opinion and for the general welfare of the country. While we have it, let us try to make it as good as it can be. I do not suppose that anybody, the Labour Party or others, would object to that principle.

Now we come to the first difficult question. Supposing we are to continue to have a second Chamber, what is the best kind of second Chamber? It has been much discussed since 1922 and there has been plenty of disagreement, and I imagine there will be some disagreement this evening, but it is fairly widely agreed that the Seanad should not be a kind of second edition of the Dáil. It should be different not merely in the persons but in the system of election, and a good many people have held the view that it should not be directly controlled by the political Parties.

Here we come to a crux, and I am well aware of it. I should like to emphasise my own views—shared I think by a good many people—on the political Party system. It can be a beneficial system; it is the only workable system at present in many countries. It can do harm and it can do good. Like any machine, it is morally neutral: it depends on how it is driven. Like a motor car on the roads, sometimes driven recklessly and badly and sometimes driven well. Therefore, I hope that members of the Parties will not take it that because I am an Independent, I am hostile to the political Parties. I am not. Our country has been reasonably well governed by them for a very long time.

I should like to say that I recognise in this House, for example, how often it is that the Party members keep a quorum in the House. Sometimes the Seanad could not continue, unless the devoted and loyal Party members stayed on until 10.30 or 11 p.m. when many of the less closely involved members tend to go home. I just wonder whether there might not be a risk that sometimes the House would not be kept if the Party system were not there to keep it. So I am simply trying to show that the Party system has a very valuable function in the Seanad. What I argue is this: it is not the only desirable system; it is not the only conceivable system of electing House of this kind. I am arguing, as many have done, that there is room for independence and room for something like vocationalism.

Before I return to the Report, may I say something else? I most deeply deplore the misuse of the word "political" by the highest in the land to the lowest in the land. It is constantly used in this House as a term of abuse or depreciation. People get up and say: "I am not being political." My reaction to that is to feel inclined to get up and say: "If you are not being political, go out of this House."' This is a political body in the noble sense of that word, as well as perhaps in the ignoble sense, and it is really most deplorable for the young people of this country that they hear experienced politicians talking of being political as if necessarily it was a bad thing. Once again: politics may be good, bad or indifferent, but at its best, it is the noble art, the kingly art.

Just a few minutes ago, my colleague, Senator O'Brien, reminded me of how Cardinal Newman had praised training for politics, how Cardinal Newman had reminded his hearers that the chief object of a liberal education in Greece was to produce a nobly political man. So it offends me when I hear that noble word constantly being abused. We ought to discriminate between politics in the general sense, good or bad, Party politics in the general sense, good or bad, and independent politicians in the general sense, good or bad, and not degrade that noble word.

Here I should like to quote Deputy Major de Valera's addendum to the Report. He insists very rightly—this is on page 25 of the Report—that the Seanad must be a political body or else it simply does not deserve to exist. He is afraid if the Parties go, sectional interests may increase. I hope to meet that point of view in a moment or two, but I think we all welcome his insistence that we must all be politicians here. Our job is to make this House as good a political body as we can and the question is: how can we do it?

If it is entirely a replica of Dáil Éireann, with different people but thinking in the same way and voting in much the same way, it will not, I think, deserve its place in the nation. Many people have held, and the then Taoiseach emphasised this in the debate in the Dáil, that the best thing to do is to give the vocational system of organisation a chance. I should say it has had some chance already. We have in the Seanad men of vocational background who are serving the purposes of the Seanad well. But there are a good many people in the country who feel that we need to increase that element to increase the vocational slant, so to speak. Here I imagine a good many people would say: "You are wrong; vocationalism is not the answer." Well, I wait to hear those views expressed later in the debate. For the moment will the House allow me to go on the assumption that vocationalism may be the answer? What then?

I now turn to the text of the Report. First of all, I should like to point out that we members of the Commission heard plenty of views on the matter. On page 29, and the following pages, will be found a list of some 34 different recommendations for the reformation of the Seanad. These were considered well and carefully. Yet an almost unanimous recommendation emerged. The essential page in this report is page 27—"Summary of Principal Recommendations". I do not think I am doing the report an injustice if I say that what really matters in it is this: the recommendation that 23 members of the changed Seanad should be both nominated and elected by the vocational bodies. In other words, 23 seats will be assured to the vocational panels.

At the moment there is no such assurance, since the first choices of the vocational bodies may not be elected at all. In some cases, some very worthwhile vocational bodies have put forward very worthy people and those candidates have not received even one or two votes. But, under the proposed system, if it comes in, certainly 23 will be both nominated and elected. Really that is what we should debate to-night. That is the essential thing. Would it be better for this Seanad that 23 of us should come directly elected from the vocational bodies instead of being simply nominated by them and elected by the Seanad, Dáil Éireann and the county councils?

There is one major objection to this which was raised by Deputy Corish on page 24. This is what he says:

The franchise is still limited; the method of nomination rests on an unsatisfactory so-called vocational basis and the power of nomination by the Taoiseach is perpetuated in the new proposals.

We shall leave the second matter out of the count. I do not propose to dwell on that but I would say the Report of the Commission makes a very good effort to make the electorate from the vocational bodies a genuinely comprehensive electorate. There will be no question of Senators being elected by one or two small bodies. We have done our very best to do that and the recommendations are in the Report.

Secondly, I would like to emphasise what appears in the middle of page 23, which states

These changes...

that is, the recommended changes——

...represent a stage, rather than the completion, of a process of evolution towards a Second Chamber composed predominantly of persons who have attained positions of distinction, if not eminence, in their vocations or occupations and we would like to record the wish that after a trial period...

and this is very important——

...the development of the Seanad should be further reviewed to see if any further advance along these lines would be of advantage in the administration of the State.

At this point, I do not think I should go into details. I simply suggest that if we accept this basic recommendation that 23 members of the Seanad should in future be both nominated and elected by the vocational bodies, it will be an improvement. There will be 23 members nominated and elected vocationally. There will be six University members who may be taken as, perhaps, vocational. That makes 29 vocational members in a sense. There will be 11 of the Taoiseach's nominees, and the remainder remain pretty well under the control of the political Parties. So, to put it crudely, there will be 31 under the direct control of the political Parties and 29 under the direct control of the vocational bodies.

That is a compromise. It is neither one thing nor the other. But I do suggest it is a reasonable compromise. It is a compromise that was agreed to by a very distinguished list of thoughtful people, both political and vocational, and I recommend it to the Seanad. As a matter of principle, I suggest it is worth while at least to try the effect of increasing the vocational element in the Seanad in the hope of improving its political effectiveness. It is worth while.

I suggest, then, that the Report of the Seanad Electoral Law Commission supplies a reasonably good basis for legislation towards that end. I repeat with emphasis that some of the detailed recommendations will probably have to be changed in the Bill that will come before Parliament, I hope, fairly soon.

It is no use this evening discussing minor points. They can be left for emendation in the course of legislation. In fact, if we give approval to this Report this evening, and if the Government decide to bring it before the Houses of the Oireachtas, the Oireachtas may still reject the whole proposal. We are not committing ourselves to very much this evening. But at least the whole problem will be widely ventilated in the Oireachtas. If, on the other hand, we reject this motion this evening and if the Government do not bring the proposals of the Commission in one form or another before the Oireachtas, I can see no hope of change or improvement in the Seanad for certainly 20 years to come. This is our chance for good or for evil, and I think it is worth trying.

Finally, I want to make one aspect of the matter quite clear. In my belief, we have had a succession of Seanad which have been worthy of respect. That is my considered opinion based on my experience of the Seanad since 1948. We already have a valuable amount of vocationalism in the Seanad. But all human institutions are capable of improvement. Here in this Report, as I see it, there is a definite and promising plan for our improvement. I hope the Seanad will show both magnanimity —and it does need some magnanimity to face one's own improvement bravely and frankly—and wisdom in meeting the challenges and opportunities embodied in the Report. I look forward to hearing the debate with the greatest interest.

Mr. Barry

I wish to second this motion. In doing so, I find myself in the curious position of disagreeing somewhat with the recommendations of the Commission, but for the purpose of having this matter discussed here, I shall proceed over that difficulty as rapidly as I can. I do, in fact, lean to the view expressed by Deputy de Valera in his reservation to the main Report, that injury may be done to the societies and organisations nominating candidates, if they obtain complete power of election to this House. I think it is inevitable that interior political stresses would develop inside those organisations, and indeed the House must agree that it would be undesirable. These stresses would certainly flow from the proposal for direct nomination.

There is a way of reducing that danger. My proposal is that the present electorate should be leavened by adding to the voters list in each panel a proportion of special electors from such organisations. There are roughly 850 of what I would call national electors, the present electorate of this House. For each panel, you could add, say, 100 to 200 electors selected by the organisation concerned. The number would depend on the number of seats available in that panel. These electors could vote only for their particular panels. This extra proportion of votes would influence the results and would provide a vocational or special interest flavour in the Chamber ultimately elected. This is as far as we could or should go. It would certainly prevent complete injury being done by political cleavage inside the nominating bodies.

I want to make a comment about the politicians. There does seem to be what I can almost describe as an accusation that this is a political Chamber. No second Chamber in any parliament in the world is non-political. If it were, it would be useless. The kind of woolly assumption that you run into quite a lot outside that the second Chamber should be another kind of Institute of Advanced Studies, for instance, is just impractical.

By the way, Senator Stanford is completely removed from any comments I make about the Independents in the House. There is an assumption commonly held by the less literate and encouraged by some of the more literate outside that those who support political Parties diminish in some way the abilities which apparently they would retain, had they remained on the political sidelines. This is a very naïve viewpoint. We are governed by the Party system, and those who take part in any capacity in the work of organising and maintaining political Parties are as much a part of our system of government as those who sit on the front benches, and they make a much greater contribution than those who sit on the sidelines. Because of that contribution, I have more respect for those who oppose me than for those who sit in prim neutrality, unsullied by political tasks. I hope this House will never be non-political.

With that, I am afraid, rather dubious benediction on the motion, I hope the House will very fully debate this subject, and if it does so, my purpose in seconding it will have been achieved. I hope that the watered-down proposal I have made will be acceptable.

Mr. McGuire

I have much pleasure in supporting this motion. I should like to say straight away that when I came into this House first, I held the opinion that this should be a vocational Chamber, because up to that time I had spent a lot of my life—and I have spent a lot more since—working in vocational bodies, and in fact I have been president of several vocational bodies and in those positions I even made speeches advocating a vocational Seanad. But I have lived longer since then and I hope that, on this subject at any rate, I am somewhat wiser. The concept of a non-political Chamber is quite unrealistic in our political situation.

It seems as a result of constant reiteration to have got into the heads of many people in this country, first of all, that there is no need for a Seanad —which we are not discussing here tonight—and, after that, if there is a Seanad at all, it should be a vocational one. I have now changed my mind—not that I am changed in any way about my views on the part that vocational groups and vocationalism should play in our national life, or political life—as to the degree of participation which these groups should, in fact, take in the legislation of our State.

As this is a political assembly and as our system is a political one, if an attempt were made to create a purely vocational Seanad, I am absolutely certain it would result in a completely chaotic situation. It would play havoc with our legislation because our legislation, no matter what kind it is, must work from some basic philosophy. What basic philosophy could you get from a Chamber consisting of 60 people from different walks of life? No matter how clever or good they are, they are bound, because of their very nature, to have 60 different outlooks on a problem.

Were you have these 50 or 60 people or whatever the number is, with different outlooks in different spheres coming together in a political Party, that philosophy can be argued out and a policy pursued which is not necessarily a-toe-the line policy. It comes forth in the form of a political policy. It is only on such a basis that a Chamber could be run with any sense of decency or order. If you had 60 Independents representing 60 different vocations, I know that even vocational bodies themselves know what a chaotic position they would be in and what a chaotic situation we would find ourselves in.

Incidentally, as Senator Barry said, no such Chamber exists in any other country in the world. I should hope that in this particular form of life we will not be leaders in such a thing. I think that we would find it unworkable and that it would be held up as a laughing-stock. Many people who believe in a vocational Seanad do so by reason of the fact that they have not gone into the matter deeply. They have no experience of how a legislative assembly works. Our system of government is a political Party one and in our legislative assembly, we have a Government which has been elected as a majority Party who are responsible for legislation. They have come together on some basic philosophy. That group is responsible for legislation.

On the other hand, the system provides for an alternative Government which must either be a Party or a group of Parties. Therefore, even in the smallest debating society, whether school or university, it has been found absolutely necessary to have speakers for and against whatever the motion is. They have to pick sides to start with. The same thing applies in the highest assembly. We have the Party Government on the one side and on the other, we have the Opposition, which is the alternative Government. Up to now, we have had that. We have been rather confined to those. The Seanad has definitely been divided as between the Government Party and the Opposition Party, with a few Independents thrown in.

I think that is wrong because the line between the Government Party and the Opposition Party tends to be rigid and hard. It is desirable, especially in the Seanad and also in the Dáil for that matter, but we are talking about the Seanad, that the hard line between the Government and the Opposition should be blurred. The way to blur that is by having, as is now proposed by this Commission, and as we already have, the six University Independents.

We are entitled to expect from University representatives a broad and wide vision which is got from university training where people look out in a broad way over life and over the problems of life and the problems of the State. University representation is necessary. Up to now, we have had a rather remote form of vocationalism. As we know, the actual election requires another qualification, that is, adherence to a political Party, even for the vocational representative, but under this proposal, it is now proposed to give 23 to the vocational bodies. I have always been an advocate of making available the advice, help and participation of vocational bodies in the political life of the country, which up to now has been lacking.

In the recommendation by this Commission, it is proposed that there should be 23 vocational nominees elected to the Seanad. That is the only change suggested in this recommendation. I think it is a dramatic change, a change which is highly desirable and one that should, and, I have no doubt, will work. I think that we shall now have the political Parties on which our whole base is built represented to the right degree and in the right strength to maintain the political stability of our Chamber and our legislation.

All our legislation is political. It is quite unrealistic to talk about having a Chamber dealing with political legislation that is a non-political body. One thing is a contradiction of the other. With the eleven nominated by the Taoiseach and the 20 from the existing election to the Oireachtas panels, we have got the right degree of political control, if you like to put it that way, and of our legislative machinery, but with the six University representatives and the 20 coming from the vocational bodies, we have a strong background of independent and expert criticism which can be brought to bear on legislation without the feeling that it is tied to the Party line. I use the phrase "Party line", as I already explained, in its best sense. It is the line that has been decided on, not by any whipping or compulsion, but after debate in another place.

I feel that under this system we shall now have the very best form of Chamber which will give the right balance to all the elements of the community which should be represented in our Chamber. Therefore, I have much pleasure in supporting the proposal of Senator Stanford.

Seán Ó Donnabháin

I think that the three speakers who have already addressed the House have not been too enthusiastic in their support of the recommendation embodied in this motion. Senator Stanford himself was not too enthusiastic about it. What impressed me certainly was that Senator McGuire spoke mainly against the substance of the motion before the House but finished by saying he would support it. That is how I interpret his speech. He said many things in which I should concur entirely.

I was here from the formation of the first Seanad in 1938 under the vocational system established under the Constitution. Down through the years, there was not until recently a direct political Party sense of opposition in this House. I distinctly noticed that in recent speeches, especially from the other side of the House, there was this reference to "your Party" and "our Party." There were always supporters of the Government in power. I was a supporter of the Fianna Fáil Government but I was nominated by a vocational body. I always boast of the fact that I probably would never be in this House, if I were not nominated by a vocational body. I probably would never be in this House, if I were to be elected under the system recommended now.

Let me try to amplify that statement. Throughout the years, amendments were made to the electoral system of Seanad Éireann and one of the recommendations embodied in the legislation was a screening system to reduce the number of candidates on the panels. That meant five representatives from each nominating body and the number of candidates nominated by the individual bodies would be reduced. There was a sort of obsession that we should have, step by step, a system of simple vocational nominations.

That did not work satisfactorily. Looking at the cultural and educational panel to which there are 14 nominating bodies, I think I am interpreting the recommendations correctly when I say that eight members from each of those nominating bodies, to constitute a number over 100, would be 112. Those 112 members from those variously constituted bodies with various nomenclatures would have to elect three members to the Seanad. I doubt if they would do it as satisfactorily as the electorate at present constituted. You may get a person who is very eminent in his own profession, very well known perhaps throughout Ireland and even possibly abroad, but I want to say boldly that he might not be good as a representative in this Seanad, because politics are current history. Implying improper motives to representatives is bad, and that is what I deprecate as happening in this House recently. The implication was that one political Party would do such a thing, appoint such a person, and then the other speaker says: "If we were in power, we would do the same thing." That is a bad system, but although I say it is bad, it would be just as unfair to have an eminent surgeon, let him be a veterinary surgeon or other surgeon, an eminent musician or a man eminent in any branch, elected by these 12 nominating bodies.

I say definitely that I was nominated by a vocational nominating body. I had to face an electorate and, if you wish, I can claim to be vocational because the various bodies who elected me, county councils or county borough councils, are vocational. There are farmers, Labour people, Independents and there are members of political groups. However, I had to face them and I was probably nominated because of the fact that I would have appeal. If you wish to designate it as a political electorate, I had to clear two fences, so to speak.

On the whole, the present recommendation is not satisfactory. If I were nominated by the veterinary profession—the Veterinary Council of Ireland is a nominating body—I would rather face a political electorate, if you want to call it such. It is a cross-section of the community who have been elected democratically by the electors of the Republic. I would rather face that composite wide electorate than the 112 members selected from the 14 nominating bodies on my cultural and educational panel. I say that boldly. I do not know whether it is a good or a bad thing but I think I would have a better chance of being elected by the wider electorate than I would have by that restricted two-sectional vocational electorate.

I think I have made my personal position as clear as I can put it to the Seanad. My personal reaction would be that I would like to see 23 members of the Seanad elected as vocational representatives but I do not think that the system recommended by the Commission is the best system for doing that. I have indicated why I would not like it operating in respect of the largest panel. When we come down to the Labour Party, where there are only three nominating bodies, I do not know how it would work at all. You would get a higher number of electors but it would not be a widespread vocational electorate. It is simply three trade unions: Cómhar Céard Éireann, the Irish Trade Union Congress and the Irish Conference of Professional and Service Associations. These are three nominating bodies who elect a far greater number to the Seanad on the vocational sub-panel alone than the cultural and educational Panel elect.

I do not think this is the best system. I have expressed that opinion and I would not like the Seanad to vote tonight on the acceptance of Senator Stanford's motion which he so eloquently proposed to us. I should like other Senators to express their opinions as I am to express mine. The Seanad is the Second Chamber set up under the Constitution. It is, to a great extent, a vocational body and it was to a greater extent, a vocational body. I can imagine that people outside would say: "Well, they are all politicians and they are seeking to get representation simply because they are seeking extra direct vocational representation."

I simply want to express an opinion that the introduction of direct vocational representation into the Seanad might not be a good thing. We must be a political body. Some must support the Government and some undoubtedly must oppose the Government, as is necessary in the democratic government of any democratic country. We cannot dictate to any Government here and I really think that a slight alteration in the number of vocational members to be elected, that is, 23 vocational nominations against 20 direct Dáil nominations, would be better than this idea which, with the best will in the world, may not be satisfactory. You may get eminent people who would not be the best members of any House of the Oireachtas. If they come in here, they must act politically. Politics are current history. They must deal with legislation which comes before the Houses of the Oireachtas and in most cases that legislation will have no relationship to the vocation through which they were nominated and elected to the Seanad.

I can say for myself that it is very seldom that matters of interest to the veterinary profession come before the House. When they did, however, I think I may boast that I contributed very satisfactorily and secured amendments to Bills of veterinary interest. I may mention one, the Clean Wool Act. Seven amendments were adopted which are of immense benefit to the wool trade of the country, which has in recent years gone from tens of thousands to well over a million pounds.

It is very seldom that matters of immediate interest to a vocational representative come up and the other 95 per cent. of the work will not be of immediate interest to him and that would not be the best thing. It would not be the best thing to have a person here who was not interested in doing work on behalf of the nation, on behalf of the Government of the country, other than what was of immediate interest to him. I do not think we have had any legislation here so far dealing with the Royal Irish Academy or many of the nominating bodies. It would not be the best thing to have a person elected to the Seanad because of the publicity gained by having his name before the public.

The previous Taoiseach, when he nominated what we used sometimes call his soccer team because it constituted 11 players, sought to represent a cross-section of the country and did not nominate people because of their absolute political affiliations. I could mention names but I shall not mention them here. When he nominated members of his team of eleven, they represented different vocations, different callings, in the country.

I would say with Senator McGuire that vocationalism has gone a bit too far maybe at present. The trade unions are vocations; the veterinary associations are vocations; and they are all looking for a bigger slice of the cake. We are just going perhaps too far in this idea of vocationalism, and if we have a greater direct entrance to the Seanad Chamber by members as representing the vocation to which they belong, it will not be the best for the country.

Mr. P. Crowley

As the elected representative of a vocational interest, I am rather diffident about speaking at all on this question, but as Senator Stanford, I think, quite rightly pointed out, it is the duty of every member of the House at least to express his view on this important question. We are the people, after all, who have been through the electoral mill, as far as the present system is concerned and we should at least give the Government the benefit of our experience of seeing this system in operation. I must say right away that I find myself not entirely in agreement with Senator Stanford in his support of the recommendation of this Commission. I think the recommendation itself is just a little bit simple, an over-simplification in dealing with a very complex and difficult problem. I am not at all satisfied that the results which may be expected from any system of direct nomination and consequent election to this House would, in themselves, justify the risks obviously inherent in the adoption of that system.

I find myself in agreement with Senator Barry: it is clear that you will in fact inject politics, in the undesirable sense in which Senator Stanford used the word already, into the social and economic life of the country in a very undesirable way. Apart altogether from that, we should also recognise that there are many vocational groups in the country who at the moment have no right of nomination to this House and I do believe that many of them would be found never to have hoped to claim such right. Yet they are vocational.

Again—I think this is too obvious to debate at any great length—is it not quite apparent that the adoption of the over-simplified system recommended would create a whole lot of other anomalies? We will have people, many of them associated with one or other vocational group, who would have or be entitled to have duplication of votes in elections. I do not think the Seanad should debate at any length that aspect because I am sure the defects in such a system must be apparent to anyone with any experience at all of the political life of the country.

I have experience of two elections to this House and certainly it is rather a task to anybody to have to face the electoral college. Nevertheless, I can truthfully say, having gone through that experience, that the existing electoral college—even though it may not be described as perfect; it is in fact unwieldy and a rather unusual system to adopt—is a body through which we get the nearest thing we can have to a Seanad elected directly by the people. Short of running, so to speak, a second general election for the Seanad or issuing two ballot papers in general elections, one for the Dáil and one for the Seanad, I do not think we could have a body elected that would be more representative of the people.

The present electoral college has the great merit of being national in character and representative of a very wide section of the people. Bearing that fact in mind, I rather think that we should not run away with the idea that the defect, if there is a defect, in representation in this House is simply due to the electoral college. I doubt very much if any suggestion to enlarge the present representative character of the electoral college by adding to it any number of people from the vocational interests about which we have been speaking, would be practical. It might be but I should like to hear it discussed at greater length.

Finally, I want to say that if we are in earnest about increasing the vocational representation in this House— and I believe there is such a necessity —and to make it more vocational in character, it can be done and should be done, but I do not think it is right to condemn the House as it is elected at the moment, or any section, simply because it must operate, in practice, as a political institution. Clearly, this House is dealing with political problems and although I have stood up here more than once and said that I am not a member of any political Party, nevertheless I realise that if I am called upon to give an opinion or to cast a vote, I must obviously enter politics to do so, and I make no apology to anyone for doing so. I think the answer to this question is really a lot more simple than the Commission makes out. If there is a necessity to increase the vocational character of this House, surely there is a simple way of doing it within the existing system of election.

It is clear at the moment that all that is necessary in fact is to increase the number of seats which ought to be filled from the nominating bodies on each nominating panel. I think it would be a much better and much more practical way of securing the ends that the Commission was seeking than changing the actual system of election. I would commend that suggestion to the Minister and to the Government as being the most practical and suitable way of doing that.

Mr. Lenihan

The main recommendation in this Report is a very simple one, that 23 out the 60 members of the Seanad should be elected by direct election from the various vocational groups. The purpose of that, which is quite clear from reading the Report and listening to the debate here, is to make the Seanad less political and more vocational. What we have to examine here is what exactly does that purpose mean. What do these people who set forth that Report envisage? They envisage making the Seanad less political, as they say, than it is now and more vocational. First of all, these two concepts, the political idea and the vocational idea, have been bandied about and people may get the wrong notion that these concepts are contradictory and opposite. I do not think that is the case at all. The main function of the Seanad, as one of the Houses of the National Parliament, is surely a political function. Therefore, following on that, the main vocational qualification for entry into this House should be the political qualification. It is essentially a political House, concerned primarily with the revision of legislation and concerned, as we were recently, with the initiation of legislation. As such, it is fundamentally a political House, part of the political institutions of our State.

The Seanad is paralleled by second Chambers in every other democratic country in the world and in none of them do we get the false notion about the necessity for vocational representation or the representation of sectional vocational groups. This Seanad is a vocational Seanad because most of the people in it are people who have been concerned with the vocation of politics and there is no finer vocation in the world, one that has been regarded by people like Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas back down the years as the principal vocation, dealing with the the art of government and with the art of ruling and the matters which pertain to the government of the State.

I am very strong in the view that the principal qualification for entry into this House and the other House— of course, it applies particularly to the other House—should be the vocational qualification of having been active in and concerned and associated with practical politics. For that reason, I think the purpose behind this motion, of having this direct representation from vocational groups, is ill-conceived, because the notion seems to attribute to the representatives of vocational groups the practical political knowledge which they may not have and which they can have only through representation and association with politics.

The present system, which perhaps in certain aspects could be improved, is broadly a good one and any attempt to make the Seanad, as these people say, more vocational—I do not think the word "vocational" is the correct one—would be highly undesirable when this is a House of Parliament dealing with the revision and initiation of legislation and political matters appertaining to Government. Now, implicit also in this notion that there should be more vocational representation and more direct vocational representation, is a certain condemnation of political Parties. Far too often in this country today we have this notion that——

Professor Stanford

Might I point out, Sir, that in proposing the motion, it was made very clear that there was no implicit condemnation of the political Parties?

Mr. Lenihan

I am not referring to Senator Stanford who very ably proposed the motion. I am referring to the sentiments in the Report of the Commission, in Irish Times editorials and as expressed by people throughout the country.

Professor Stanford

Would the Senator quote passages from the Report which imply any antagonism to the political system?

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I think Senator Stanford expressed his awareness of this criticism.

Professor Stanford

Criticism, but not antagonism.

Professor Hayes

That is a very subtle distinction.

Mr. Lenihan

I submit that in the majority recommendations, in editorials of the Irish Times and in the utterances of certain people associated with what I call sectional groups, is a condemnation of political Parties and the political Party system. I know that this is a great field of debate but I should like to say, first of all, that modern democracy cannot work without political Parties. The political Parties have preserved standards over the years and have served this country well and the political Party Leaders, whether they be Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or Labour, have, by and large, preserved very high standards of integrity, personal behaviour and competence when in or out of office. That notion which is abroad that there is something wrong with politics, with a second Chamber composed in a majority way of people from political Parties and that there is something to be condemned in that, is ill founded and not based on the realities in this country today.

We have responsible political Parties which have grown up and become institutions of the State and I do not see any reason why people prominent in the medical profession, in the legal profession or whatever particular section, trade or commercial group they belong to, cannot become associated with either or any of the main political Parties and through them, project their particular vocational or sectional ideas, have them blunted by criticism from other Party members and eventually work out a common, broad basis which can form part of the Party programme and be presented to the people at election time. It is most desirable to have political Parties that are broadly based in the community, what could be described as homogeneous political Parties representative of various elements of our society, and have them represented in both Houses of Parliament. It is through the medium of broadly-based political Parties that a broadly-based programme can be put to the people at election times, and it is under that system that modern democracy works.

Under the Constitution, the Seanad has the status of an integral part of the machinery of government. It is one of the two Houses of Parliament and inevitably, the political Parties must, and should, have a large say in the debates and decisions of this House. I see nothing whatever wrong in that; I see nothing to be ashamed of in that. It is admirable, inevitable and perfectly right.

In regard to the idea of sectional representation in this House, there is one note of warning in the minority reservation made by Deputy de Valera, and I think it might be no harm to mention it. It is that vocational and sectional groups are in considerable danger of endangering their own interests and their own organisations by having direct election to the Seanad. I do not wish to deal with the whole question of politics as introduced into local authorities, county councils, urban councils, corporations and the like. Many people think it has not been a good thing that politics on a national scale have been brought into local councils, but we shall have that situation, and one much worse, if these vocational groups have direct election to the Seanad when the Seanad is charged under the Constitution with a political function. If that is introduced, there will be intrigue and jockeying inside these organisations and it would ruin their foundations and the whole reason for their existence.

Vocational activity is entirely desirable. It is a helpful sign in our community that in recent years vocational groups have developed, contributed to our welfare and made many public statements on matters which concern them and the community generally. That is all very good and the free Press we have here gives full publicity to their views. That is all to the good, and it is also to the good that, in our democracy, political Parties and the Government should pay heed to the views expressed by these groups. In our society, no Government, for their own sake, will ignore the views of the vocational groups. Ministers must receive deputations from them and pay heed to their considered views. Any Government would be very ill-advised not to do so because, due to the marginal nature of politics here, if a Government set out deliberately to override vocational groups, they would find themselves out of office at the next election. In order to keep in office, Governments have to pay heed to vocational groups and they do so.

These groups in their turn are performing an admirable service, a social service, and even a service of helping the Government in their various spheres, but the ground could be cut from under such very desirable activities, if these societies and organisations were beset by intrigue and jockeying for the selection of candidates for election to this Chamber. That would take them out of the spheres in which they are doing such good work at the moment and bring them into a sphere for which they have doubtful qualifications. The medical profession, the legal profession, the trade and farming associations are all different in their own spheres. They can contribute to the good of the community by advocating the things on which they have expert knowledge, but if they come in here, I think they would be ill-equipped to contribute in the atmosphere that exists here. The point made by Deputy de Valera in his reservation to the Majority Report is a very valid one and should be borne in mind by the Government when considering the Report.

There is also a minor aspect of the Report which I thought rather sensible, though, as I say, I do not agree with the major part of the Report. The minor recommendation was that there should be a better system of examining the qualifications of people presenting themselves for election to the Seanad. Under the Constitution, a person must have a knowledge and practical experience of the particular interests of the panel which he seeks to represent. At the moment, the Clerk of the Seanad is charged with the duty of examining that. If we are to have people with a genuine knowledge and experience of a vocational panel, as well as being members of political Parties, it would be no harm if there were a more strict examination of such persons offering themselves for election, and paragraph 43 of the Report on page 21 deals fully with this matter. It states:—

We concluded that the function should be transferred to a Board of Assessors consisting of the Chairman of Dáil Éireann as Chairman, with nine members, one to be appointed, or in the event of disagreement, elected by each of the five electoral colleges appointed by the nominating bodies and two members from each House of the Oireachtas, with the Seanad Returning Officer as Secretary.

That is an improvement on the present system that might be adopted but in regard to the main principles of the Report, I believe they are badly thought out and are based on a fundamental misconception that politics is not vocational. Politics is the supreme vocation of all and we, in this House and in the other House, are charged under the Constitution with the duty of pursuing that vocation for the benefit of the people by passing legislation, and by being helpful and critical of the Government when they introduce legislation. In that, we are exercising the supreme vocational function of society.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

I was glad when I saw that Senator Stanford had put down a motion on this subject because I think it is time we, as a Seanad, examined our own conscience and tried to see whether some of the criticisms levelled against us are justified or not and, if so, whether we could improve the Seanad, that is, the present Seanad and future Seanaid. Senator Stanford, very wisely in presenting his case, made it clear that the implementation of the recommendations of the Commission is naturally conditioned by the fact that the Commission had certain terms of reference outside of which they could not go. Nevertheless, I think it is legitimate, as some Senators have done—and as one of the minority signatories has done—to ask whether a Seanad is necessary? I think we should ask ourselves that question and see whether we can, as it were, justify ourselves in our own minds.

I notice that in another minority report which has already been referred to, and with a great deal of which I agree, that is, the minority report of Deputy de Valera, he says:

On the other hand, if it is merely an Advisory Body and forum for discussion it quickly becomes of little account in public opinion and will have little influence with the Executive.

In my opinion, a Seanad which is to be nothing more than an advisory, deliberative, consultative assembly would still be serving a very useful function. That forum for discussion which Deputy de Valera mentions could be a vitally important thing, providing that this sounding board, as it might be termed, was used to draw attention to matters about which it might be important to arouse or inform public opinion. Therefore I shall depart from this particular point of Deputy de Valera, because I do not think he should have used the adverb "merely". I do not think that it is true either to say that an advisory or consultative, deliberative assembly would not have much weight with the Executive. That would depend very greatly upon the quality of that body. I believe that a certain case can be made for a Seanad such as we have, that is, mainly deliberative, that acts as a sounding board, and that is not too close to the Government, too intimately involved in every action and gesture of the Government.

So much for the question of the necessity for or value of a Seanad in general. A case can be made for it. I think a case can also be made for our own Seanad, and I believe that our present Seanad has demonstrated itself worthy and shown what can be done in the everyday way of discussing legislation and amendments, and in giving a point of view perhaps, which is not always heard as readily in the Dáil, giving perhaps a slightly more detailed view on matters, whether they be immediate legislation or a point of general public import upon which the Dáil may not even have expressed an opinion.

It is sometimes said that the Seanad is out of touch with the country, and that the Dáil, which is far more directly elected, has its finger on the pulse of the country and knows what the country is thinking. There is a tendency to be found indeed among certain Deputies to be a little impatient with the Seanad for daring to have opinions different from that of the Dáil, on the ground that the Dáil, after all, are the realistic people, down to earth, having to go before the electorate, and being in touch with the man in the street. We in the Seanad realise, however, that sometimes we are demonstrably more in touch with the man in the street than the Dáil itself.

We remember being told in one of our more stirring debates in recent times on the P.R. question: "Why do you not leave it to the country? Why do you not let the electorate decide?". The answer given by myself, and by several others who shared this view, was that I was quite prepared to leave it to the country, but I thought it our duty to give a lead on the matter to the country, and interpret the views which we thought were the right ones, in order to allow the country to decide in the light of a debate and a vote in the Seanad as well as in the Dáil. Senators know that as it turned out when it was finally left to the country, the country decided that the Seanad was right, and the Dáil wrong. It would not be right to make too much of that particular instance. Nevertheless, it is a legitimate answer to make to those who suggest that the Dáil is more intimately in touch with the man in the street, because on that occasion clearly it was not.

It proves salutary also—I think the Minister will agree with me—for Ministers to have to come before the Seanad and justify their policies. The Seanad has a more intimate atmosphere, and in relation to a particular Bill, Ministers come and listen, generally with patience, and justify the Bill and the Government's attitude in answer to a more intimate form of questioning perhaps than they must submit to in the Dáil.

Milton was anxious to "justify the ways of God to man," and I feel it is a good thing for the Minister occasionally to have to come before the Seanad and justify the ways of the Government to the Seanad. It helps the Ministers themselves, too, to sort out their own thoughts on particular issues, and the Minister who in the light of a debate in the Upper House decides on amendments or adjustments has gained something for the country, and for himself, by that very flexibility.

There is another thing that should be said—nobody outside the Seanad seems to say it or even to notice it, but somebody should say it—the Seanad is mocked by some newspapers because they think that we do not answer their ideal of what a Seanad should be. In point of fact, I am prepared to say—and I have a little experience now of the Seanad, of which I have been a member for nearly six years—that the way in which it conducts its day-to-day business is in every way comparable with the way in which the Lower House conducts its business. In particular instances such as the obtaining of a quorum in the House the record of the Seanad is demonstrably far and away ahead of the record of the other House. I can recall only one occasion in six years on which there was not a quorum in this House. I doubt if any T.D. can get up and say that with truth, unless he himself has been consistently absent from the time of his election. In other words, our record in the conduct of debate and the seriousness which we bring to debates can fairly stand comparison with that of the other House.

The immediate issue here, which was plainly put by Senator Stanford, is whether we should now take steps, in accordance with the recommendations in this Report, to alter the Seanad by increasing the effective vocational representation in the Seanad. That brings me to this question of vocationalism. Senator McGuire indicated that he had come to the view—he put it very politely—that there was a great deal of nonsense talked about vocationalism. Senator Lenihan has much the same view, but he concealed it by saying that he was all in favour of vocationalism and adding in effect that "provided, of course, that we do not give it any legislative power;" that is to say, you give a pat on the back to vocationalism every time you meet a vocational body, and you say "Splendid", but any time they ask for more effective representation, you say: "No, it would not be a good thing." I hope that I am not wronging Senator Lenihan by saying that his attitude too means that there is in fact a lot of nonsense talked about vocationalism.

One of the fallacies underlying the nonsense seems to be the fact that there is no satisfactory answer to the question as to what vocations shall be represented, and who shall devise the compartments into which you divide vocationalism. Are the compartments we have in the various panels of the Seanad to-day devised in accordance with some absolute basic law? What does vocationalism really mean in practice? A lot of nonsense is talked about it.

For that reason I have a great deal of sympathy with what Deputy de Valera says on page 25:—

"Any effective attempt to make it predominantly vocational, in the sense of representing sectional organisations or interests, must import political activity into these vocational groups. Such moves towards vocationalism would not reduce the ‘non-political' Senate which some envisage."

It is quite clear that there is in fact a lot of self-deception about what is said in this country about vocationalism.

Again, when Deputy de Valera says on page 26:—

"It may well be that a Seanad, openly political in its character and discussions, is to be preferred"

I find myself substantially in agreement with him. If we were, consequently, to reject this notion of vocationalism, and accept the view that he suggests there, we might as well have a frankly Party political Seanad. What are the objections? The usual objection is that the Seanad may find itself in conflict with the Dáil, as if that were some major political sin. The Seanad has in fact no power to hold up legislation for more than a maximum of 90 days. I never quite understood the fear of successive Governments of being defeated on an issue or an amendment by the Seanad. What harm does it do them to be defeated? They have their machinery whereby they can get Parliamentary victory later on in the Dáil. That has been demonstrated before. We have no real direct power. What harm then occasionally if in a Party political Seanad, the Government were to be defeated? I should say that it would do them good. The humbling process of defeat in the Upper House might well produce a salutary examination of conscience. Possibly I am being over-optimistic. I certainly do not see, however, what real harm can be done by an occasional Government defeat in the Seanad.

The theoretical defeat that we inflict on the Government, if we do defeat the Government in the Seanad, is no more, in fact, in practice, than a guide or warning light which may be important and should be attended to, but which represents no barrier to legislation or Government action. Personally, I should prefer a Seanad, if a Seanad is necessary—and I think a case can be made for it—which is directly elected and unashamedly Party political, because I believe man is a political animal. There is no use pretending he is not. I share Senator Stanford's view that there is no shame in being interested in government. Interest in politics is the mark surely of a mature citizen.

If the Seanad must have some difference from the Dáil, then it could have different periods of election, for instance, or a third of the membership could be renewed periodically or elected for a different period of years, five or seven. I should be greatly tempted by the suggestion that it could be elected by a more genuinely representative form of proportional representation with constituencies different from the Dáil constituencies, considerably bigger, that is to say, with considerably more seats per constituency and with a smaller number of such constituencies, which would ensure that a finer shading of political and other thought in the country might be presented in the Seanad without any danger to the immediate Party political issues which would still be decided primarily in the Dáil.

I must add that I should like to retain the right of the Taoiseach to nominate at least some members of the Seanad. I think that is a good right, though I do not think it has been used to the best possible extent by successive Taoisigh. Senator Ó Donnabháin mentioned, and, I think, with justice, the way in which it has been used on occasion by the President, Mr. de Valera. It was very striking to notice the way in which people like the late Sir John Keane were repeatedly appointed by the then Taoiseach, though they differed, as Sir John Keane differed, on almost every issue, from the Government. It would be a good thing if this method of filling some of the seats in the Seanad were to be retained. It would also be a good thing if successive Taoisigh would use it far more liberally and with less fear of damaging the Party majority.

On the question of the present situation, the present circumstance of our Seanad is unfortunately that we make a pretence that we have a vocational Seanad. There is a myth that vocational bodies are represented in this Seanad. I think that in circumstances in which the selection of candidates for the Seanad is confined by law to certain vocations, but in which the method of election very often fails to secure the election of the candidates who might be the best and most adequate representatives of their vocations, the system seems to be a bad system, as you get the worst of both worlds. We have not got the breadth of selection of candidates, and yet you have a political electorate.

We narrow it down on a vocational basis, and, having narrowed it down, we then proceed to elect on another basis. That is supremely unsatisfactory. Therefore, I am led to this opinion since we have this stated aim in relation to the Seanad, this vocational aim: ought we not at least try to implement that aim more genuinely for our own sake, for the sake of truth and for the purpose of diminishing political hypocrisy? Ought we not try to ensure that if we want certain vocational elements to be represented here, they shall as far as possible be represented by their best people, and not just by those from among their number who have the strongest support of the Party political machines?

Therefore, I should like to put before the Seanad my view, that there are three possibilities for this Upper House. One is: we should have a Party political Seanad, frankly so, unashamedly so, and that is the one I should prefer. The second is that we should have a Seanad which would be effectively largely vocational, with the best representatives as far as possible representing each vocation. The third possibility is to have a Seanad pretending to be vocational, but being in reality diminished and hamstrung by being a sort of hybrid version of the first, the Party political Seanad, without being prepared to admit it and to elect it as such.

I would prefer the first type, the frankly Party political Seanad, but that issue is not before the House this evening. Under this motion and under the terms of reference of the Commission, we have no power to make a suggestion on those lines. Therefore, I should like as a second best the implementation of the recommendations of the Report of the Commission as representating at least a step towards the second possibility, that is to say, a Seanad effectively vocational in which, as far as possible, the best elements would represent each vocation. I should like in that connection to quote Deputy de Valera again, when he says on page 26:—

"I think nevertheless that it would be preferable to try to ensure that those elected to the Senate as vocational representatives have personally, and in all reality, the necessary individual qualifications to represent their calling rather than base the representations wholly on extra-cameral organisations."

With that in mind, and with the reservations I have made, I would urge the House to support this motion as a valuable step to our brushing away some of the pretence and getting closer to what is our stated aim, even though that stated aim, as representing only a second best, may not have my wholehearted support.

Mr. Donegan

I should like to say at the outset that I could not think of a worse place to discuss this motion than this Seanad because, of necessity, people will speak with their tongues in their cheeks. Many people will not say what they mean and very few people will say what they really believe. That is inevitable when one is discussing something which so closely affects oneself. It is impossible that anything else should occur.

This whole investigation is a sort of off-shoot of a suggestion that is rampant without a doubt, that the Seanad is a place of retirement for defeated T.D.s. I am one of such people—open confession is good for the soul—so, in saying that, I shall give offence to no one. It is true that the view is held all over Ireland that while the Seanad should be a place for people with vocational knowledge and, shall we say, with superior experience to members of the Dáil who are more completely and more tightly-bound by the Party Whip, even though there are Party members here, the Seanad is, in fact, a place where people are retired on defeat in a Dáil election, or sent here because they are of use to a political Party.

I am willing to be judged on that because I am one of those people, and perhaps people down the country would convict me as such, even though they have never met me, because of that fact. There has been a lot of that sort of talk. I also say to the Seanad, and Senators may put me in that category if they please, that there are some Senators here because they were good ward heelers rather than as contributors to the Seanad.

This Seanad is a pretty good Seanad. I do not know anything about previous Seanaid and I do not want to criticise those that went before, but I am saying what is true and what the people say. Whether we like it or not, that is what they say, and that is what we have to face up to. I do not believe we shall get a perfect system. We can talk about nominating bodies, but at every election, people are nominated and I know of candidates who do not try to be elected but are put forward in order to keep the nomination. The one I am thinking of concerns a very important industry. If we were to have an election, this industry would be one of the first—for obvious reasons, I shall not give names or introduce personalities—to use its nomination to elect, whereas, in fact, there was no person who wanted to secure election.

That is an obvious flaw in the suggested system and it should be thought about. I was amazed at one stage when Senator Lenihan referred to St. Thomas Aquinas. Perhaps he will bear with me if I use the word Machiavellian. There are good and bad politicians, just as there are good and bad veterinary surgeons, with apologies to Senator Ó Donnabháin and others. We cannot say because a fellow is a member of a political Party, he is good, and because he refused to join a political Party, he is bad. We must get a balance between the two and, in my opinion, the present system of election preserves a fair balance.

My reason for so saying is, of course, that when you have nomination, by the nominating bodies, election is easier. After all, we have only to look at the figures, and I am sure Senators, like myself, know them backwards. It is about twice as easy to be elected if you are nominated by a nominating body than if you are nominated on the Oireachtas sub-panel. Therefore, that situation weights the system in favour of the vocational people if they want to elect a person who is not a member of a political Party. At the same time, it achieves a balance, but we must go back to the plain people of Ireland as much as we can even for election to the Seanad. If we do not go back to the ordinary franchise and a vote for everybody over 21 years, as good a place as another is to go back to the elected local representatives.

Again, there is the question of whether or not that should be the case for all local elected representatives, or for senior representatives who were elected to vote for the Seanad from the various county councils, corporations and urban councils. When that was the case, I was not in politics, because I was too young, but my father, the Lord rest him, had a vote and I remember all the persuasion, all the pressure, and all the tales. Let us be truthful about it votes were bought and sold.

That was a wrong situation and if we create a situation where we have the nominating bodies electing, we may go further back. There is a danger that we would have the sort of thing we had when there were seven people selected from each county to vote. We may go back to the stage where one man's vote, or one man's influence on a board, or on a governing body with a particular set-up, or in a particular industry, might mean that a person was elected.

People like to be called Senator or Deputy and there is a type of person who will go very far indeed to get that honour or to hold on to it if he has already got it, so that if you do not regularise matters you may find that the system of election which you thought was perfection is not perfection, and that it is more imperfect than the system you now have. That danger is there if you leave the nominating bodies with the right to elect. You may bring in bribery and corruption where the nominating bodies are not as efficiently organised or as virile or as strong as they might be. That is my opinion and it may or may not be correct.

I hold that a vocational person is, of course, of use in the Upper House. I think he is absolutely necessary in the Upper House, but, even though he is, I think he should be also so well known and so accepted as to be able to be elected on the votes as we have them to-day. It is right that he should get that little bit of help in that he has only to get approximately half as many votes, but he should be sent back to what I term the plain people of Ireland, through their local authority members. He must, in fact, be sent back there, and he must gain election under that system.

We would hope then to get people who are practical as well as people who are vocational because—let us be honest about it and with apologies to everybody—I can think of rows and rows of University professors who would be wholly unsuited to Government. The practical man, and the man who had to struggle all his life to show a profit, rather than the man who draws a salary is the man for Government. It is right that those people must, because of a specialised knowledge, be given a number of seats, but they should also be sent back to the ordinary people to be elected to this House.

If the Seanad was criticised in the past, over the past three or four years —not because I came here in the past three or four years; I do not think I made any great impact on it—the Seanad has become important in the minds of the people. Whether or not that is so because of the superior debate referred to by Senator Sheehy Skeffington, or because of the debate on the referendum, I do not know. Let us forget, so far as this discussion is concerned, who won or who lost. The point is that it was a really good debate and every word of it was read by the people, assimilated by them, and had a very profound effect on them. Therefore, I think this Seanad at least has justified itself. The system we have had has justified itself. If it took a while, if there were criticisms, if it was said that the Seanad was innocuous and of no value at times, the same has been said of the Dáil and of all the eminent institutions we have. If we have now a Seanad that has justified itself, not only in that debate but in many other debates that I know of, it is a justification of the system of election as it is.

Mr. O'Dwyer

I should like to compliment Senator Stanford on his opening remarks, particularly on his very clear exposition of the nature of politics. He has done a great service to the country and a great service to democracy. It has been claimed by sections of the Press and by various youth organisations that there is something ignoble and vile in politics and that people should not touch them. If that continued, it would constitute a danger to our democratic institutions in the future. In many countries in Europe where that doctrine was propagated it made clear the way for dictatorship.

The question at issue is whether we should favour having 23 seats of the Seanad filled by the vocational bodies directly. I would not agree with that recommendation and I certainly agree with Deputy de Valera's objection to that. First of all, I am sure that the committee has not fully studied the effects their recommendation would have on the vocational bodies themselves. If the idea was that by having vocational bodies elect their representatives directly, we would get a non-political or neutral body of men into the Seanad, then I am afraid it is a very much mistaken idea.

Let us consider what would happen: a vocational body is constituted of its executive and a number of outside members, let us say, 2,000. If a number of people, two perhaps, are nominated by that vocational organisation those nominees must be elected on the vote of those 2,000 members. Now since 99.9 per cent of all people are more or less political, political in their prejudices, political in their feelings, as it is only natural they should be, and as those two nominees would be put up for election by the 2,000 members of the organisation, most of whom were affiliated to political Parties, the election would clearly be as political as it is to-day by members of county councils. It could not be otherwise. There would be no change.

It is equally mistaken to think that we should get the very best men, the highest in their profession, from such an election. If they were to be selected by vocational bodies, we may be sure that it would become a scramble for nominations and inside a few years you would have people nominated on political considerations.

It is very clear what would happen; you would not change the representation here as far as political affiliation is concerned, but it would have a very serious effect on the vocational organisation itself. Politics are good here in their own place, in the Dáil and in the Seanad, but not in vocational bodies. They have been given a purpose to carry out and they have carried it out very well; it is a very useful purpose and very necessary for the country and for general progress, but politics have no place in those vocational bodies. They have nothing to do with law-making or with filling the Dáil or the Seanad and to force these things on them will be to split those organisations into different sections. I am certain that would be the result of allowing those bodies to elect their representatives directly.

I do not think it would be wise, either, outside that consideration, to allow a certain section, because they happen to be manufacturers, farmers, artisans or anything else, to elect a person to help in the legislature. Really it would not be democratic.

I am afraid I have an unorthodox view on the whole thing, but I think that we should not be bound by the exact terms of the commission, or even of the Constitution, in considering these matters. We have a very long experience of the workings of the Seanad and the methods of election. I do not think that our people are inclined to think on vocational lines like the people of some European countries; they always tend to think on political lines and we should remember that in arranging for the future of the Seanad. I may be wrong, but it is my view that we should elect one Senator for each constituency by means of an older vote, say, by people over 40, or by a family vote on the lines of the old local government vote. You would get a different type of person and you would find the vocations as well represented as in the proposed Seanad. We should not have any consideration but that of finding the most suitable type of Senator for the future.

Professor Hayes

This motion asks us to express the view that the Government should bring in proposals to implement the recommendations of the Seanad Electoral Law Commission. I think we should begin by defining our terms and deciding what precisely we are talking about. The Commission that sat on the constitution of the Seanad was bound to consider only Articles 18 and 19 of the Constitution; it was concerned only with panel representatives and had no power to deal with the university members, no power to deal with what the number of nominations by the Taoiseach should be. Also the Commission had no power to make any suggestions regarding the functions of the Seanad as laid down in the Constitution. They were therefore bound to the Constitution in a number of ways and what they had to recommend was very restricted.

The first point is the functions of the Seanad. The Seanad according to the Constitution has to consider legislation from the other House and may itself initiate legislation. In other words, the Seanad, however it is to be composed, has for its functions the consideration of legislation and it is a part of a parliament. In other words, it is a place for talking. It is sometimes said—it is intended to be said scornfully—that the Dáil is a talking shop, but that is precisely the kind of government we have. Democratic parliamentary government is, in effect, government by discussion and both Houses have to be places where we can talk. In this House, we have to talk about legislation, about public business, and that being so, what kind of person should we have as a member?

Let me begin by clearing away one constant misstatement that is made— and it was made in the quotation given by Senator Stanford when he began this debate with a very reasonable speech. It is frequently said that the original intention was to have this a vocational, non-political House. Nothing could be further from the truth. The statement is demonstrably untrue. Anyone who looks at the Constitution, or the Seanad Electoral Act, will see that this House was designed by the previous Taoiseach to be a place where the Government would always have a majority. Eleven people were to be nominated by the Taoiseach himself after an election. The universities were to elect six people and the other 43 people were to be elected by individuals who were themselves all, by definition, politicians; the members of the new Dáil fresh from the election, the members of the old Seanad and the members of the county councils.

The head of the Government which devised this Constitution, and this scheme, was also head of a political Party which had itself as part of its principles and practice the making of the county councils political. Thus the main body of county councillors were politicians. Therefore, from the very beginning you had a certain number of people from each county council and borough council nominated but they were nominated on a political basis. That proved to be unsatisfactory and amending legislation was brought in to extend the electorate to all county councillors, but there is no use in asserting that an electorate which is entirely political could possibly produce anything but a political body.

The intention was to have this House so constituted that it could never disagree with the other House. I know that "the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley" and things do not work out as people meant them to work out but that is primarily what was meant. It was meant to be elected by politicians for a political purpose and from the very beginning, the vocational aspect of the Seanad was to a large extent humbug.

I do not know what is meant by saying that if we were sufficiently organised, we could have direct vocational elections in the Seanad. Again, in the arrangements for the election to the Seanad, from the very beginning, it was ordained that there be nominations from the Oireachtas itself to what was called the Oireachtas sub-panel. I know it is a very complicated system but the complication, however you look at it, worked out so that there were always plenty of political candidates and what the nominating bodies often did was to put forward two politicians.

My friend who has just spoken was himself nominated for a great many years by the I.A.O.S. because he was Fianna Fáil and there sat beside me for many years the late Senator Baxter who was nominated by the same body because he was Fine Gael. There is no doubt that the I.A.O.S. exercised its intelligence in that particular way. Both their candidates were elected. The same thing applies to Senator Douglas on this side of the House and to Senator Summerfield on the other side. There is no doubt that the nominations from the Taoiseach also proved that it was a political operation.

In regard to the Commission, it was not free to make any general recommendations. It might be no harm to consider how the Commission was made up. It was made up of 21 people of whom the chairman was a judge. We shall leave him out. Of the 20 others, six were T.D.s; one was a former T.D.; four were Senators; and one was a former Senator. There were eight others and if I may say, to begin with, they were astonished during the sittings of the Commission. It was a very irksome body at times for the practising politicians because non-members of the Oireachtas talked about politicians as if the word "politician" had the same meaning as the word "murderer" or the word "adulterer" or some other nasty word. They were indeed charming people but manifestly they were entirely removed from any notion as to how this State works. They were astonished that members of the Oireachtas could talk together and agree with one another. To a member of the Oireachtas, such surprise is fantastic. One of them expressed to me his surprise that Deputy Haughey sat down beside me and seemed to be a friend of mine, forgetting that he was a student of mine and forgetting a great many other things. The fact that Deputy McGilligan could make a suggestion with which Deputy Vivion de Valera could agree seemed astounding to them.

However, the members of the Commission did a good job in the end. They had various difficulties and one difficulty was in relation to the restrictions which they were under. The other was the fact that there is no such thing anywhere as a really satisfactory second House of Parliament. The problem has not been solved. One could not go anywhere and say: "There is a second Chamber which we shall imitate." Probably the best second House in the world—and one may be unpopular for saying so— is the House of Lords. If you explained in writing to somebody how the House is elected, he would think it is a lunatic assembly but it is very far from being a lunatic assembly. They are tinkering around with it now and will probably ruin it, but that is another question. There is no perfect example available, particularly for a unitary State like ours which has no federal problem like the United States of America.

There are certain requisites for a second House and we should consider them. I agree with Senator Lenihan, and I think Senator Stanford also said it, that the two Houses should if possible be different. They should have a different kind of personnel, a different approach to legislation. In spite of the fact that there are a great many ex-T.D.s in this House, and in spite of all efforts to make this a political House, and in spite of the fact that it is a political House, it does approach legislation in a different way from the Dáil. Ministers of all Parties have been impressed by that fact. This House has succeeded in having a different approach and has succeeded at times, with different Ministers of different Parties, in getting them to agree to amendments they would not agree to in the other House. We had one extraordinary example of that during the recent war.

I think it should be completely different in its base. The idea that the two Houses should be elected on adult suffrage is completely wrong. The second House should be elected in a different way from the other House and have less power. It should have something to do and what it has to do in this case is to examine legislation or itself to initiate legislation.

What should we do to improve the situation, if there is something wrong with it? There are a great many things wrongs with it. There are people who do not attend the House at all. There are people who are here in body but not in spirit and who do not bother with the House. The suggestion is made constantly that this should be made a vocational House. Frankly, I do not understand what that means. What the Commission recommended was a compromise between the views of those who think it should be entirely a political House and those who think it should be a vocational House.

Presumably, the idea of vocationalism is that the House should contain specialists. What is the specialist to do? I have here in my hand to-day's Dáil Order paper. It has, I think, 14 Bills on it and we shall get them all in this House. What is the function of a representative of a vocational body? What is the function of a person who represents the engineers, architects, industrialists or, in particular, trade unions, about all these Bills? I do not see how he will deal with them unless he is a person who has a general point of view.

I do not think there is any question of what we are asked to do about these Bills. It is not, as somebody suggested, to give advice. It is not getting up to say: "I think this Bill is so and so." We are expected to get up and say: "I am against this Bill" or "I am for this Bill" or "I am going to vote for the whole of this Bill" or "I am going to put in an amendment to Section 22." In other words, on every piece of legislation that comes before this House, we have to have an opinion and whether a vocational person would have that and have it better than a politician, I very much doubt.

There is a completely foolish argument on this in to-day's leading article in the Irish Times that the Seanad consists of a whole lot of morons, with the exception of people who are university representatives. That, of course, would mean——

Professor Stanford

On a point of fact, that is really a misrepresentation of the article in the Irish Times. They certainly do not use the word “morons.”

Professor Hayes

They do not but I use the word "morons" and I am entitled to use it. The article states:

With few exceptions, the candidates are chosen not on their qualifications, but on their political affiliations...

Remember the words "political affiliations". These words are charged with atmospherics. It is intended to be a dirty, low word.

Professor Stanford

Not necessarily in the leading article in the Irish Times.

Professor Hayes

If it means Trinity no; if it means U.C.D., the Irish Times would think it bad, if you had political affiliations there. It continues:

...if it were not for the presence of a few Senators of strong character and independent mind — mainly found among the university representatives and the Taoiseach's eleven...

Professor Stanford

Observe the word "mainly".

Professor Hayes

...the Senate would be no more than a pallid and ineffectual mimic of the Dáil.

That is the kind of opinion which arises from sheer ignorance and bias combined. I want to make that quite clear—sheer ignorance and bias combined. Supposing a Trinity university or other university professor from Dublin or Cork comes into the Seanad through a process of election other than through the university graduates, according to the Irish Times, he is not a good person at all. He should not get in. Supposing he is a member of the Fianna Fáil Party, or, as I am, a member of the Fine Gael Party, what is wrong with him then? Does he cease to have any brains or experience or does it mean that a person who is a university professor and who has experience of politics is not as good as one who has no such experience? I would suggest he is a great deal better than the professor who comes in here fresh and has no experience of politics and who persists in saying that he has no connection with politics. I have no patience at all with non-political people and I have vast experience of them.

A non-political person is a person who does not mind what kind of politician helps him. That is my definition and, mind you, I have met them, male and female, old and young, graduates and undergraduates, educated and uneducated. They do not mind who you are, if you can help them. Then there is the other man who tells you quite gratuitously that he does not take an interest in politics. That means he is not Fine Gael; it means I am not to expect anything from him, and he will probably tell a Fianna Fáil supporter the same thing. Such people do not understand that politicians very often have conversations, and confide in one another.

Let me come to deal with the Commission's recommendations. They had a great deal of talk and a great deal of intelligent discussion, as a result of which their decision was that as an experiment out of 43 members to be elected by the panels, they would have 23 elected directly by the vocational bodies. In order to get agreement, people accepted that generally, though there is a reservation by Deputy Vivion de Valera and there is something in the danger he indicates. At any rate, in deference to all this agitation, we might try the new system and it would give, as has already been suggested, a certain balance, but there are things in the Commission's Report which I do not think can be of any use at all.

There are certain words in Article 18 about the qualifications to get on a panel. These words are quite incapable of being judged by a court, qualifications for example in the national language, culture, art and education. Apparently anybody with any kind of a degree, or indeed anybody with any kind of training at all, can come in under that definition.

There is also the qualification about labour, whether organised or unorganised, and there have been literally fantastic decisions under that. That is not the fault of the people who made those decisions but it is because the definition is far too wide and vague. I am eligible myself on four of these panels and I think that is rather absurd. The only one on which I am not eligible is the labour panel, though I taught in a secondary school a good many years ago and I do not know of any labour, manual or otherwise, as hard as that.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

You are qualified, so.

Professor Hayes

Then there is the qualification for public administration. A person who has been a member of a county council for one month is qualified as is a person who has been a Minister of State for 20 years. There is no in-between—everybody is qualified. However, there are all kinds of difficulties. Senator Stanford touched on some. There is the specialist who has a special qualification in some particular branch but who is not interested generally and he would be of no use in this House. I want to stress that point. He would be no use in doing the job we have to do, particularly if he keeps himself to his own business. There would be very few opportunities for him to express himself on matters in which he had a special interest.

The Dáil Order Paper to-day or any day illustrates this point. The State is taking over more and more functions. We had an example of it here to-day in the Broadcasting Authority Bill. Almost in spite of the Governments themselves, the State is taking over more and more power, the functions of Government are expanding and becoming more complicated and therefore the functions of Parliament and the matters to be discussed and decided in Parliament are multiplying, so that the person with a narrow point of view is not really of much use at all.

I mentioned some of the people here already. Senator James Douglas was a businessman, an industrialist who was a member of the Fine Gael Party, and I suggest quite seriously that his experience in business — the same thing applies to my colleague, Senator McGuire — was something which was useful because he was prepared to take a particular stand, but, if a person tries to balance himself and says: "This is a very bad Bill, or a very good Bill," and yet does not want to vote on it, then he has very little to contribute and he is of very little use.

That does not mean that I am against vocationalism or Independents, but let me give an example. A few weeks ago, we met at 11 o'clock in the morning and I was asked by the Leader of the House would I consent to sitting for a couple of hours after six o'clock to finish the Broadcasting Authority Bill. I said I would not but an Independent Senator said the idea was quite reasonable. After that, he himself went away. He could go away if he pleased but I could not. I was required to answer for a number of people as to whether they would stay here and help to make a House, but he just went away.

I am not against Independents. I have said it often before, and it is absolutely true, that there is no Parliament I have heard of since 1922 where Independents get a fairer deal than they do in this House and in the other House. The independent member gets a better hearing here than anyone else and I welcome him, but I do not know how this House could do the job it has to do under the Constitution in the absence of some kind of political organisation. Unfortunately, as Senator Stanford indicated, there might be difficulty in getting a House. Independents exercise their rights to come and go as they please. Some of us cannot come and go as we please, and we have such people objecting when the programme is announced that they were not consulted. There is no way to consult them. I do not know how we could work without some kind of consultation between the Leaders of the Parties.

The curious thing about the way democracy works is that there is no mention in the Constitution or the Standing Orders of people who do important work. The Constitution and the Standing Orders of the Dáil make no mention of Whips, and unless there are Whips, the Dáil cannot work. Only for people here like the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition, I do not think this Seanad would work, either. I do not know how it is to work if the whole 43 members of these panels are all to come from vocational interests. The idea is to eliminate politics, as if eliminating politics were the elimination of a virulent contagious disease. That is not so.

Senator Stanford told us that politics was a very noble word. It is a very noble word, although some practitioners of politics are not very noble. That applies equally to other noble words and professions, as I think Senator Stanford will agree. You cannot eliminate human nature, and, human nature being what it is, not all the practitioners of any given profession will be up to the highest standards required.

I feel that the demands made upon people in this House cannot be adequately borne or answered by members of the House who do not take a political view, those who cannot say about a particular problem before them: "I am on this side or the other." For example, there is on the Dáil Order paper the Finance (Excise Duties) (Vehicles) (Amendment) Bill, 1959. I do not know what particular vocation would deal with that. Perhaps if the lorry owners had a member here, he would say something about it. Then there are other Bills such as the Health Authority Bill, the Army Pensions Bill, and the Intoxicating Liquor Bill. There was a Minister who came in here on such a Bill and said that he was peculiarly unfitted to deal with it, and I was obliged to repeat that I was unfitted in the same direction as he was, but we had a member who said that he was not like the Minister or Senator Hayes, that he had a life-long experience of public-houses from both sides of the counter. We have nobody as good as that now.

Then there is the Health (Fluoridation of Water Supplies) Bill. I should really like to hear specialists on that. We have the Solicitors (Amendment) Bill, the Courts (Establishment and Constitution) Bill, the Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Bill, and I wonder what suggestions there are for finding people to deal with these. We are not asked to give anybody any advice. We are asked to discuss the Bills and to say whether we agree with them or to what extent we do not agree with them.

That brings me to the concluding point about experts. I believe in experts, and I have dealt a great deal with them in a great variety of ways, both in politics and government, and outside it. Experts should be listened to but they should not be allowed to make decisions. I am perfectly certain of that. The opinion that this should be a house of 60 people, each of them an expert, is absurd. If it were to be tried, this House would never make a decision on anything. It would be reduced to a complete standstill. Experts should be listened to and shown deference in their own departments, and if an expert is able to make practical suggestions he should be listened to, but the notion that the second House of Parliament should be a House of people who have no political beliefs but each one of whom has expert knowledge is entirely foolish. You would want to change the whole nature of this House to have a scheme of that kind.

This House has defects. The defects, particularly in my own Party, very often make me wild, but the older one gets and the more one sees of politics, the calmer one gets about all these things. The last thing one expects is perfection in human nature. What a very diverse Commission finally agreed to was an experiment, to see how it would work, and if you could go further. We suggest that of the 43 panel members, 23 should be elected by the nominating bodies themselves. That would not be very simple, and I suggested in order to shorten the proceedings of the Commission. that certain details should be left to the Minister for Local Government to work out, that the Commission should not bother itself working out the details, and that if the principle was accepted, the experts in this kind of thing should work out the details.

As an experiment and a contribution towards seeing whether the House can be improved, I am prepared to stand over that, but I should like very clearly to say that it seems to me that nobody is any use in this House or in any Parliament, unless he has political views. He need not be a member of Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael or the Labour Party, but he must have views on current legislation, he must know what he thinks, and be able to say what he thinks, and have the courage to vote for what he thinks. We had a person getting up here saying that a certain Bill was a political matter, and he was not here to take part in politics. That is an absurd attitude. We have to take the view that what we are asked to do is a public job of work and you can only do it if you have views, general political views on legislation and on how the country should be governed. As a step towards improving this House and answering certain criticisms about it, this Commission made certain recommendations and as far as I am concerned, I signed them and I am prepared to agree with them.

Mr. Carter

One must compliment Senator Stanford on the manner in which he dealt with this motion. He was strictly fair in his comments, and those of us who have come to know the Senator regard him highly. Nevertheless, I think that when one comes to speak on this motion, one must have regard to the views expressed by Senator Hayes. Politics has been defined as the art of the possible. Its practitioners cannot afford the luxury of anger or certainty. The Senator who has just spoken has been a long time in the political arena. He has gained much wisdom, and it is to be hoped that with the passing years, he will become still more mellow.

The House must be reserved in dealing with this motion. The Seanad Commission Report was vague enough in certain ways with regard to the method of election, even as governed by Articles 18 and 19 of the Constitution. However, the Seanad is and must remain a political force, and it seems that it will remain so for at least the foreseeable future. For that reason, the view expressed by Deputy Vivion de Valera in his reservation written in the Commission Report, is sound, as many speakers have mentioned.

It is also worthy of some comment, first, because the argument is based upon experience and the view expressed therein is likely to stand the test of time. Secondly, the aim of electing a Seanad on a vocational basis, whilst praiseworthy, is one which, in my opinion, is not calculated to work out so well in practice. While it looks well on paper, the House might discover, for example, in the course of time, that if they tried to elect a Seanad on purely vocational lines, as suggested by the terms of this motion, it might have the effect of destroying the very basis upon which it is sought to build the composition of this House.

For example, by generating active politics inside the vocational groups as to who would be eligible to vote for potential Senators, action of this sort would not produce a purely non-political Seanad. Again, it could be argued that the aim of a fully vocational Seanad might not work out so well in practice or be wholly in keeping with the work expected from this House.

It could be assumed, for example, that the Seanad as visualised in this motion, would not attain that degree of detachment necessary to enable Senators so elected to debate the issues before them with a full sense of balance and with due general regard for the common good. Indeed, election by highly-geared groups can produce a House with a very one-sided point of view.

Then again, of course, there will always be the danger of Senators elected on a vocational basis regarding themselves as purveyors of sectional interests rather than as public functionaries whose office is to be discharged in a countrywide interest. We may also take it that if the members of this House, for example, are to be elected on a vocational basis and should each of them represent elements with an overall common interest, it is difficult to see how they can be expected to discharge their duties objectively. The fact that they were elected on this basis could induce them to enter into coalitions of one kind or another which, in the long run, would give rise to sectional strife in the Seanad. In that event, the functions of this House—and it has some very important functions under Articles 12, 20, 21, 23, 24, 27, 28, 33, 35 and 46 of the Constitution—would be impaired.

I submit that there is no animosity, I think, amongst the members of this House to having the various vocational groups represented. Yet, we must at the same time bear in mind the difficulty of providing for a Seanad which can be effective within the framework of the Constitution which in turn provides for a Cabinet to be elected on a ministerial basis solely responsible to the Dáil. Therefore, we must always have a care that no matter what people may say who are interested in vocationalism, no matter what their argument, there is the danger they could produce conflict between the Dáil and the Seanad and could lead in the last analysis to a constitutional crisis.

One last point—I think the safeguards to which I have referred should not be thrown aside lightly. While we should all welcome and like to see vocationalism functioning here nevertheless, in our time, I think it will not or cannot dominate the Seanad.

Mr. J.D. Sheridan

The hour is late and I just want to say a word or two in commendation of the motion. I think it is a thoroughly intelligent one. It is well presented. The Commission has made recommendations and this motion requests that these recommendations should now be implemented. I think it is a sensible request. It is quite sound. We have been treated to several brilliant lectures on the deification of politics.

I listened to Senator Hayes, who is such a brilliant politican that a country-fellow like me dare not challenge him—

Mr. L'Estrange

You are not too far behind him at times.

Mr. J.D. Sheridan

——and who has had a lifetime of training and experience—

Mr. Murphy

You poor man!

Mr. J.D. Sheridan

——and I heard him castigating some of the members of the vocational bodies in the House. He thinks it is inconceivable that any human being should not be a politician. He quoted from the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society what I think was a rather personal quotation with regard to a Senator who was a member of the House for only a week and the inference was that he was elected primarily because he was a politician. He said that on the Fine Gael side of the House, Senator Baxter was nominated by the same body and nominated because he was a member of the Fine Gael Party. I disagree with that.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. J.D. Sheridan

The late Senator Baxter was, to my mind, a very brilliant man, independent of what his politics were, and he was a man who rendered great service to this House. I am a farmer and I am not a politician. I have had no aid from any Party in being elected to this House, and I do not seek it. When I go to the hustings down in Westmeath, I shall be quite safe——

(Interruptions.)

Mr. L'Estrange

The Senator is a member of two Parties.

Mr. J.D. Sheridan

I have never been, a member of any Party. I defy the Senator to prove that I was. The Senator may have quite a volume of lung power, but he does not have such a volume of logic or truth.

Mr. L'Estrange

That is the truth.

Mr. J.D. Sheridan

I am a vocational member and I represent a very important industry in this country, the livestock trade. I have listened to Senator Hayes delivering judgments on farming, on the livestock trade, and on a hundred and one different subjects connected with farming. In my opinion, Senator Hayes' knowledge of agriculture would fill a very small volume. I have heard other professors and legal luminaries discoursing on agricultural interests in this House and yet we have been told that there is no necessity for any vocational members in the House.

We heard the Government say today that it was up to the country to get itself reorganised. Every day we take up the papers, we read recommendations from various Ministers saying that Ireland is not sufficiently up-to-date. Yet we are told that the real function we should serve in this House is the provision of a forum for the talking of politics. Even in the course of discoursing on various subjects, I have heard it said: "This has been too long a political issue; I am not speaking politically", but let someone get up on this side of the House and say a bad word about the ex-Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Dillon, and there is an outcry over there. Let someone on this side of the House get up to praise the present Minister for Agriculture, and there is an outcry on the other side. This political business does not get us very far.

Not to confine myself to the Fine Gael side, but to treat a little with the Fianna Fáil side, we had Senator Lenihan preaching a very fine homily on the high virtue of politics. With Senator Lenihan, politics seems to be a sort of religion. He has a sublime contempt for anyone who is not a Party man. If I were to put the farming view with regard to Senator Lenihan's comments, I would put it, ignorantly, if you like, along these lines: There is nothing more beneficial to a rising counsel than to make a name for himself in this House as a brilliant speaker. That is a great advantage in the legal profession, but I just wonder, in a backward sort of country like this that needs so much effort today, is that also helpful? Is that political activity of so much value in getting our country into a better position?

Our representatives went across to London last week in an effort to make a better trade agreement. Politics has reached the stage that if these men brought back a good agreement, the people who do not agree politically with them would pull it to pieces in any case. I think that is wrong. I should like to say to Senator Lenihan and to Senator Hayes that we have had a surfeit of politics, and if we gave it a rest for a few years, the country might benefit. I support the motion.

Debate adjourned.

The Seanad adjourned at 10 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, March 2nd, 1960.