I welcome this report which has been laid before us. It is a fairly straightforward document and there is nothing very controversial in it. I also thank the Leader for referring to his oversight this morning, which I know was an oversignt, in not alluding to a matter which I raised on the Order of Business. I intend now to return to that matter, to take it in reverse order and to begin with the section of the report which deals with the distinguished visitors and how we should treat them and what sort of facilities we should accord to them. I would take a very liberal definition as to what constitutes a "distinguished person", who should be entitled to address this House. I would go so far as to take a very liberal view both domestically and from a foreign point of view. There are people within the country who have distinguished themselves in areas other than politics and it would be very useful and constructive from the point of view of development of the economy and of Irish society in general to hear their views and accord them a platform where those views could be given to Parliament. That is not to say that people from limited interest groups should be accorded such facility, but I believe that there are people within our society whom it would be very useful to hear.
In relation to Mr. Dubcek's visit yesterday, I found it quite embarrassing that somebody of his stature, somebody who is an internationally recognised statesman, who is the Speaker of his country's now democratic Parliament and someone who had suffered so much to bring the democracy to Eastern Europe which is now emerging, and who began that process more than 20 years ago, should have had to sit in the Visitors' Gallery while we conducted our domestic affairs. I am sure he was interested in how our Parliament conducts its business, but I also found it embarrassing after he was accorded a very gracious welcome by the Leas-Chathaoirleach that Members had to troop through the distinguished Visitors' Gallery to shake hands with him one after the other. I thought it diminished the dignity of the House. It reflected badly on what, after all, is our reputation for hospitality. If that reputation exists within the country, as it does I am sure, it should also exist within our Parliament. We should reflect the society from which we come.
The way in which he attended here yesterday was not satisfactory. I certainly would have very much welcomed being able to hear what he had to say. He is obviously a person of immense experience. He is a person who has gone through a lot. He is not less worthy than, say, Nelson Mandela of addressing the joint session — and I do not, for one moment, deny that Mr. Mandela should have been accorded that honour, but I do believe we should have been able to hear Mr. Dubcek yesterday. I had a certain sense of embarrassment about what happened yesterday. I am glad that within this report those matters are being covered. We wish to have people, not just of his stature but of even lesser stature, come to us and we wish to adopt the facility of allowing distinguished persons to address the Seanad.
It is not as if we do not have the time because we do. However, I would be very much in favour of not having a restrictive definition as to who should address us. In that connection, when we discussed last week European political and economic union at that stage I said I found it quite extraordinary, and indicative of our general indifference to the institutions of Europe, that we did not have some facility where our MEPs could have an input into our domestic Parliament. That is not to say that they should actually have a legislative function, but we should at least know what is going on in Europe. After all, the European Parliament is a very important facet of European life and it will become an even more important facet as the trend towards European union develops.
I also recorded on that occasion — and I will say it again — that when I visited the European Parliament earlier in the year I was able to sit in the Chamber when a committee on German unification was meeting — I could sit in the Chamber. At that meeting the chairman invited two people from the West German and East German Parliaments to address the meeting. They had no status within the European Parliament but they were invited to address the meeting quite informally. One of the problems we have is that we derive so many of our models from the institution across the water. As someone who has been here for a year, it strikes me that our procedures and our way of doing business are more appropriate to the Victorian age than they are to the age in which we live. Parliaments, in general, in Europe, take a much more flexible approach than we do. We seem to derive our model from Westminister. I do not think that is very healthy. It would be more advantageous to us if we looked to the European model.
I also said on that occasion, that I would wish the Seanad to take a more liberal approach as to who can address us, and that should include our MEPs and addresses even by, say, European Commissioners from whom, I am sure, we could learn.
In relation to the television aspects of this report, we must concede that television as a medium has positive and negative features, as do most things in life. One of the positive things which television has done is that it has accelerated the movement towards breaking down the barriers in Eastern Europe. The fact that people in East Germany and other Eastern European States could see across the wall, so to speak, through the medium of television, and see the society in Western Europe and wish to have the living standards and the freedoms which that society in Western Europe enjoyed, was a very powerful impetus towards the change which has taken place in Eastern Europe. Television, in that respect, has had a very positive impact. It could be argued that in some ways it is leading us towards a global society and that some of the barriers that existed and some of the very nationalistic obsessions which people had are disappearing to an extent because of television. That is a development which is to be applauded. I find it curious and regrettable that we have not had television in both Houses of the Oireachtas until now.
When I was in Hungary earlier in the year, every evening on the news bulletin we saw the proceedings of the Hungarian Parliament. We also saw voting electronically rather than through the lobbies. In that respect we have some way to go even to catch up on Eastern Europe. I agree entirely with Senator Manning who said that it is the right of the people to see what happens in their Parliament — to see what happens in both the Dáil and in the Seanad — in order to judge whether what is being done here is effective. The most immediate way in which the workings of both Houses can be brought to the attention of the people is through television. They have the discretion not to watch, of course and they probably will exercise that discretion to a fairly high degree. At least they are entitled to see, to hear, as they do at the moment on RTE, and to read about what happens within the Parliament.
I share Senator Manning's view in relation to the older press standards where the business of Parliament was reported. It now seems to be the case that people can attend here for the Order of Business, perform for the benefit of a headline, then leave the House and not contribute in any substantial way to the proper business of the House, which is to legislate on behalf of the people. That is regrettable. One of the reservations I have in relation to television is that it could lead to an even more accentuated disorder, if that is the word. People will perform for television. I hope the committee can institute some standards to prevent that happening. It would be regrettable if the only things we saw on television news bulletins were disorder, rows and people making silly points for publicity purposes.
Members must conduct themselves in an orderly fashion, being conscious of the fact that they are Members of a sovereign Parliament. That does not mean we should stand on our dignity or on our vanity to such an extent that people are not entitled to know, see and hear what goes on here. That is the very foundation of democracy. From that point of view, I hope the development of television reporting can be accelerated.
Reference has already been made to the cameras in the House and how they do not fit in with the magnificent surroundings. Last week Senator Manning raised this matter and clarified it. Where I come from they would be called "yokes": there are three "yokes" in the House. Given the level of technology which exists today, I cannot understand how this cannot be done more discreetly with a smaller camera. There was an advertisement in The Irish Times yesterday for a video camera which you could hold in your hand. If they can bring back television pictures from space via satellites we can do more with the technology which exists today than we appear to have done. I would say to the people responsible for installing those cameras to look again and come up with a more satisfactory solution.
I am led to understand that RTE may take a visual feed direct from here and will be able to edit it at their discretion, but they would take the sound feed by way of the television cameras and use that on the radio programmes, which they already broadcast from the Oireachtas. I am not so sure that is a satisfactory arrangement. It obviously has implications from an employment point of view as well as from other points of view. That is something which possibly needs to be examined.
Both of these matters, in terms of the distinguished persons and of television, bring us on to one other point I would like to make before I conclude and that is total Oireachtas reform. There is an onus on us to bring our procedures into the modern age to reflect the society which is a modern society and not be out of touch with the needs of that modern society.
Many of our procedures are very much based on the British model but there are more liberal and flexible models we could look at quite usefully. Above all, we must be able to respond to the issues of the day. Our present procedures seem to prevent us from doing that. When people die or when there is some other momentous event of that nature we are accorded time to comment but a lot of the time when something of an economic nature, of an agricultural nature, of a social nature develops within the country and is being spoken about by every citizen within the State, we come in here and we are unable to talk about it until we have time and by the, time we are given time or time is available, the subject is no longer an issue, so what we have to say is not relevant. In those circumstances we need to be more responsive to the issues of the day but I do believe profoundly that the conduct of Members needs some degree of regulation when television becomes the medium by which we address the nation.
