The reason we are having this debate today and are entering this process arises out of a commitment I gave when I was appointed Leader of the House. In my first statement to the House as Leader I said that priorities would be the reform of Seanad procedures in the widest possible sense and a search to ensure that Seanad Éireann was as relevant as any second House can be as we move into the new century. I also said that I would consult widely with other parties in the House to try to achieve these ends, that I would do so within a fairly short period of time, that I would not unduly rush the debate, but nor would I allow it lie on the Order Paper for a long period of time. These were commitments which I gave and today we are beginning this process.
At the outset I wish to indicate the nature of the debate and the way in which it should proceed. I am very conscious of the long debate we had in the last Seanad and very conscious of the contribution of so many speakers from all parties to that debate. It lasted a number of months and covered virtually every aspect of the historical role of the Seanad and its role as it should be in the years ahead. That debate generated a large number of interesting ideas which I intend to put on the record of the House today as the basis and guideline for discussion to ensure that people will not spend their time reinventing wheels or going down well trodden paths and that there will be at least a structure to the debate.
There are two reasons why we should spend some time on a general debate, starting today. The first of these is that almost one half of the Members of the House were not Members of the last Seanad. The turnover in both Houses of late has been, for those of us who have been here a while, uncomfortably high. All of us are very conscious of the fact that we are tenants of time in whatever House to which we have the privilege to be elected.
There are almost 30 new Members of the House and it is important that they be given an opportunity to contribute to this debate. There are many young Members and Members of great distinction, such as Senator Lee, Senator Quinn, Senator Henry and Senator Wilson. There are therefore many new Members who have now had two years in which to observe the way we do our business in the House. They have joined the House with fresh eyes and it will be interesting to hear their contributions as to how they believe the role of the Seanad should be defined.
During this time there has also been an unprecedented degree of change in the other House. The Dáil went along for decades almost without change and the procedures and practice were for many decades those which were established at the foundation of State. There was a burst of reforming activity in the 1980s when we saw the establishment of wide range of committees, but with the beginning of the last Fianna Fáil/Labour Government we saw the beginnings of the putting in place of a fairly wide range of reforms in the other House.
To a great extent these reforms have bypassed this House and, specifically, we have found ourselves excluded from a majority of committees. I lobbied very hard with the Government to ensure that as far as possible any new committees would be joint committees, and I can say with some satisfaction that virtually every one of the new committees is a joint committee which will ensure that there will be representation for Members of the Seanad. In addition, as Senator Norris pointed out this morning, the membership of the Seanad on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs has been doubled.
Progress has been made, therefore, but we should also be seeking ways in which the Seanad has its own distinctive part to play, because we are not a carbon copy of the other House and we were not intended to be such. We were intended to make a distinctive contribution.
The procedure I propose we follow is that today I will outline most of the main points — taken from a synopsis comprehensively prepared for me by the staff of the House — made in the previous debate to ensure that they are on the record and that the ideas and changes proposed are available, allowing people to examine them at their leisure without having to go through a further reiteration or lengthy debate on them. Following that I want the debate to stretch over not more than a couple of weeks and, if need be, we could invite submissions from outside groups, former Members, academics or members of the public who have views as to how the Seanad should operate and the role it should play.
People may wish to give us their views in written form, or we could invite them to attend to make submission. For example, people such as former Senator Jim Dooge, a man of great experience of the Seanad, and former Senator Eoin Ryan — and I only wish the late Willie Ryan was still with us — who loved this House can also take a critical look and tell us how we might change our procedures or undertake things differently.
We should be very open if there are people from outside who wish to come and talk to us — and we can arrange for this procedurally — or who wish to make written submissions, because one of the things which has changed the nature of both Houses is our friend up in the corner, the television camera. Over the last two years we are, for the first time, going into the homes of people, because "Oireachtas Report" is watched to a considerable extent. Many of us now find that we are being recognised in the streets, perhaps in places where we do not wish to be recognised, by virtue of people seeing us on the screen. The House has therefore opened up, as have the procedures, and it should be a two way process. If people have views which they wish to put about how these Houses should operate let us hear them.
I then propose to establish a small all party committee. In the past questions of reform have been handled by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. From my experience, and with no disrespect to the committee, of which I am privileged to be a Member, it is not the right vehicle to push through reforms of this kind. It is too big and many of its Members are very busy in other respects. I wish therefore to establish a small all party group comprising of perhaps one person from each party. It is not a question of people being represented according to size; this is a committee whose purpose is to consider proposals and come back with ideas. This small all party group will go through the various proposals which have been established and I will ask the Government to provide some secretarial back up for the duration of the committee. It will examine what has been said by Members or by outside people and will report back to the House, hopefully within a reasonable time. I hope it will report back by the end of this session, which would not be a bad rate of progress. Perhaps over the summer we can define and refine the proposals.
In any discussion on reform of the Seanad, we have to be very conscious of where we are starting from. We are starting from within the confines of a Constitution which is very specific in relation to the role and nature of the Seanad and imposes constitutional limitations on the Seanad. We are not the dominant House. The dominant House is the Dáil, to which the Government is accountable and which elects the Government. We were never meant to be in competition with the Dáil.
None of us was a Member of the first Seanad which in 1934, because of the different timing of elections, found itself in conflict with Mr. de Valera. There was a non-Fianna Fáil majority in the Upper House and a Fianna Fáil Government in the Lower House. The then Seanad, which could hold up legislation for 18 months, rejected a number of Bills which Mr. de Valera wanted to put through. He replied with the expedient of introducing a Bill in the Dáil to abolish the Seanad, which was passed by the Dáil but, unsurprisingly, not by the Seanad. Eighteen months later the Seanad was abolished.
As a historian, I have no doubt that Mr. de Valera was completely right in what he did. There is no contest if there is a conflict between a popularly elected Lower House and an indirectly elected Upper House. The voice of the people is reflected in the Lower House and there can only be one winner. It is very clear in the Constitution that we are not intended to be in competition with the Lower House or to obstruct its will.
That does not mean that there is not a variety of other extremely useful and important roles for this House, such as the obvious ones of the scrutiny and initiating of legislation. Senator Daly's Bill is a very good example of what I hope will be an increasing feature of this House over the coming two years. Whether Private Members' Bills are accepted or rejected is a matter for the House, but the very fact that a Bill is debated carefully in the House opens up public debate, puts on pressure and is part of the work which we should be doing. There is a whole range of ideas and topics which we should discuss. We have only begun to scratch the surface of what is possible. However, it must all be within the confines of the Constitution, which is master of us all.
Another very distinctive fundamental aspect of the Seanad, from which we cannot shirk, is its vocational nature. The vocational concepts upon which this Seanad are based may have been very particular to the 1930s, especially the dominant Catholic social thinking of that time, and may not be relevant today. The vocational representation of our State today may be found in bodies such as the NESC, the employer labour talks and the various structures which have in some senses almost turned this into a corporate State, where business is done by the various sectors dealing directly with the Government.
After examining the vocational underpinning of this House we may decide that it has no great reality, which I do not think it has, and that it is not a particularly good idea anyway. Perhaps we could, within what is available to us, start looking at other categories which might be represented here or other roles for the Seanad. I look forward in particular to Senator Lee's contribution on this question. Everybody's views will be of interest and value but, as a historian, he may have a special insight into the way in which the Seanad should move on this question.
There are other questions which we need to look at. We are not alone in having a second House as at least nine of the current 15 EU member states have an Upper House. I can say with certainty that eight of the original 12 have an Upper House, although I have not checked on Austria. Finland and Sweden. Upper Houses are the norm in the majority of EU states and, with one or two exceptions, they all have a somewhat similar role to ours.
I find this interesting because occasionally criticism is made of the electorate of the majority of Members of this House, that is, that elected county councillors elect the majority of Senators. That, in fact, is the norm in different forms in many EU member states. Most members of the French Senate, for example, are elected by the councillors and mayors of the small towns of France. In Spain, most members of the second House are elected from regional councils. There is nothing too different about the way in which the majority of the Members of this House are elected.
We are unique in that this is the only Parliament where Members are elected by university graduates; but, however indefensible this may be in democratic theory, the reality is that some of the finest Members of this Seanad came from the university constituencies. I do not think that anybody would seriously suggest that this should not be an ongoing part of the Seanad. I would say to Senator Farrell that some of them may occasionally say things which drive us all mad. However, that is very valuable in a House such as this which needs elements of difference.
The question arises as to what sort of model we should have for a second House. We should commission somebody — or I could do it myself — to look at second Houses in the other EU states to see if there is anything which we can usefully learn from them. However, we should not be circumscribed by what people do elsewhere. We have an opportunity now to put a distinctive shape on how we do our business and on the role of the Seanad. We could look at new ideas, but we should also try to adapt what we have. We forget too easily that we in this House are the inheritors of 70 years of tradition. We have had two very different Seanads but this House has been in existence, with a short break, since 1922. In all of that time we have learned to do some things right and we should try to build and adapt where we have had some degree of success.
Ultimately, the only real criteria when we come to evaluate what we want to do are whether we are effective and efficient, whether this House gives value to the taxpayer for the moneys which are expended upon it and whether this House makes a real contribution to Irish public life. Whatever we do, we must seek to answer these questions. The only ultimate justification for a Seanad is that it is a good one. "Good" can be defined in a wide variety of ways such as making a real contribution to public debate.
I become very impatient with people who refer to Parliament as a mere talking shop and a place for hot air. Such people forget that the origin of the word "parliament" comes from the word "parley", meaning "to talk", where people came together to exchange views and resolve differences by talking rather than by resorting to knocking each other's heads off. A Parliament is often at its most effective when it is the forum and sounding board for ideas about the shaping of future society and different aspects of legislation, where people are conducting a national debate on issues that matter to the people of the country. If this House can be more effective as a forum and talking shop, we need make no apology. It is one of our most important and vital functions.
There are other areas which we have not begun to investigate. Parliaments are increasingly becoming the interface for different groups in the public arena and Members of Parliament. People are given an audience and the right to put their case. It is often broadcast on television and the changes they want are put on record. This has a very valuable function. People have a sense of not being alienated. They are listened to and given a chance to put across their views. They are given a respectful and careful hearing and it may be that those sitting in the ministerial chair will learn from what has been said.
I wish to open the debate by putting forward some of these ideas. I do not want this to be a long process, but I want the ideas to be discussed and examined in some detail. A small committee will be set up, which can, if necessary, take outside submissions. We will move on from there and we may be in a position to come forward with real proposals by the end of the session which will have the backing of all sides of the House.
It is important to stress that it is not the job of the Government to reform any House of Parliament; it is the job of the House itself. The only worthwhile reforms will be those which have the support of all parties in the House. We must all go ahead together on this matter. The more effectively we do our business and the better value we give to the public, the more it redounds to all our credit, enriches public life and enhances the public's view of parliamentary institutions.
I intended putting on the record the synopsis of the recommendations from the last debate. However, it is a long statement, containing approximately 12 pages. I will just indicate the areas covered by it and then arrange to have it circulated to every Member of the House rather than reading it all into the record now. It deals with the Order of Business, which all Members agree needs to be changed, adjournment debates, the possibility of Question Time, topical issues and Standing Order 29. All these areas are covered.
