Item 21— motion in the names of Deputies Dr. Browne and McQuillan.
Private Members' Business. - Abolition of Seanad—Motion.
Perhaps Deputy Dr. Browne might like to explain why he ran out of the House in order to avoid the Division.
Hear, hear. Sauve qui peut.
I move:—
That Dáil Éireann is of the opinion that Seanad Éireann as it is at present constituted should be abolished.
In moving this motion it is necessary to go over some of the history associated with the formation of the Seanad and its subsequent career. This is the second time that a motion of this nature was moved in this House. On the previous occasion, however, the motion simply asked for the abolition of the Seanad as it stood. It was moved by the present Taoiseach, Deputy de Valera, and behind him he had the backing of an effective majority, with which, there was no doubt, he intended to implement his will.
I do not intend to go into the reasons why the then Taoiseach, Deputy de Valera, insisted on the removal or abolition of the Seanad but I shall draw to a very considerable extent on many of the very cogent, telling and compelling arguments which he used at that time in order to try to persuade the House to agree that a Seanad as such or, indeed, any Second Chamber at all was neither desirable nor necessary in a democratic society. As two Independents, it is quite clear that we cannot depend on the great overwhelming majority of a Party. Possibly because of that it should be possible to get a more reasoned argument from both sides of the House, to have the motion considered in a non-Party way, and, if possible, allow the Deputies to express their viewpoint independent of the Party Whip.
To those who feel that the Seanad is serving a useful purpose as it is and do not want to have it changed, I would very much like if they would put forward their arguments and try to justify their belief. I should not like to treat the House in the positively boisterous way in which the Taoiseach, Deputy de Valera, treated it away back in 1934, when he put the onus entirely upon the Oppositon to prove that the Seanad was required. He said in Volume 52, column 1809, of the Dáil Debates:—
"When I introduced the Bill I said —and I repeat it—that the onus was on the Opposition to show why there should be a Second Chamber. Why should we complicate legislative machinery unnecessarily? There is nothing in reason in the nature of representative Government that would at all have suggested to anybody a check in a Second Chamber, such as the Senate is."
Later, in the same column, he said:—
"To me, it was just as if I were to have to defend the removing of hobble skirts. It is for those who say that hobble skirts, which restrict natural movement, should be worn to show why they should be worn—in other words, to show why these restrictions and this unnecessary complication in the legislative machinery should be there."
He continued with even more arguments of a similar kind. He at that time was quite definitely and deliberately opposed to the idea of a Second Chamber at all. In that he was being very consistent in so far as he was emphasising a point of view which both he and Deputy Lemass expressed as far back as 1928 that nothing could be done about the Second Chamber; there was no advantage in a Second Chamber and that it should be abolished.
We are not being so revolutionary. We merely suggest that the Seanad, as at present constituted, should be abolished, which allows for a fair amount of latitude in propositions for its reconstitution in a very effective form. In column 140, Volume 22, of the Official Debates for the year 1928, the Taoiseach maintains his consistency. He said:—
"We are against the setting up of this particular committee."
It was a Joint Committee to inquire into the method of election to the Seanad.
"We think the proper thing to do is to end the Senate and not to attempt to mend it. It is costly, and we do not see any useful function that it really serves."
At the same time Deputy Lemass said:—
"I think that the public feeling throughout the country is very strongly in favour of the abolition of the Senate, not to patch it up... They are like a tame dog, prepared to do anything the Executive Council orders them to do, and this is the farce which it is proposed now to rejuvenate at a cost to the State of over £30,000 a year."
It is a strange thing that the cost is much the same and there are many people who would agree with Deputy Lemass that the Seanad is still a farce and, while I do not want to use such a strong word, there is a case to be made for such a viewpoint. You had that viewpoint in 1928, again in 1934 and it was reiterated on a number of occasions by Deputy de Valera, both as President and Taoiseach. That shows a very definite pattern of consistency in relation to the abolition of the whole idea of an Upper House.
I have no objection in the world to people having a point of view and changing that point of view if they so wish if valid, compelling and intelligible reasons are put forward. My attitude to the Seanad is very close to what the Taoiseach's point of view used to be. I hold to the view that it is a superfluous body, particularly in its present form. I cannot see why it should be maintained as a deliberative assembly. It might be of some help as an advisory council, but as a deliberative assembly no case at all can be made for it.
However, I think that the whole basis of democracy presupposes that there shall be a main legislative assembly—the Dáil. I think its functions are mainly through its executive council, its Cabinet, to drive a tendency through the legislation; to accept responsibility for that legislation, and to lay down a policy which the people can consider, accept or reject. The fourth point is that it accepts responsibility for raising the finances in order to put that particular programme into operation.
That has the great advantage that it is possible for the people to praise or to blame the Executive Council, the Government and the Cabinet for whatever the results of that policy may be. That council is responsible to the public. It is elected. Governments are made and unmade by the people. Consequently, it seems to me, that that is the whole essence of the proper democratic approach with the Second Chamber form of Government, with suitable advisory councils, for legislation if the need arises.
The evolution of democracy shows a century old pattern, the attempt made by the people to achieve complete control over their own affairs and to decide and arbitrate as to the way in which they will order their lives. It evolved in our countries at least by way of Runnymede, Magna Charta, the Divine Rights of Kings and the transmission of that power to barons, landlords, right on to the industrial barons of recent years, and up to the present time, when the people are attempting to wrest from them the control of their own affairs. The feudal powers of the landed aristrocracy have been replaced by other devices for restricting the real power of the people, resting in its deliberative assembly, such as this Dáil, the most important being, of course, the maintenance of a sufficient level of illiteracy or mass uneducation to permit people to accept legislation which is contrary to their best interests.
The deliberative assembly, the Dáil, is nominated from the people as a result of consultation with the people as to the point of view or the programme which they wish to implement. It seems to me that that Chamber is the first democratically elected body and, consequently, that there could be no interference with its legislation. I believe, from that fact, that, in the first place, there could be no Second Chamber which may veto legislation passed by the First House. That is unthinkable. I do not believe anybody would seriously suggest it as a proposition for a Second House in any modern democratic society.
I think there are serious suggestions as to the next point which is usually made and that is that a Second House can delay or revise legislation, can and should delay or revise legislation. The present Taoiseach, Deputy de Valera, used to refute most strongly—and I agree completely with all his arguments in his refutations—that the theory that the Second House should act as a brake was fallacious. I agree with him there. He used these arguments very strongly indeed. It was put to him that the Second House can obstruct the tendency towards the development of a dictatorship. I think he had no difficulty at all in disposing of that point. May I quote him, because I agree with those arguments? I think they are very good arguments. I should like to hear answers to these arguments, if there are answers to them.
At columns 1851-52 of the Official Report of the 25th May, 1934, he is reported as saying:—
"We are apt to think of a Second Chamber and base our conclusions upon it on two very false assumptions. One is that it is a check or a brake which will operate at the time that we think brakes and checks ought to act; and secondly, that we can compose a Seanad of persons who will take a detached view, and will not be affected by political passions at a moment of crisis. Those are two absolutely false assumptions. That they are false appears at once the moment you examine them closely. The very idea of a brake is that there is somebody who will put it into operation just when it is wanted. When the motor is speeding downhill the person at the wheel has got this particular device at his command, by which he is able to check the mad career of the car which may take him over a precipice. There is there the controlling power, but what is a Second Chamber when we think of it as a brake? Does it act in that way? Will it act just as we want it to act, supposing at a time when democracy is heading for ruin? We cannot provide that it will act. It is much more likely to act like a badly adjusted brake, which will act when it is a cause of friction; when it is preventing the car from getting up the speed which is necessary in order to travel properly. It operates in times of ordinary activity. It operates to prevent the speed which is necessary, and which otherwise could be attained. It is a cause of friction. It operates then because it is easy for it to operate then. It certainly does not operate at the time when we want it most—at the time of crisis—because, as I have said before, in times of revolution it is swept aside,..."
He then gave the example of Napoleon. He referred to Cromwell's sweeping aside of the Second Chamber and the establishment of a dictatorship. Then he brought in the canard about dictators. There have been dictators in our time who have ignored both the First and Second Chambers. He said that the argument for a Second House is completely fallacious. He is quite right. It is clear that if a dictator should come into power in a democracy in which two Houses existed the dictator could abolish the Second House, or both Houses, if he were sufficiently strong-minded. Indeed, one of the arguments he did not use at the time, and I think it was a very telling one, was that, as a very determined head of Government, he himself introduced legislation which swept aside the Second Chamber which was, I understand, trying to obstruct the passage of legislation at that time. I think that argument did not seem to strike the people who pleaded that the Seanad should be retained in order that it might act as a brake on legislation or prevent the development of a dictator. I am not suggesting that Deputy de Valera, the Taoiseach, is a dictator. However, it certainly did not prevent his sweeping the Seanad aside because he felt that, as he said, it was a brake preventing the Government from developing the rate of legislative speed which he then seemed to think was very necessary.
As to the question of delaying legislation, I find that suggestion, when put forward by anybody in this House, rather offensive. We must assume a literate electorate which has considered carefully our qualifications for Government, for legislation. We, to the best of our ability, have come in here, considered the points of view of the people who have elected us, and passed legislation through this House which we believe is in accordance with their will. I can see no reason why we should deliberately accept a Second House which would have a right to interfere with what is essentially the expression of the public will in relation to legislation. That the suggestion should be put forward, as it was put forward to the present Taoiseach years ago, in 1934, that it would be desirable to keep a Second Chamber in order to revise or delay legislation seems to me to indicate a very considerable inferiority complex on the part of Deputies in this House who did not feel sufficiently confident on their own abilities to pass intelligent and rational legislation without the help of a Second House.
There is no reason in the world that the Second House would have any monopoly of infallibility or wisdom which was not already available to the first House. With regard to the questions of revision and delay, I do not think that if the revision is a minor one it needs a Second Chamber costing, as it has cost in the past three or four years, £161,000 to make such minor revisionary legislation and suggestions. Assuming the revisions are of a major character they should be made here. They should be debated in this House and the Government should be in a position to decide on the merits of the proposed revisions, accepting or rejecting them after debates, rather than that they should be carried out, deliberated upon and considered in another House in which the Deputies would not have an opportunity of making their points of view known.
On the question of the desirability of the Second Chamber in order to delay legislation, I object in principle. It is suggested it should be necessary but it seems to me that it ignores completely the whole development of legislation in modern society, in the modern political world of politics. The suggestion that one should have a brake, or a delaying process such as a Second Chamber, in order to delay legislation seems to me to be completely unrealistic. One of the most remarkable things about legislation is not the speed with which it goes through but the slowness, the great time it takes, to get the most moderate proposal through the modern deliberative, legislative assembly.
It is a fact that any sort of reasonably revolutionary idea has to be first of all considered by a Party. In that Party it has to be voted upon between the two wings of the Party, the right and the left, the progressive and the reactionary, the radical and the conservative. If it originates amongst the executive of the Party it has to be debated amongst the followers of the Party. It has to be sold by the right wing to the left wing, or the left wing to the right wing as the case may be. Then it has to be sold to the body of the organisation and the next important step is that it has to be put across to the people. In that one has the tremendous difficulties of newspaper propaganda, the education of newspapers, the grotesque education of newspapers, that is there. It is an important consideration in trying to establish the political point of view. One has also the tremendous power of the radio, through discussions, debates and questions on these matters and, of course, one has now the development of television. It is quite clear that the politician and political Party in a modern democracy have to carry the mass of the people with them in the annunciation of policy, or in any suggestion that radical and fundamental changes in national policy should be carried through by a political Party, in a legislative assembly when the Party takes office and it has to draft legislation.
Proposals for legislation then go to the civil servants who naturally with their tremendous resources of knowledge and experience of such matters give their advice. That can be a very difficult thing if the Executive is not sure of itself, yet there is a further sifting process in which the civil servants put their views forward and the executive defends its views. A Bill then comes into the House for First Reading, Second Reading, Committee Stage, Report Stage, and all the very detailed analyses of criticism, constructive and destructive of Opposition, whose job it is to see that the legislation is as sane, as reasonable and as sensible as possible. In those circumstances what is the need for the delaying process of a Second Chamber?
Most legislation, even before we became reasonably democratic in these countries, most ideas that have been debated, most radical changes that have taken place, have taken years to go through enacting process. Some Home Rule Bills were, I believe, being discussed for anything up to 30 years in the British Parliament. They are still trying to reform the British House of Lords some 100 years later. I am quite satisfied in my mind that we are not finished discussing health legislation here, that it will continue to go on for five, ten, 20 or 30 years. All other basic proposals are debated for five, ten, 15 or 20 years before they are made law. As I say I cannot see that there is a really sound case for the proposition that there should be a Second Chamber in order to see that legislation is without any flaw.
Various other suggestions have been made as to the necessity of a Second Chamber. There is the suggestion that the Second Chamber will safeguard the liberties of the people. I do not know why the Second Chamber should be expected to safeguard the liberties of the people. This is where the liberties of the people should be safeguarded, in the Dáil, in the elected House. We could not be permitted by an intelligent electorate to interfere with the liberties of the people. What right have these people to advocate this idea, to suggest that a second nonrepresentative, undemocratic body like the Seanad or British House of Lords, would have the slightest interest in the protection of the liberties of the people, or anyway, more interest than we would have?
Such undemocratic bodies have no rights or responsibilities to protect the people. A body such as the House of Lords is composed of a group of people who represent a dying class. They represent nobody but themselves. They have no concern with the interests of the mass of the people. Similarly, in our own Second Chamber, the body is composed of vocational groups, some of which are concerned with the veterinary profession, some the agricultural industry, some the medical profession and the trade unions or other big subgroups of our society. They have no direct responsibility for the big mass of the people.
The present Taoiseach described the position in a much more telling manner than I could when he spoke on the Constitution (Amendment) Bill in 1934. In Volume 52 of the Official Report he is quoted as having said:—
"At the time of the adjournment last night I was concluding the examination of the argument which was put forward from the Opposition Benches that history had shown that a Second Chamber was an effective safeguard of the liberties of the people. That argument was put forward in answer to my challenge to show why this complication of a Second Chamber was necessary. I said that it did not arise out of the idea of representative Government at all; that in my view the existence of a Second House as part of the legislature of several countries was very much an accident, and that the fact that it existed was no proof at all that it had a right to exist, or that its existence was really a benefit. My conclusion, at any rate, is that a fair reading of history proves not that a Second Chamber is an effective safeguard either of constitutions or of the people's liberties which are supposed to be enshrined in these constitutions, but that, at a time of revolution when a military leader, backed by force, snapped his fingers at all constitutions, he did not care very much whether it was a Single Chamber or a Double Chamber Legislature he was putting aside."
Nobody could, I think, contradict or refute that perfectly rational and reasonable suggestion based on our whole experience of historical events. I do not think anybody could conclude that there is in a Second Chamber any really effective safeguard in times of crisis.
It certainly did not protect the then Seanad from the then President of the Executive Council. There is a suggestion that we could patch up the present Seanad by altering the system of election. I should be very glad to hear views on a satisfactory scheme for election to the Seanad by any who care to put them forward. To the best of my ability I have given as much thought as I could to ideas for the election of suitable and satisfactory Second Chambers. What is very much more important is that legislatures throughout the world and talented and gifted legislators have tried to find some solution for this curious yearning by people for Second Chambers. Again I can quote the present Taoiseach, speaking in 1934, and reported in Volume 52, column 1853 of the Official Report:—
"If we spent a little time in examining the various propositions that from time to time have been put forward for the election of a Seanad we would see how vain it is to hope for, and how impossible it is to attain anything like an approximation to this ideal Seanad."
How right he was in that analysis. How right he is shown to have been. The various means of electing a Seanad have been considered from time to time. They were considered by the then Government in 1937. The then President made it quite clear that they had given a lot of thought to the question and had been unable to devise any way of getting a competent Seanad. The hereditary way we can dismiss as unacceptable. The curious anachronism of the House of Lords in Great Britain is one of the amazing vestiges one finds from time to time. With their monarchy in Great Britain, they have this House of Lords as a totem pole for which there is not any reasonable explanation and the miracle is that they have been able to proceed along the way of democracy even to the extent they have gone.
There has been a suggestion—I do not think such a suggestion could be put forward seriously—that the Seanad be elected in the same way as the Dáil. That would give us a duplication of this Chamber which would be completely unnecessary and undesirable. The suggestion that the Second Chamber should be elected by a system of nomination has been tried in a number of countries. I believe Canada is one. The United States, at one stage, is another. I do not think anybody has any doubt that a system of election by nomination is an inefficient system for the achievement of an efficient Seanad. It is said to maximise the level of corruption in political elections. The suggestion put forward by the Taoiseach once upon a time was that eligible types of individuals, people such as distinguished poets, painters and retired politicians, should have their names put in the hat and drawn out. That was an original suggestion. It is indeed a bizarre one and it really appeals to me as one of the most sensible of all I have heard.
Would the Deputy be good enough to give us the reference? I am interested in that statement.
I have not got it at the moment.
It escapes my recollection.
Curiously enough, it was the one suggestion that seemed to me to be the rather desperate expedient of a desperate man who had given the matter a tremendous amount of thought and who decided: "This is the only practical way that I can see out of the dilemma of trying to create a satisfactory Seanad." There have been suggestions that there would be the benefits of the advisory functions of Senators, such as those just mentioned, great painters, experts in the law, medical practitioners, poets, writers and distinguished persons of all kinds. The suggestion is that if they were in the Seanad, they could add greatly to the consideration of the legislative proposals because of the mature consideration they might give them, because of the non-political objective analysis they might bring to bear and in that way, they could save legislation from the effects that complicate our opinion here because we happen to hold different political viewpoints.
I think that is a fallacious suggestion. First of all, it is fallacious that such a Seanad would be of any value. There is a difficulty about a Seanad in which there are these different people, with different avocations in that it is very little different from this House but with this disadvantage. At least we have some experience of politics but poets, artists or engineers could consider legislation, say, a Health Bill, with only negligible experience and would be able to make only a negligible contribution to consideration of that legislation. If an individual in that Seanad, say, a poet or writer, had any particular expert knowledge of the subject which they were debating, clearly it would be just a coincidence. Therefore, that House could not add anything to legislation that was not already available to any one of us here, except coincidentally. Consequently, I do not think such a proposal is of any value.
There is another point advanced that these people might be lacking entirely in a political point of view and political bitterness. I think it is only correct they should have a political point of view. They might not give it much thought but subconsciously most of us have a view on these matters. Whether artists, painters, writers, architects or doctors, I do not think our political views change fundamentally because of our avocation, and the fact that people are old does not mean that they are free from prejudices or free from bitterness in their consideration of legislation.
Again, I am backed up in that point of view by the present Taoiseach, the then President, in May, 1934, when he said, in Volume 52, column 1857, of the Official Reports:—
"I am talking of what is the conception of people who think this Second Chamber is so valuable? They have an idea of experienced people who are not swayed by the passions that are supposed to sway us."
Deputy MacDermott remarked:—
"I am afraid the old are just as much swayed by passion as the young."
And the President then said:—
"Exactly. I was going to make that remark a few moments ago but I just passed away from it in the sequence of thought. I believe they are not less affected. They are far worse. That is not my own belief alone. There is something generous about the antagonism of the young but when you get old antagonisms that have been burned into the bone they are far more vicious and far more dangerous. There is nothing of the generosity about them that there is about the antagonisms of the young."
I do not go as far as the present Taoiseach in that point of view, because I do not think the old, or the young, have any monopoly of bitterness, prejudices, conservatism, radicalism or anything else. I think it is an unfair generalisation. At the same time, it would be wrong to say that a Seanad, or a Second Chamber, would have any merit or virtue merely because one had it full of greybeards.
Then there is the question of the vocational type of Seanad. That was dealt with at great length at that time and the Opposition at the time seemed to believe it was a desirable way in which to form a Second House. To me, vocational government as such is anathema. This is the only form of Government, or deliberative assembly, where we are elected by the people and responsible to the people, whatever our political beliefs. It is the ideal form of Government and any suggestion of a vocational type of Government would be, to me, anathema. At the same time, I can well see that, in the vocational bodies, there must be a fund of experience and special knowledge which would be of great value to us here in formulating legislation, amending legislation or perfecting legislation. We should try to find the way in which the experience of these vocational groups could be channelled into helping the legislation that we bring here from time to time.
That is the kernel of the problem; to try to devise an effective Second Chamber, if such a proposition is to be seriously considered by this House, as long as it could be accepted that the vocational committees would have absolutely no power whatever except to suggest revisions in legislation and amendments to legislation. Then it seems that there could be some reasonable case made for trying to tap the resources and experience of these bodies. We have at our disposal many of these bodies, such as the Health Council, the Farmers' Association, R.G.D.A.T.A. and indeed the Druggists' Association, and such like bodies who could perform a useful function in helping us with legislation.
Debate adjourned.