Senator Bacik speaking on Seanad Reform: Motion

Seanad Reform: Motion

Senator Ivana Bacik: I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Áine Brady. She will be reporting on this debate to the Minister, Deputy Gormley, who had to leave.

I am glad to be associated with this motion and to have joined Senators O'Toole and Norris in proposing it. I am glad the Government is supporting it, which is very important. The cause of Seanad reform is important and we need to debate it, particularly in this House. In the brief period since I was elected, just over two years ago, this has been the third substantial debate on Seanad reform. We certainly debated it in November 2007 and March 2009.

Circumstances have changed somewhat since we last debated the issue. In March 2009, the Minister, Deputy Gormley, was more upbeat about the prospect of real reform of the Seanad. I was rather disappointed to hear a note of frustration in his speech this evening. I do not know if I am correct in that regard but believe he was frustrated by the lack of progress on achieving consensus on Seanad reform. I am disappointed about this because I attended some of the meetings of the all-party group on Seanad reform. I certainly believed consensus was emerging. A clear consensus had emerged in the weighty and considered report produced on Seanad reform in 2004. I believe I am correct in stating it had all-party support. It made recommendations on the future composition of Seanad Éireann. For the most part, they were sensible recommendations on the processes by which Senators are elected, with a view to making them more democratic, and on the business the Seanad should be conducting. They would make the Seanad's structures more efficient and effective.

Consensus was reached and the all-party group was seeking to identify practical ways to act on that consensus. From what the Minister is saying, I understand events have overtaken the group. His speech states “there is little all-party support on the major issues of reform” and “we seem to be some way off reaching cross-party consensus on the Seanad and I will be reporting this conclusion to the Government”. There is a tone of defeatism and it is unlikely, from what the Minister is saying, that we will see substantive reform. I would be grateful for clarification on whether my interpretation of the Minister's speech is correct.

It will be a pity if there is stagnation. The university Senators are very keen to see reform, as is the Labour group. I speak as the only university Senator in the Labour group. The group is very keen to see significant reform of the method by which the Seanad is elected and in the business it conducts. Unless such change occurs, the role and relevance of the Seanad will continue to be questioned by the public to such an extent that convincing arguments may be made for its abolition. This is perhaps where Fine Gael is coming from. We do not support outright abolition in that we contend there is a role for a second Chamber. However, it must be reformed substantially in order to answer the arguments being made for its abolition.

The problem concerns what kinds of reforms to be made. We have the benefit of an allparty group that issued a report and made recommendations. Let me address some of the recommendations and suggest ways in which the Seanad could become more relevant, thus allowing its retention to be supported much more widely by the public. Since I have been elected, the strength of the Seanad has lain in its debates on legislation, particularly on Committee Stage, during which we tease out the technicalities. The Minister of State, Deputy Áine Brady, has been present for some of those debates. She will have noted that there is space in Seanad debates for more considered and thoughtful contributions on Bill amendments than in Dáil debates. In particular, the university Senators have demonstrated during the years a strong commitment to bringing forward amendments that might have no space to be debated in the Lower House. The debates on them often lead to the improvement of a Bill, even if the amendments are not directly accepted by the Minister, although they often are.

The Seanad has served a valuable function in providing a platform for views to be expressed which are often not expressed in the Lower House. It gives an opportunity for people to be represented in a way that they may not be in the Lower House. For example, while they may not have directly fed into legislation or have been adopted by the Government of the day, one of the Private Member's Bills from the 1970s of my predecessor from Trinity College Dublin, Mary Robinson, fed into a change in public opinion and ultimately paved the way for reform of the law on contraception, with important socially progressive legislation.

Senator David Norris: There is also Senator Bacik's climate change Bill.

Senator Ivana Bacik: Yes, there is my Private Member's Bill, the Climate Protection Bill. I thank Senator Norris. I was going to go on to speak of the immense contribution he has made in this area. His Civil Partnership Bill 2004, in which I played a small role——

Senator David Norris: Senator Bacik played a large role.

Senator Ivana Bacik: ——and which the Government did not adopt, will be accepted in years to come as paving the way for the Government's own civil partnership legislation. It also helped to shift the public debate. The Seanad's role in shifting public debate and changing public opinion is often not sufficiently acknowledged. The Seanad plays a vital role in this regard, one that the Dáil cannot play. I always believed this, even before I was elected to the Seanad. Legislation such as Mary Henry's on the need to regulate assisted human reproduction and in vitro fertilisation was pioneering in a way in which Senator Norris's civil partnership legislation and Mary Robinson's on contraception was.

While I defend the role and existence of the Seanad, significant and substantial reform is needed. The election processes need to be changed. All Senators on the university panels agree on the need to extend the franchise to graduates of all third level institutions. The Minister claimed this would present logistical difficulties and have significant resource implications because, as he pointed out, there are over 500,000 graduates in the State. I am disappointed by this and again detect a note of defeatism and frustration. The case has to be made to making this reform to the university panels.

I also support the recommendation made in the 2004 report on Seanad reform which called for a broadening of the university constituency to a national higher education constituency and that other Seanad seats should be directly elected in a single national constituency using a proportional representation list system. This latter process would make the Seanad different from the Dáil because it would be not be based on geographical constituencies. It would also mean those entitled to vote in the higher education constituency would have to chose in which constituency they wished to vote. This would prevent people from being doubly enfranchised. This was a sensible idea to make the Seanad more democratic in its election processes.

As regards the Seanad's work, the Minister will be aware of the recommendation made in 2004 that it should be given a new role in scrutinising EU legislation. That is an enormous task. We are all conscious of the increased workload in that regard, particularly considering the Lisbon treaty's provisions in that respect. As a member of the justice committee, I am conscious of seeing an increased amount of EU legislation coming before it. There is a real argument to be made for the Seanad to have a greater role in this area. I am often concerned that legislation that might be controversial or have serious implications for changing policy might slip through the net unless it is debated in the Dáil or the Seanad. It seems the Seanad would be an appropriate forum in that regard.

The argument was also made that the Seanad should have a role in scrutinising senior public appointments, an eminently sensible suggestion. We have seen far too little accountability in the appointment of senior public servants during the years, a matter under the spotlight, given the talk about a banking inquiry and failures in regulation at the top levels.

There is clearly a role for an Upper House with clear functions it should undertake. In the two years I have been a Member I have seen an enormous strength in the House's role as a legislative assembly. Under the Constitution, that has to remain the primary function of the Seanad. However, there are other functions that have been recommended which should also be taken on. Clearly, much of what the House does is not effective. I have spoken before about how statements can seem to be pointless time-fillers. There is an argument for tightening the Seanad schedule to ensure it is much more effective in a shorter space of time. I agree with Senator Twomey on the chaotic ordering of business and the machismo of the House sitting through the night to deal with legislation. There should be better ways of ordering our business. It would be worthwhile examining how we can whittle it down and, then, if necessary, Member's pay and allowances, to ensure the work the Seanad does, as a legislative body and a scrutiniser of EU legislation and public appointments, is valid and genuine.

The Seanad has a role to play but for this to continue significant reforms must be made. Otherwise, the arguments for its abolition gain weight. There is no doubt such arguments already carry some weight with the public. We must answer them robustly by making a clear case for reform. I believed the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, had a genuine commitment to it. Even a year ago when the House last debated the issue, he was positive about the prospect of Seanad reform during the Government's term. I am not sure he is so positive now, which is a pity because we need reform before the next election.