Private Members Motion on Seanad Reform - 20th January 2010

Private Members Motion - 20th January 2010
Senator David Norris: I move:

That, in the light of public criticism and of the numerous reports on the subject, Seanad Éireann requests the Government to embark urgently on the process of comprehensive Seanad reform.

I place before the Seanad tonight an urgent motion on Seanad reform. I do so because the reform and, indeed, survival of Seanad Éireann is undoubtedly the most critical issue facing this House. The leader of the Opposition, Deputy Enda Kenny, in a surprising and perhaps ill-conceived move some months ago, committed his party to the abolition of this Chamber, if it is successful after the next election. He was quite unequivocal about this even though the context in which such a decision was taken was, to say the least, obscure and open to different interpretations. Nevertheless, political stunt or not, his action has had the immediate effect of making reform of this institution of paramount importance if it is to survive. In the view of many people, including myself, the conclusion is clear: reform or die.

Nothing could more dramatically illustrate the need for Seanad reform than the recent by-elections. Out of courtesy, I held my fire during the recent elections of Senator James Carroll, who is an intelligent and decent young man for whom I wish a distinguished career in politics, my old friend and valued colleague, Senator Paschal Mooney, who I am happy to congratulate on his welcome return to this house, as well as Senator Niall Ó Brolcháin. The worthiness of the candidates aside, it is undoubtedly deeply distasteful to the public that for election to a seat in the Upper House of our Parliament the entire electorate consisted of a mere 227 votes. Talk of rotten boroughs. This is something that would have disgraced the most corrupt politics of 18th century Ireland. In addition, the squalid wheeling and dealing that has surrounded these types of campaign, whereby political parties controlled blocks of votes with rigid authority and, on the basis of political pragmatism, elected people who were often entirely unconnected with the alleged interests of the nominating panel, has brought the system into contempt in the eyes of the people.

There have been innumerable reports and recommendations for reform of the Seanad. On the first sitting of this Seanad after the general election I tabled an amendment to the Order of Business by putting forward a motion urging the Government to implement immediately the recommendations of the O’Rourke committee, an all-party committee sponsored by the Government. The degree of cynicism involved in this charade of Seanad reform was revealed as Members of both parties on the Government side trooped obediently into the lobbies to vote against their own proposals. Since then a committee was established, which has just completed its work, under the Minister, Deputy John Gormley, whom I welcome to the House. I attended that committee as a representative of the Independent university Senators. At the first meeting, as I predicted, it became clear that the initial target was, as usual, the university seats. I indicated forcefully to the Minister, as he will remember, that as far as I was concerned it was all or nothing — a comprehensive reform of the Seanad whereby nothing was agreed until everything was agreed. The university seats should not be uniquely targeted in a cosmetic exercise.

Meanwhile the public controversy was fuelled by inept performances from some leading Members on a regrettable “Late Late Show”, during which a small proportion of the show was devoted to a demolition job on the Upper House. The programme appeared to be conceived as a populist ambush of one of the institutions of the State, in which the negative side was privileged by being given an extended soap box at the opening, during which a prepared attack was read from an autocue. No parallel opportunity was offered to the defenders who were divided among themselves, subject to scatter-gun questions from the host and then thrown on the mercy of an audience whose hostility towards politicians in general had already been ignited.

I first stood for election to Seanad Eireann in 1977. I was virtually unknown to the public but I got coverage for one remark during that campaign, which was: “That the Seanad had come to resemble a convalescent home for the casualties of the Dáil election.” This remains a significant problem, although I have come to believe the presence in the Chamber of a limited number of people with Cabinet experience can be valuable. My views on this and other matters are unlikely to be widely held by my colleagues. The reason is that I am one of a small minority in this House who have specifically chosen to make their political career in the Seanad and have no ambitions to use the Upper House as a launching pad into the Lower House. Many of our colleagues, as we know, would sooner not be here. They are merely in transit from Dáil Éireann in one direction or the other.

First, whatever the difficulties concerned, the Seanad can be reformed and made a more effective element of our democracy. If I did not think so or if I thought there was a cast iron case for the abolition of the Seanad and that it served no function, I would feel honour bound to resign straightaway and not to defraud the taxpayer, especially in these difficult times. Every element of the Seanad needs overhaul, including the university seats. I am on record for many years as supporting the extension of the franchise to other third level institutions. However, I have no doubt that it is the remaining 54 seats that most need to be examined. Of these, 11 are filled by direct nomination by the Taoiseach of the day to establish an automatic Government majority. This is done without even the pretence of an election or a publicly accountable selection process. There are no guidelines and no parameters to the selection of the Taoiseach’s 11. They are in the princely gift of the Taoiseach of the day.

The remaining 43 Senators are elected by a system of panels which have nominating bodies covering a wide area of Irish life. However, these groups carry no political clout and are in effect meaningless. This is because they possess between them not one single vote. In recent years one nominating body, the Royal Irish Academy, nominated its president, but he did not receive a single vote. The right to vote is confined to Members of the Oireachtas and members of county councils, thus placing the fate of every seat, apart from the university seats, firmly in the grip of the political parties. I recall seeing party officials herding Members into offices within this building so they could stand over them to ensure they put the tick in the right box. How democratic is that? Does it still happen? Should the electorate be so confined?

If I may, I shall give a clear practical demonstration of some of the dangers of confining voting to county councillors. In a previous Seanad I managed to persuade the then Leader to establish a formal committee of Seanad Éireann to inquire into rendition flights passing through Shannon Airport. The committee was established and about to begin its deliberation when a delegation of local authority members from the Shannon region made a pilgrimage to Dublin, leaned on the Government and was able to have the committee of inquiry dissolved. To prevent people having access to the truth about what was occurring because of parochial and political self-interest was a day of shame in the political life of this country.

I have always been able to maintain that the university seats were democratic because these two constituencies were unique, in that they enfranchised the ordinary members of the nominating bodies. In both NUI and Trinity, it is the graduates who, as a corporate entity, form the nominating body and it is the graduates who vote, in the case of Trinity over 50,000 and in the case of NUI over 100,000. Those are real constituencies. Why not do something similar with the other constituencies? First, we would need to examine the nominating bodies to ensure that all walks of life were represented, therefore giving a degree of universality, and then allow the ordinary members of each group to play a role by voting.

Consider the richness of talent that would be brought into public life — doctors, lawyers, farm workers, trade unionists, fishermen, nurses, dentists, building workers, architects, business people, people from the world of culture, the arts and entertainment. If we let their representative bodies become nominating instruments and allow the ordinary membership to vote, we would have people talking from the depth of their experience with knowledge and technical capacity on matters with which they were particularly qualified to deal. We would mobilise the resources of wisdom and experience. Moreover, were such a scheme to be properly devised, the entire island would be covered in a way that did not slavishly duplicate the Dáil. There is little point in having geographical constituencies that mimic arrangements in the Lower House. Why should the taxpayer pay twice for the same act? We could then do what I have often suggested and make the dates of the Dáil and Seanad elections coincide.

I spoke on the subject of Seanad reform and on whether the Seanad should be retained at all at a meeting of the Dublin South-East Labour Party branch on Monday night. Among the usual questions — interestingly, the general feeling of the meeting was overwhelmingly that the Seanad should be retained and reformed — two struck right to the heart of the matter, namely, why should we have a Seanad at all, and what is its justification and how many successful Bills had originated spontaneously, so to speak, on the Seanad floor from Opposition parties or Independents. The second, at heart, related to the question of whether the Seanad is merely a rubber stamp for Government policy and an ineffectual talking shop. The two questions link. There is nothing wrong with being a talking shop. That is just another name for a think tank, a commission or any of those other bodies that have become so fashionable and are seen as being valuable in providing a catalyst for new ideas and new approaches to public life. That is certainly a part of the function of the Seanad that is not shameful and should be vigorously defended.

We are traditionally and constitutionally a revising and amending body. The Seanad operates effectively in this area. I can list a number of amendments that I have secured and I was also happy to second important amendments of Senator O’Toole to the NAMA Bill, a significant achievement by the House. There are even more frequent occasions on which the Minister will accept the principle of the argument and introduce a Government amendment subsequently. In these circumstances and even though the amendment cannot be directly claimed by a Member, such an amendment would not have been made without intervention in this House and the Seanad can legitimately claim the kudos of the impact it has had upon such legislation.

The amending function of the Seanad is not assisted when, as occurred several times recently in terms of important legislation, amendments that were tabled in good faith by Members were neither reached nor discussed in either House of Parliament, allegedly because of time constraints. This despite any disclaimer by the Leader represents the effective operation of a guillotine.

The second question concerning legislation is interesting. Let it be said that every single Member of the Independent university group has placed at least one item of legislation before the House for consideration within the last session. The fact that none of these has passed into law is regrettable, but it does not mean they have not had an impact. Often, the House acts as a catalyst and the Government eventually takes over and implements ideas that originated here. The matter of civil partnership, for example, which is a current issue in the Lower House, was first placed before the Seanad in 2004 and it was several years before first the Labour Party and then the Government took up the issue with serious political intent. There can be no doubt, however, that this House played a significant role in that area, as it has also done with items such as AIDS, climate change, broadband, embryonic stem cell research etc. by the depth and knowledge of the debate that took place here.

It would be futile to deny that a large part of the impact of individual Members is extrasenatorial. For example, Senator O’Toole has made a considerable contribution to the life of this country by his involvement in the trade union movement and the social partnership talks. Senator Ross has made a real impact on the awareness of the public on financial matters, principally through his editorship of the financial section of the Sunday Independent and his recent book. Both men have undoubtedly found the status of being a Senator valuable, but their major impact on life so far has been found outside these walls. This is perhaps sadly inevitable in the present circumstances.

There is virtually no media coverage of the doings of Seanad Éireann. I look forward to the day when the proceedings here will be streamed live to those who are interested rather in the manner of American television’s C-Span channel. In the meantime, we are dependent on the broadcast and print media. Apart from The Irish Times, the Upper House is virtually completely ignored by all newspapers. Even the coverage in The Irish Times is often pitiful. This is not due to lack of effort on the part of the correspondent Jimmy Walsh, who is universally respected. Even in The Irish Times, the doings of the Seanad are eclipsed by every other activity within Leinster House so that sometimes all that survives is a couple of shorn paragraphs. “Oireachtas Report” on RTE makes an attempt and I certainly cannot complain of not being covered, but it is indicative that the coverage of the proceedings of Seanad Éireann is invariably placed at the tail end of the report after everything else, including reports of committee meetings.


Acting Chairman (Deputy Kieran Phelan): The Senator has one minute remaining.


Senator David Norris: This clearly indicates that the Seanad is less significant than not just the Dáil, but also any committee that happens to be sitting. If the Dáil does not sit, there is no “Oireachtas Report” at all, although the Oireachtas consists of two Chambers. This attitude is reinforced by regular media reports and publications dealing allegedly with the “general election” that, on closer perusal, turn out to be coverage of Dáil elections only. No other radio or television station gives routine coverage of any kind to Seanad Éireann.

This does not inhibit many of my colleagues from alternately attacking and then toadying to the media. One recent instance was the sentimental reception given in this House to the 25th anniversary of “Morning Ireland”. It was described as such a brilliant production, such a wonderful programme, etc. I had to restrain myself because it would not have been appropriate to be the pooper at that particular party. I listened to the programme and it did not deserve the praise it received. I am reaching the end of this paragraph, but the Acting Chairman knows there was a lot of injury time. The show’s production values were terrible, the link to London was inaudible, historic clips were drowned out by inappropriate rock music and, inevitably, we were treated to the usual whinnying and giggling at facetious jokes by the presenters. The only bright spot was the momentary re-emergence of David Hanly.

This is all of a piece with the general dumbing down throughout the media. Instead of hard news, what we are given is infotainment and factoids in the American manner. We hear much about investigative journalism. However, as a fully paid up member of the NUJ, I can tell the House that there is damn little of that around. Most of what passes for investigative journalism in this country is little other than muck raking.

We do not help with our performance in this House. I will continue with this point after I have listened to my colleagues. I also have more to say regarding the way in which the House is organised or, rather, disorganised. We had a classic example of it today when we met at 5.30 p.m. instead of 5 p.m. and no Minister was present. When asked, people did not know what was going on.
Acting Chairman: The Senator has gone way over time.
Senator David Norris: We were supposed to meet on Tuesday, but we met today. What is going on? As we are paid for this, we should be professional.

Senator David Norris: I thank my colleagues for taking part in the debate. There was a very high level of debate, with a number of stimulating opinions expressed. Members of the House need more support. An example is access to drafting skills. We do not have such skills and it is difficult to draft legislation. All Members have excellent secretaries. My secretary is absolutely superb, but she is over-worked. She works desperately hard. We are cutting back on overtime, but she will still do the work, although she will not get paid for it.

Senator O’Reilly spoke about the difficulty of getting onto policing committees. I am a member of the north inner city committee. It is voluntary, unpaid work. People are not rejected because they are Senators; therefore, I do not accept that argument.

Senator Ó Brolcháin has said the panels are outdated. I agree. They must be reviewed.

Senator Glynn has mentioned the amendment about age that was cleverly put forward by Senator Quinn and accepted. That was in the context of an earlier one, the sexual orientation clause that I pioneered in this House. It is a double whammy for Seanad Éireann.

I was a Member of the House when the Cathaoirleach, Leas-Chathaoirleach and the Leader of the House were all rejected in the Dáil elections. How is that for democracy? We do not help with our performance in the House. First, we refuse to play to our strengths.


Senator Donie Cassidy: I received 7,500 votes.


Senator David Norris: It is universally acknowledged that the most regularly interesting element of our day’s work is the Order of Business, yet we continue to confine and cramp it and play it down. I have continuously attempted to expand it and to build on our strengths, with some small success. The Minister, Deputy Gormley, was surprised that I read out my contribution. I seldom do so. I did it once previously in an important debate on the demolition of the Combat Poverty Agency; I believe the Minister took part in that debate. I issued a script, but it did not appear anywhere. Why was that? The reason is that it was late and the media could not be bothered. There is laziness on their part.

The Cathaoirleach is placed in an invidious situation. To keep order he must rely on irrelevant and irritating tintinnabulations with a biro on his cow bell. The Order of Business is routinely chaotic. We never know properly in advance when, on what day or at what time we will meet. A classic example is today. We were informed the Seanad would sit yesterday. Suddenly, with no explanation, this changed.


Senator Donie Cassidy: That is completely untrue.


Senator David Norris: In the last Parliament I was given a specific time for an hour long discussion——


Senator Donie Cassidy: It is completely untrue.


Senator David Norris: ——of the cluster bomb initiative, in which I had played a role both in the House and at the foreign affairs committee.


Senator Donie Cassidy: On a point of order, untruths are being stated.


Senator David Norris: With less than two hours notice, this was suddenly and arbitrarily changed with no explanation——


Senator Jerry Buttimer: The Leader should not heckle.


Senator David Norris: ——and I had to abandon a press conference on the matter and hare across town to be on time for my debate. This does not inspire confidence, nor does the fact that at certain times of crisis the Dáil met while the Seanad continued in recess. Moreover, the public, rightly or wrongly, has the perception that the Seanad interrupts its operation to facilitate Members who wish to take part in golf competitions or attend race meetings at Cheltenham.

The classic Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly Wednesday night tit-for-tat charade also does little to help. Routinely during Private Members’ debates the Government states white, the Opposition states black, a ritual vote is called, the Government inevitably wins and political honour is satisfied. However, is the public satisfied? Thank God, we did not do that tonight.

Rulings by the Chair are incontestable; at the same time they can be inconsistent and absurd. In a previous Seanad under a different Cathaoirleach I argued that a national ESB strike qualified as a matter of national importance. An hour later the Cathaoirleach of the day read out his judgment, that it was not a matter of national urgency. This happened at precisely the moment the then Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, was telling the Dáil that it was. Are we not entitled to some explanation of how these decisions are made? About six months ago there was a ruling by the Chair which appeared to be illogical and indefensible but which I had to accept on the day. However, I sought to have the matter raised at the Committee on Procedure and Privileges and understand it was. I never received an answer to my letter or any explanation of the inconsistencies in the decision. This does not foster respect for the proceedings of the House.

Regardless of whether it is our fault, we have become the butt of the humour of commentators. I regret that some of the Leader’s comments have contributed to this such as the statement in the middle of the economic crisis that the spirit of the nation would be uplifted by country music or that we could solve the mathematical deficiencies of our students by awarding them extra unjustified marks in their examinations. Such infelicities are guaranteed to be pounced upon.

It is galling to listen every day to the ill-informed comments of media personalities about the proceedings of the House and the workload and remuneration of Members. Over the Christmas period I found myself working 14 to 16 hour days, rarely leaving this building until after 10 p.m. I am sure many other colleagues were in the same situation. Yet all that is assessed by some broadcasters is the time spent in the Chamber, which is like assessing the work rate of a broadcaster simply on the amount of broadcast hours and refusing to include all the ancillary items such as research, preparation etc. I shall scream if I ever again hear the tired old canard about how few people there were in the Chamber while a Minister was speaking. I would have thought broadcasters would be aware of the existence of radio and television monitors in people’s offices. The taxpayer would be cheated indeed were the Chamber full to the brim on a full working day with nothing else being done except easing our senatorial bums and catching flies with half open mouths, as one regularly used to see in the broadcasts of the House of Lords. The nasty thing is, these broadcasters know the facts perfectly well but it is popular and palatable to traduce politicians in a cheap but effective manner.


An Cathaoirleach: Time.


Senator David Norris: This will be my last paragraph.


An Cathaoirleach: A short one, please.


Senator David Norris: We have been challenged to say what we have done and we can answer in broad sweeps, each for ourselves. In my case, I refer to the significant amendment of the Child Care Bill some years ago, the initial legislative provision and debate about the metro for Dublin, the first real authoritative debates on AIDS, the Civil Partnership Bill, the establishment of the foreign affairs committee and the trenchant debates on the Iraq war and the dismantling of the Combat Poverty Agency and the Equality Authority. All of my colleagues will have similar lists and I invite them to place them before the House, alas not this evening, since the debate is concluding, but in what will be a continuing debate that will form part of the record of this noble Chamber of the Oireachtas.
Senator Donie Cassidy: Hear, hear.
Question put and agreed to.