Senator Zappone's Seanad article source linked

Senator Katherine Zappone wrote this article for the SBP giving examples of contributions that Seantors made to law whether they were officially amendments passed by them or not. I have tried to find source links for every example Senator Zappone gives, and put them in spreadsheet and inserted them in a copy of the article below.

.@LFSR2 All amendments accepted for Personal Insolvency Bill were Government amendments. #seanref #voteyes

— Fine Gael Official (@FineGaelToday) September 9, 2013

All Personal Insolvency Bill Seanad amendments were Govt. Not even one by any Senator #Seanad

— Charlie Flanagan (@CharlieFlanagan) September 9, 2013

etc.

It should bother you that among this talk of Dail Reform that politicians are discounting Senators contributions to bills, think, they could say the same thing about the Dail TD's contribution, if all amendments to bills were 'government amendments' we can get rid of all opposition TDs, most TDs, no need for them.

This seemed to be the attitude of Fine Gael deputy referendum director Regina Doherty on Tonight with Vincent Browne this week when he challenged his guests about the strictness of the whip harming democracy and making the government unaccountable, she said that government TDs vote for laws drafted by government and as they had majority of TDs their votes always passed and the opposition always lost she didn't see a problem with this. So Regina what are opposition TDs for? Why are they in the Dail at all?

One presumes she excepts that if an opposition TD makes a good point or amendment that if the government agrees with politically it will be incorporated into the bill, by adoption of the amendments by government or through the whips allowing the majority to vote for the opposition amendment, this happens very rarely. But is this as far as it goes? Doherty pretended not to get that there needs to be an element of democracy within the Dail itself to hold the government to account, and that the backbench TDs shouldn't simply be lobby fodder.

Argue for Seanad abolition as hard as you want, it is archaic and elitist but by repeating this idea that Senators make no contribution to laws that the government passed, by discounting them completely you are also diminishing the contribution of TDs in the Dail, the house we'll be left with, and I presume you want their contributions to be acknowledged and be increased.

Sunday Business Post Opinion: Democracy’s the victim if Seanad is abolished

The Seanad is an important part of the law making process and a counterweight to the government.

In light of recent polls, optimism is rising that the unwarranted referendum on the abolition of the Seanad will fail next October.

I welcome this development. I strongly argue that the Seanad is in need of reform, but it is most definitely not in need of abolition. To abolish the institution without setting out how its functions are to be replaced is beyond folly -- it is simply dangerous to democracy in this state.

The costs argument presented by Minister for Enterprise Richard Bruton is an indefensible red herring. The real issue is about how power is exercised.

Checks and balances

Nearly 50 years ago, the Report of the Committee on the Constitution of 1967 [link?] stressed the importance of the Seanad in the context of the principle of checks and balances by saying how vital it is to "have a safeguard against ill-considered or hasty action on the part of the first house [the Dáil]" that can give "more comprehensive treatment" to "important technical matters" regarding legislation.

In the absence of meaningful reform of either the Dáil or local government, the necessity of upholding this principle is now more urgent in Ireland than it ever was.

One key function of the Seanad is to scrutinise independently-proposed legislation and bring the government of the day to account.

The strengthening of the party whip mechanism in recent years translates to a Dáil that does not so much represent constituents, but rather rubber stamps policy handed down from upon high by the Cabinet. As a result it is a Dáil where nuanced debate on key legislation and policy is stifled: it's either compliant or acrimonious and not much in-between.

In contrast, members of the Seanad have tabled 529 amendments to 14 Bills that have been passed over the past two years. Being credited for their particular amendments is generally not a priority of senators -- their focus is on strengthening the reach of the particular legislation. As a result, data that maps Seanad inputs that have been subsumed in legislation is lacking.

I know, for example, that the exemption from local property tax that children and youth organisations enjoy came about because of Senator Jillian van Turnhout's recommendations.[ Finance (Local Property Tax) (Amendment) Bill 2013, Noonan adopts amendment, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan credits Senator van Turnhout with the amendment even though all amendments were government amendments ] As a result of exchanges I had in the Seanad, three Finance Acts were amended (regarding equivalence in taxation law between spouses and civil partners).[ Finance bills 1, 2, 3 ] Likewise, as a direct result of the expert knowledge in the Seanad, the Education and Training Boards Bill 2012 ensures the inclusion of learner organisations' representatives on Education and Training Boards. [ Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn acknowledging Senators on focus on learner organisations ] I facilitated the access of civil society organisations to influence the Personal Insolvency Bill 2012 that resulted in the inclusion of minimum income guidelines for debtors in the legislation. [ Alan Shatter credits a number of government amendments to Senators ] [ The InsolvencyJournal.ie credits Senators with improvements to the PIB].

These, and many equivalent legislative inputs, are categorised as government amendments, thereby 'disappearing' the role of Seanad members. Ordinarily, this is not important, but now in the context of Seanad abolition on the rationale of its purported 'irrelevance' it is useful to help voters get a deeper sense of what business is actually done there.

Democratic deliberation

Besides scrutinising proposed legislation, another vital function of the Seanad is to initiate and explore issues of public interest and concern.

The Independent group of Taoiseach's nominees, to which I belong, put forward two motions on the issue of the future of prostitution legislation,[ 1, 2 ] as a result of which the issue was brought to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality.

A huge public consultation took place and a report was issued, with radical recommendations for changes in legislation, which are being laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas.

Senator Mary Ann O'Brien tabled a motion on the need to establish a Charities Regulator that was debated in the Seanad. [Charities Regulation: Motion] In mid-July of this year, the Minister for Justice and Equality [Alan Shatter] announced this would be created soon. Again, this is one of many examples of how deliberation on issues of policy and law is integral to the Seanad's work.

Generating ideas for law and policy

The Seanad has long been a site where new ideas for law and policy have been generated. There are many such examples: Senator Feargal Quinn's Construction Contracts Bill has now passed into law, and Senator Ivana Bacik introduced the Civil Registration (Amendment) Act [ a private members bill in 2011 that the Minister recognised led to the Civil Registration (Amendment) Bill 2012 that was enacted] that allows humanists to officiate at marriages, while Senator Kelly's Wind Turbines Bill 2012 passed to Committee stage last year.

My own Legal Recognition of Gender Bill 2013 that offers a simple legal pathway to gender recognition can justifiably be seen to have triggered the unexpected publication of the long-awaited Heads of Bill on the same issue. The Minister for Justice will be seeking the opinion of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission regarding section 37 of the Equal Status Act, triggered by a Bill sponsored by Senator Power.

Exercising power

I think we need to have the capacity to ensure there are constraints on a sitting government in the form of checks and balances.

Should the government's abolition bid fail at the referendum, let that be a mandate for reform. The government has already accepted a bill for radical Seanad reform proposed by Senator Feargal Quinn and myself.

As an electorate, we can reject spurious argument and insist on expansion of our democratic capacity rather than endangering it.

In my opinion, on this particular issue, we need to exercise our power, and vote no on October 4.

Dr Katherine Zappone is an Independent Senator

Seanad Referendum Details

The government of Ireland has proposed abolishing the Seanad the upper house of the parliament, and referendum will be held on it on the 4th of October 2013.

Two issues have come up that I want to clearer details on.

Details of amendments the Seanad made to bills.

The anti-abolishment side keeps citing the number 529 amendments made to bills (or '523 amendments' or 'over 540 amendments') which they seem to have sourced from Senator Daragh O'Brien who was first to use this stat, as far as I know, on Wednesday, 26 June 2013 and a number of others senators who raised it in the Seanad. I emailed them last week to ask for the list and contacted everyone who used that stat to ask them to get the list behind the number but haven't been able to get anyone to get the list of amendments published.



Some criticised Regina Doherty for asking for this list in the Dail but the list already exists Senator Zappone has read it. Zappone: Wednesday, 17 July 2013



I note Senator Zappone says the list is incomplete but it would be a start and beneficial to all sides in the debate to publish it.

Update: Senator Zappone wrote an column for the Sunday Business Posts about the Seanad abolishment or reform, which she posted on her site. She emphases that they haven't been tracking the number of amendments and list is incomplete but she says she got the number from the Oireachtas Library & Research Service

@lostexpectation Oireachtas Library & Research Service

— Sen.KatherineZappone (@SenatorKZappone) September 2, 2013

Update 2 Amount of Amendments tabled by members of the Seanad on 14 Bills

I was hoping for an actual list of amendments, they must actually list every amendment when counting because how else are they sure they are not double counting.

so why was this information unavailable when Regina Doherty asked for it? She wasn't asking for exactly the same info but it was over lapping but she was told to PFO by a number of ministers and various people mocked her and told her she was wasting money, bizarre.

Katherine Zappone's Oireachtas Research sourced list is entitled 'Amendments Made By the Seanad' but then says 'members of the Seanad have tabled 529 amendments to 14 Bills' Democracy Matters then put up the list but says its amendments made.

I compared the two sources of info the Minsiterial replies and the Oireachtas Research list and the only Bill that both refer to is the Credit Union Bill 2012 which had 174 Government amendments at Committee Stage according to Minister for Finance Michael Noonan and 6 more at Report Stage. and the Oireachtas Research Lists 179 amendments in total, close enough.

Will money be saved or go to the committees.

Senator John Crown has raised the point several times that as opposed to the pro-referendum side assertion that abolishing the Seanad will save (a disputed amount of) money that this saving will not reduce the cost to the public of government administration or be used for some other worthy cause but be redeployed to the beef up the committee systems part in reviewing legislation, as proposed by the government.

He has said this over a year ago,

Are many good arguments for abolishing Seanad-saving money not one of them. Minister Howlin already said money would be redeployed to committees.

— ProfJohnCrown (@ProfJohnCrown) August 29, 2012

and last week,

I'm not a defender of Seanad but Min Howlin has already stated that the saved money will he redeployed to Dail Committees.

— ProfJohnCrown (@ProfJohnCrown) September 26, 2012

he says he said it "in this Chamber in 2011, again on RTE and more recently in a private conversation with me" but he never provided a link to confirm it so I can point people to where Brendan Howlin said it, I emailed him to ask him if could provide links but have gotten no reply, I cannot find where he said it after hours of searching either in Seanad record or 'on the radio' on the 25th of June 2013, can you help me find it in the Seanad record, search via Kildarestreet.com or the Oireachtas record.

His first tweet about it was on the 25th of August so this was before the debate on the Houses of the Oireachtas Inquiries - 22 September 2011 which I had thought was the most likley time this topic would come up.

Although checking the Senator attendance record he is not listed as being present on the 22 of September but is listed for the 29th of June.

The other time Minister Brendan Howlin spoke in 2011 in the Seanad was the Second stage or the Committee Stage and Remaining Stages of the Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2011.


I've used Kildarestreet.com to search for every time Brendan Howlin spoke in the Seanad in 2011, which was as far as I know 3 occasions and then listed them in spreadsheet

Update

Senator John Crown got back to me via @ItsMoss

@ItsMoss @lostexpectation I can't find the Seanad one. It was during a reply to q from floor and might not have been picked up. I was there.

— ProfJohnCrown (@ProfJohnCrown) September 5, 2013

Update

Senator Crown said in Seanad that Howlin said this on the radio on 25th June, I asked him about this and he said he thought it was RTE in the morning, I listened to Morning Ireland for the 25th of June where there was a brief clip from Brendan Howlin but he didn't mention the Seanad.

Found one
I used Topsy.com to search for @profjohncrown tweeting about Howlin on the 25th of June 2013.

Min Howlin emphasising his previous position-money saved from Seanad abolition to be redeployed to Dail committees (not hospital wait lists)

— ProfJohnCrown (@ProfJohnCrown) June 25, 2013

Min Howlin has now TWICE stated that money saved from Seanad abolition will be redeployed to Dail Committees. Abolition won't save money.

— ProfJohnCrown (@ProfJohnCrown) June 25, 2013

Tweeting just after the six news this interview must be what he had heard and reacted to.

Brendan Howlin was on RTE 6.1 TV news on the 25th June news talking about the Anglo tapes and the need for a banking inquiry, at 3 minutes 50 seconds he mentions the Seanad abolition.

"...we need to provide the resources and part of the reform we want of public administration in this country and part of the recommendation to have a single chamber is to have the resources, the capacity and the ability of parliament to do the people's business."

Minister Brendan Howlin does seem to be suggesting that without a second a chamber those resources will be for the rest of parliament including the committees and the new form of inquires.

Still want to find the Seanad quote its probably somewhere in the record for the 3 times he spoke in the Seanad in 2011.

Having found one quote I'm using the phrases he used to search the Oireachtas record, I found Making Committees Work in the 31st Dail: Statements - March 2011 although its was said in the Dail, so maybe not the quote Senator John Crown was talking about.

Brendan Howlin: "This is the principle that underpins the Government's proposal to abolish the Seanad. It is not a knee-jerk reaction to the need for cost savings or demands for reform or smaller government. It is about strengthening democracy itself."

Minister Brendan Howlin mentions the Seanad and committees and resources during the Houses of the Oireachtas (Inquiries, Privileges and Procedures) Bill 2013

Brendan Howlin: "If we are to convince people to vote for the Seanad’s abolition... ...That means we must have better and stronger committee systems that are clearly resourced. As the Minister charged with resources"

Minister Brendan Howlin cites the position paper he co-wrote and published in January 2011 as part of their elections proposals New Government Better Government. New Government, Better Government as where he firmed his reasoning.

Update

Got an email from Senator John Crown's secretary with quotes of Howlin from two committees in 2011 and 2013,
Joint Committee on Investigations, Oversight and Petitions Debate - 15th December 2011 Video or Video

Brenadan Howlin: ...but if we were in a unicameral situation, resources might become available for empowering Dáil committees in a way that they are not currently available. I do not want to be facetious about it. I expect a proposition will be put to the people next year in relation to the abolition of the Seanad. In such circumstances, we will have to look at how the Dáil might work differently. I think the committees would have to be resourced in a much clearer way.

Wednesday Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform Debate - 5th June 2013 Video

As part of a reform agenda and if people determine we must have a unicameral system, there should be a much more robust Dáil system and a better resourced committee system

The Oireachtas video playback system is nightmare to use, it very hard to find the section of speech your looking for and I tried to embed the videos here, but it hard to get wmv to work the same on all browsers, it seem link to the same start times in video will somehow play different parts of the video.

Two simple things but I'm puzzled as to why they haven't been cleared up and its been like banging my head off a wall to get anybody to respond to these two very simple requests, so I thought I'd spell it out here to see if this got any response.

I follow up on this is a new blogpost

Conscription is militarism for mothers. They don't want either in Lisbon

was listening to yesterday rte radio again and hearing a lot of politicians talking about how they met these people worried about conscription,particularly older women,... and i thought by god these FF'ers are telling us they only meet are stupid disconnected no voters, that they are saying that the only no voters are imbeciles.

now im no-voter-who-abstained, im deeply anti-war , campaigned and marched against shannon etc, but i don't think conscription is on the horizon, but im am worried about merkel and and o'deas words about making the EU a global power player and 'exporting peace and prosperity to the rest of the world' echoing george bush's comment just a few weeks ago... and we all know what GWB means about exporting democracy, it means exporting capitalism and conflict and drill rigs.

But I was talking to my mother (an FG reluctant yes voter,most worried about immigration) who said she met a neighbour who said the very same thing about conscription, and i said well she's an imbecile... and she said well i don't think it'll happen right now but maybe my grandchildren...' but i said well im big anti-military head and even i don't think that will happen, imbeciles!

Then I heard Mary Hanafin talking about the conscription issue coming up again, but she describe how a young women came up to her and asked her about shannon, military and neutrality and hanafin said she went on to say how it didn't change our position on neutrality (which could be true but we're not neutral).

Dermot Ahern and Michael martin both said how they found a lot of older women were bringing up conscription and and that's what they found after doing polling after nice 1 that it was older women worried about military.

anyway my main point is i then realised that these women aren't imbeciles they just think in different way to me and other young folks on the issue militarism.

when i think of iraq or Afghanistan, i think of the 100,000 unnecessary deaths and the trauma and destruction Iraqis have to live in ( and also the pillaging of their resources) but when the so called general public think of Iraq, particularly older women think in sons...

this is why they use the word conscription to convey their worries about neutrality, while i would use militarisation.

you see all the time on the news in uk and usa they manly report the deaths of us soldiers, they barely mention t the deaths of even the iraqi soldiers on 'our side' even if they died in the same battle.

UK and US parents say bring the troops home, they don't say end the war or save iraqi lives, most don't think in that way.

both patricia mckenna and pana and SF mary lou mcdonald all said they weren't worried about conscription or weren't going around telling people about their sons being conscripted and it wasn't in their literature. It wasn't in any no groups leaflets.

M L McD said on tv3 other night that she wasn't using scaremongering about conscription but people were thinking 'longheaded' about it and she was most worried about militarisation. and when she says militarisation she means imperialism (cos she doesn't mind the other kind).

lots of yes vote advocates mention indian and china in threatening way, a distance menace that are will trying to dominate the world, which leave you to think how could we fight them without conscirption...

so that's a longwinded way to say something very simple and obvious, conscription (ie. military neutrality) is valid concern in this eu referendum.

that's why they exit polls said they lost nice 1 and so they made changes ith the seville declaration reassured people and nice 2 passed but it's still why they lost lisbon.

and it a valid concern because we're not neutral and never really have been, and were certainly not now with active facilitation of the iraq war at shannon and no matter what ff/fg say, many of their voters are concerned about militarism, because of our history of being on the wrong end of imperialism, which connected to the feeling for independence which connects with the general fear of loss of sovereignty,(its the reverse of the uk independence euroscpetics who are pro-military). we've seen this at one of the biggest ever protest marches in recent times against the iraq war and the use of shannon. you could say our position on neutrality wasn't going to change but we're not neutral so nobody can't trust their assurances on that. Our neutrality is threatened most by our own governments actions not some exterior EU bogeyman.

so maybe these people aren't coir constituency either but COIR hit on the right word to use, conscription because it reflects women's and parents fears more then faraway conflicts that the PANA and the SWP talk about, so coir partly won it on SF,SP, PANA and SWP's issues with FF and FG voters.

that and uncertainty, distrust and immigration.

insert 'sons and daughters' and male parents where appropriate

Lisbon referendum results 3d map

Trying to see if its worth putting this in 3d and how best to visualize the votes. At the moment it hard to see the difference in yes and no. ETA June 13th. I've gotten the results for Lisbon treaty and added them to many eyes that I described in my previous post. Lisbon Treaty 2008 Visualisations

With the help of sgrillo's GE-Graph

The google earth in browser API is quite heavy so lets try another new thing from google, static maps. With the help of Peel me a grape coder blog

Nahh that work either starting map as ordinary sat view with earth browser option.

Updated with Lisbon 2008 referendum results: NO % constituency.

If you don't see any 3d maps you need a quick download and read of requirements of the google earth in browser plug-inDirect download

Updated with Lisbon 2008 referendum results: Yes % by constituency.

Results from Referendum Commission.
electionsireland.org

Compare with displays of results by rte.ie
ireland.com.

What I like about google maps is that you can it use to produce 2d maps of good quality and variation too. No need to redo in flash.

Many Eyes Visualisations of Ireland

I've been looking for ways to display Ireland election or referendum results dynamically live interested in visualisations and mapping of info and web 2.0 here are the two combined, Many Eyes an Visual Communication Lab IBM research project.

Anybody can upload data sets from various sources and use the visualisation models to visualise the date in various ways from graph to word clouds to heat maps.

Somebody called Colm has upload and visualised many interesting data about population, houses, politics and GAA.

The Shifting of Ireland's Population to Dublin

A Data Set of Population by County

Compare Bertie election 2007 acceptance speech and his resignation speech a year later (switch between 1 or 2 words on the Many Eyes sites).

Its a pity it doesn't have Irish electoral constituencies of other administrative districts if any has the shapefiles for them please add them.

Google had visualisation API for heat maps now to but only maps and recognises individual countries or administrative areas at the moment as far as I can see.

Im going to see if i find or add Ireland administrative boundary geonames.