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Seanad Newsletter SEANAD Welcome to the latest 2013 Newsletter from Senator Ivana Bacik. NEWSLETTER I am delighted and honoured to represent the Dublin University constituency in Seanad Éireann. I will also make sure to keep Web: www.ivanabacik.com you up to date with the work that I am Email: [email protected] doing in the Seanad, and would be happy to Ivana Bacik raise issues there on your behalf. @ivanabacik Email: [email protected] Phone: +353 1 618 3136 Phone: 01 618 3136 Dear Graduate, Welcome to my latest Newsletter from the Seanad. This short newsletter provides you with an update on some of the recent work I have been doing over the past year and in the lead-up to the referendum on the future of the Seanad. I am very grateful for all the support I have received from Trinity graduates since my election in 2007, and re-election in 2011. Please do contact me if you would like me to raise any particular issue on your behalf in the Seanad. I also organise regular tours of Leinster House and would be delighted to Email me to arrange a tour of the Seanad invite you to join us on one of those over the coming months. and Leinster House. Do get in touch on [email protected] and thanks for your [email protected] support. LEGISLATING FOR THE X CASE – Best wishes, THE PROTECTION OF LIFE DURING PREGNANCY BILL 2013 PORTOBELLO EDUCATE TOGETHER – I am very proud to have been one of the leading advocates for the bill to implement the X case test on abortion. Now that the A NEW MULTI-DENOMINATIONAL legislation has finally been passed as of July 2013, we have at last put in place a statutory framework to protect women SCHOOL whose lives may be threatened by the continuation of their pregnancy – 21 years after the X case judgment in 1992. The debate however showed the need to go further and legislate for abortion on a wider range of grounds, such as rape, incest, fatal foetal abnormality and threat to a woman’s health. To enable such legislation to be introduced, repeal of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution is required. I will be actively campaigning for repeal over the coming years. For more see my recent Irish Times article on the subject, at http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/protection-of-life- during-pregnancy-bill-is-not-a-slippery-slope-to-abortion-on- demand-1.1471926 PENAL REFORM March 2013 saw the publication of a radical report on penal Ivana with members of the Portobello Multi-Denominational School Group, reform which I authored for the Joint Oireachtas Committee Family Fun Day, Sept 2012 on Justice. It makes five key recommendations, in particular As chairperson of the Portobello Educate Together school campaign, I am calling on the Government to adopt a decarceration strategy delighted that our school will be opening in Harcourt Terrace, Dublin 2 in and seek to reduce the prison population by one-third over a September 2013. This is the culmination of a three-year campaign by local ten-year period. The report also calls for all prison sentences of parents to ensure greater provision of multi-denominational primary school under six months imposed in respect of non-violent offences places in our area. Now that we have achieved this great result, we will be to be commuted and replaced with community service orders. campaigning for the establishment of a multi-denominational school at The report draws on the penal reform experience in Finland. See secondary level in Dublin city centre! For more see www.portobellomds.org http://www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/media/Penal-Reform- and http://www.educatetogether.ie Report-13-March-2013-Final.pdf PRIVATE MEMBERS’ LEGISLATION Over the past year, I am delighted to have had three private members’ bills published, two of which have been accepted by government already. The first is the Civil Registration (Amendment) Act 2012 which for the first time legalises the solemnisation of civil weddings by Humanists – until now only State Registrars or members of religious bodies could legally solemnise marriage. The first Humanist wedding ceremonies took place in April 2013 following passage of this bill into law. The second is the Employment (Equality) (Amendment) (No.2) Bill 2013, which has now passed second stage in the Seanad and which will amend section 27 of the Employment Equality Act and make it harder for religious-run schools and hospitals to dismiss employees on grounds of conflict Ivana with Minister Joan Burton and Humanist Association of Ireland members celebrating with their ethos. The aim of the bill is to prohibit passage of the Civil Registration (Amendment) Act 2012 discrimination against LGBT teachers or hospital workers, for example. Finally, in March 2013 I published the Civil Registration (Marriage Equality) bill, which would repeal the statutory prohibition on same-sex marriage. I hope to continue working on this bill in the latter half of 2013. SEANAD REFORM I have always campaigned for fundamental reform of the Seanad – I believe it should be retained and reformed. The role of an upper chamber can be an important one within the legislative process, but to be more effective, complete reform of the Seanad is needed. In particular, the method of election of Senators needs to be changed. Worthwhile reforms have been proposed by the All-Party Committee on Seanad Reform which reported in 2004, and I support those. In particular, I support the following reforms: l Expansion of the electorate for the University panels to include other third-level institutions l Reform of the Seanad vocational panel electoral process to remove party political patronage and give citizens a real voice in who is elected l Reform of the Taoiseach’s power to nominate 11 Senators without election With these and other changes, the Seanad could become a more democratic and representative structure and could play a more effective role in our legislative process. In the context of the forthcoming referendum on the future of the Seanad, I would favour the retention of a fundamentally reformed Seanad over abolition. I could only support the principle of Seanad abolition as part of a package of broader Oireachtas reform, to include changes to the Dáil to ensure a higher level of scrutiny over legislation in that chamber. In particular, I would like to see at least some TDs elected on a national list basis as I believe this would provide for a stronger sense of the need to have regard to the national interest in passing legislation - rather than the narrow interest of an individual geographic constituency. I made the following points during the summer 2013 debates on the future of the Seanad: The Seanad has survived many debates around abolition, and has developed a strong record in a number of respects. In particular, it has a proud tradition of thoughtful and deliberative Committee Stage debates on legislation such as the Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Act 2012, introduced first in the Seanad and which will introduce a gender quota for political parties in their general election selection procedures. In Committee debates, Senators on both sides can contribute, whether they are spokespersons or not – so debates tend to be more wide-ranging and reflective than they are at Committee stage in the Dáil. The Seanad also has a strong history of introducing Private Members’ Bills. For example, Senator Mary Robinson’s private members’ bills on contraception in the 1970s paved the way for government law reform; more recently, Senator Mary Henry introduced important private members’ legislation on assisted human reproduction, and Senator Feargal Quinn introduced the Construction Contracts Bill which was just passed into law in July 2013. The bill to prohibit Female Genital Mutilation, which I introduced as an Independent senator, was subse¬quently supported by the government and became law in 2011. Therefore, the Seanad has a strong history in that regard which is only now being mirrored in some of the Dáil processes. Finally, the Seanad has traditionally offered a forum or platform for individual voices and viewpoints not generally reflected in the Dáil, and in this respect has contributed significantly to the strength of the democratic process. Two bills to reform the Seanad, introduced by the independent senators, have now been accepted by the government. These provide for changes to the election of senators, and to the rules of debate in the Seanad. If the referendum is passed, reform is no longer possible. If the referendum is defeated, the case for reform is unarguable. CONTACT SENATOR IVANA BACIK Seanad Eireann, Leinster House, Dublin 2 Ivana Bacik Email: [email protected] Phone: +353 1 618 3136 @ivanabacik 0612 Web: www.ivanabacik.com .
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