Constitutional Referendum on the Number of Members of Dáil Éireann: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-25 ============================================================ Joe Conway (IND), Cultural and Educational Panel Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit go dtí an Seomra seo arís. Iarrann an rún seo, ár rún Comhaltaí Príobháideacha, ar an Rialtas céimeanna a thógáil le haghaidh reifreann bunreachtúil chun ionadaíocht a léiriú ar dhaonra atá ag méadú. Faoi láthair, leagann an Bunreacht síos gur cheart go mbeadh Teachta Dála amháin do gach 30,000 den daonra. Ós rud é go bhfuiltear ag tuar go n-ardóidh an daonra seo go dtí 7 milliún nó mar sin, b'fhéidir sna 20 bliain atá romhainn, ní mór don Bhunreacht gníomhú air seo. Is dócha go ndéanfaidh sé éilimh shuntasacha ar bhonneagar agus ar airgeadas an Stáit. Dá bhrí sin, tugann ár rún aghaidh air seo ionas go mbeidh muid ullamh don mhéadú daonra atá ar an mbealach os ár gcomhair agus bealach ordúil agus daonlathach a leanúint. When we are looking at these sorts of things, it is always useful to do a bit of comparative study. In preparation for this Private Members' business, I looked at several democracies around the world, and possibly the most relevant or most pointing of the democracies that suggests itself to be studied in relation to this is that of Germany. Why do I say that? It has already undergone a significant eisimirce or migration crisis or incursion in the past while. It has also undergone a unification of amazing proportions. We have both of those, one of them actual, possibly, and the other incipient in the talk we hear this evening of unification. Senator Boyhan talked about our excellent Library service. I borrowed from the Library service two books recently. One of them was written by a historian of southern Irish Protestants, and that is a man called Ian d'Alton, who wrote a book incidentally titled Southern Irish Protestants . Another one, which I read in relation to the unification debate, was Sam McBride and Fintan O'Toole's book on Irish unification. My honest and strong belief is that if there is to be talk of reunification, we should not undertake a precipitous referendum to be going off half-cocked or half-baked. Reading thoughtfully into the argument, we seriously need to consider a move towards unification and the referendum that is necessary for that. We need to be talking about it in a very well informed way as populations on both sides of the Border. In that regard, what I am trying to say relates to what our Green Party Senator said. What is his surname again? Senator Noonan. I am sorry, I had a blank on his surname there. He referenced the foundation of An Coimisiún Toghcháin in 2023. One of the strictures on An Coimisiún Toghcháin is that it would advise, research and report on electoral processes. Senator Boyhan talked about lighting a spark of conversation in the public. I think we should ask the Government parties, if they are going to proceed with our motion here tonight, that they request An Coimisiún Toghcháin to set up an information initiative to let people know what they are buying into if we are going to change the provisions of Article 16.2.2°, so that we do not have a 30% referendum response on this. We need to get people more engaged in the democratic process. We can see that the graph is inexorably sliding downwards in regard to participation. The antidote to that is to have our voting public, our citizens, more informed and innovated about the system we have. If this motion does anything in relation to what we are talking about here tonight, it is very good that it focuses in the media, politics and the population at large more attention on critical questions like this, which we really need to be answering for the financial rectitude of the State going forward and all our democratic processes. I commend the driver of the motion from our Independent Group, Senator McDowell, who did us all a blessed favour in proposing this. I think it has been a very useful and enlivening discussion. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-25/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:46+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-03-25