Get rid of the Seanad? So what?

I have been listening to both sides of the argument over the past week on the question of abolishing Seanad Éireann. The Taoiseach, as you know, has promised to hold a referendum on the issue in the autumn. I didn’t hear anybody come out in favour of retaining the Seanad in its present form. That’s because those who favour retaining the Seanad know full well that unless they can come up with radical plans for reform, the Upper House is doomed.

 

So I pay no heed to those who are against abolition but in favour of retaining the Seanad in a different format. I have been hearing about the need for Seanad reform for decades. But nothing was done about it. That’s because politicians in general want to hold onto it. They never know when they might need it or when somebody near them might need it.

So I am going to give credit to Enda Kenny for coming up with the idea of abolition. You can argue if you like that the idea was and is a populist one or that it came out of Enda’s back pocket and was foisted on his unwilling fellow politicians without any consultation. So what?

Some of the best ideas have been written in a pub on the back of a cigarette packet. I am delighted that unlike a lot of promises made by this Government, the Taoiseach seems determined to go ahead with his plans to hold a referendum on this issue as soon as the summer is over.

The time for reform is over. They had their chance and they failed to take it. They had more than 70 years to think about it and all they could come up with was a load of hot air. I attended meetings of the Seanad on many occasions in the past and was never that much impressed by the level of debate there.

They would tell you that there was a higher standard of debate in the Seanad than in the Dáil. So what again? The standard of debate in the Dáil was not much of a yard-stick to be measured against. Basically, what you get in the Seanad is a rehash of Dáil debates. You might get a higher standard of debate from some of the Independent senators but again I’ll ask, so what? If it were good speeches you were looking for, the best place to go would be one of the debating societies in any of the universities.

In actual fact, that is all the Seanad is, an expensive and glorified talking shop. It has no power whatsoever. It can only make recommendations. Sure anyone can do that. I can make recommendations here and I have as much chance of being listened to by the Government as have the majority of senators.

I heard those against the abolition of the Seanad say we need a second house to ensure there are checks on Government legislation. But isn’t that what the Dáil and its various committees are supposed to be doing? Isn’t that what the President does? We do not need a second house of Parliament, especially a house that will always have a Government majority, to do that.

The Seanad is undemocratic because it is not elected by the people and it is elitist because you must have a university degree to elect six of the members. The rest of them are elected by county councillors and TDs and the remainder are selected by the Taoiseach of the day.

Abolition of the Seanad should not be aligned to the recession but it’s no harm to say that we cannot afford such a superfluous institution in the present economic climate. I know we are going to hear a lot of highly intellectual arguments in the coming months from people like former PD leader and Attorney General Michael McDowell about the so-called need for a second house. Ignore their false arguments and go out there and vote against this useless institution whenever the poll is held. I have no doubt the people will give their answer when the time comes but I do fear a small turn-out because of how disillusioned people have come to be about politics in general in recent years.

My big regret is that the Government is not proposing any other major changes to the Constitution at this time. We could also do with big changes to how the Dáil conducts its business. We are having a small reduction in the number of TDs to be elected at the next election and that is without any change in the Constitution. We could reduce the number of TDs by half and still have sufficient deputies to represent us. We could give TDs a much bigger say in drafting legislation, rather than using them as rubber stamps to pass Government legislation.

Actually, we need a whole new Constitution to reflect the modern Ireland and replace the present one that represents right-wing Catholic thinking of the 1930s.