More or less?

`“DO we need more politicians or fewer?” That was the question posed by Minister Richard Bruton on the radio this week as he argued for the abolition of the Seanad. 
Put that question to any Irish electorate and you know for certain that the answer will be a resounding “we want fewer politicians”. But that’s not the question the Government is putting before the Irish people in a referendum later this year.  There is no question of reducing the number of TDs below the handful the Constitution allows. The voters will have a choice either to abolish the Seanad or retain it in its current form. Surely the answer will be a resounding Yes to abolish the Seanad and an equally resounding No to retain it in its current form.
I don’t blame Enda Kenny for giving us a stark choice and confining it to the Seanad rather than asking us if we wanted to radically reduce the number of TDs in the Dáil. Perhaps he should have given us a choice of keeping a reformed Seanad.
For too long politicians have been pussy-footing about the question of Seanad reform and for too long they did nothing about it.  They had their opportunities over the past 70 years and now it is time to move on and let the people themselves decide the issue. 
I can understand why some people might argue in favour of keeping the Seanad – the need, for example, for checks and balances over legislation passed by the Dáil. I suspect that most of those arguing for the retention of the Upper House have a vested interest in keeping it going. A lot of them would be looking at the Seanad as the next best thing if by some misfortune they were to lose their seats in the Dáil.  Anyway, there are plenty of ways to keep checks and balances over legislation coming from the Dáil beside insisting on a second House to do so.  That’s only a red herring of an argument. 
First and foremost, legislation never originated in the Dáil. It is the Government that decides on legislation and the Dáil merely rubber-stamps whatever the Government wants.  If the Dáil fails to do what the Government wants it to do, the Government dissolves it and calls a general election. 
The same can be said of the Seanad but it always has an in-built pro-government majority.  Even if by some miracle the Seanad did produce an anti-government majority on some issue, they could not prevent the Government from having its own way eventually. 
All senators can do is delay legislation. At worst, or at best if that’s your way of thinking, they might embarrass the Government of the day. That might only happen if a few government senators suffered from bad timing and failed to turn up for a vote. In over 30 years observing both Houses of the Oireachtas at close range, I saw that happen only once or, at most, twice.
The fact of the matter is that the Seanad serves no useful purpose. It is of no use or benefit whatsoever to the Irish people. The only people it benefits are those who are members, were once members or who are likely to become members in the future.
Even past members enjoy many of the same privileges and perks they had when they were members. They enjoy a fine fat pension, even if they were members only for a couple of years. They have free secure parking in the grounds of Leinster House near the city centre, where they can never be towed away, never be issued with a parking ticket and never robbed. They have that privilege to the day they die, even in the busy weeks before Christmas and during the January sales when neither House is sitting. They also have access for life to the most exclusive Members’ Bar.
There are, of course, numerous other perks that sitting members enjoy, including an annual salary of over €65,000 a year, plus generous expenses. Members can also go on free junkets to some of the most exotic spots in the world. They may bring their wives with them but most senators I have known in the past preferred to leave the wife at home to mind the house, the kids and the job. 
Let me be totally honest. Being a senator is a gift of a job, with a good salary and little to do, giving membership to one of the most exclusive clubs in the country. If I were a member, I too would fight tooth and nail against any proposal to abolish it.
Meanwhile, I was saddened to hear during the week of the death of the former President of Republican Sinn Féin Ruairí Ó Brádaigh.  He was a man of enormous courage and integrity.  He was unyielding in his views on Ireland.  He would have concurred with the murdered Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence McSwiney, who declared that “in the matter of principle there can be no compromise”.
He would also have agreed with Patrick Pearse who said “splendid and noble causes are served by men who are themselves splendid and noble”.
I knew him well in the late 1950s when he was a TD for Longford/Westmeath and we both shared accommodation  in the Curragh. I later reported on his trial when he was one of the first to appear before the Special Criminal Court in Dublin’s Green Street in the early 1970s.
He never took his seat in the Dáil as he, along with the other three Sinn Féin TDs, refused to recognise the legitimacy of Dáil Éireann. He never recognised the peace process either and believed there could never be peace in Ireland unless a united 32-county Republic true to the ideals of the 1916 Rising could be achieved.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.