Do we need the Senate?

Callely will have done us a favour if his greed speeds end of the Seanad

By Matt Cooper

Friday, June 04, 2010

INADVERTENTLY, Senator Ivor Callely may have done the state a massive favour. By his selfish actions, in what some would describe as giving a false address to maximise the amount of expenses he could claim from the state, he has emphasised the expensive uselessness of Seanad Éireann.

Never mind the saving that would accrue from his claiming less expenses. He has drawn attention to a potential saving to the state of €25 million per annum that apparently could be achieved by abolishing the upper house; it isn’t just the removal of salaries and expenses for the 60 members that would help but all the associated running costs.

No wonder Callely’s fellow senators are furious with him. The scandal involving his claiming of expenses since his appointment – note, not election – to the Seanad in 2007 has added significantly to already compelling arguments to do away with this unnecessary and expensive institution.

The Seanad is full of has-beens and wannabes and is a vestige for disgusting patronage and a gerrymandered voting system.

It is a retirement home for politicians who have lost their Dáil seats – such as Callely himself – or were never popular enough to get themselves elected. It is a stepping stone for those with ambition who think they can use it to raise their profile before a Dáil election.

The patronage involves the right of the Taoiseach to nominate 11 members after each election and then to nominate replacements if any drop out. Bertie Ahern, as Taoiseach, rewarded Callely when the people of Dublin North Central rejected him at the last election and just two years after Callely had been forced to resign as a junior minister because it had been discovered he took free painting and decorating services at his home (in Dublin).

The whole Seanad set-up is anti-democratic as it has an elite electorate, a subset of the entire electorate. If you are an NUI graduate you can vote on the election of a panel of three of your peers (I refuse to register). Trinity College gets its own three seats. County councillors all over the country are lobbied hard for votes. One Roscommon councillor recounted last year how he had received a free tie from one successful Fianna Fáil candidate (who owns a rural menswear shop) and discovered how all voters had received the same.

The Seanad rarely overturns laws originated in the Dáil or starts its own bills that the Dáil endorses. And even when they do, is it worth the cost of having this talking shop? Add to this the cost of running the Dáil and you have to ask what sort of fools we are to allow the political class to indulge itself to this extent at our expense. The excellent thestory.ie website has established that between 2005 and 2008 our 166 TDs pulled in just under €100 million in salaries and expenses.

What value for money did we get for that? The website also reveals that in 2007 alone former minister Michael Lowry, who had to resign when it was discovered he’d let Ben Dunne secretly pay for his house extension and who, we subsequently discovered, had offshore bank accounts he’d lied to the Dáil about, received nearly €200,000 in salary and expenses.

Callely’s (Dublin) house renovations cost only a fraction of Lowry’s. Callely may now have to show that he actually spends his time in west Cork but his problem is that his website says he lives in Dublin. It also headlines him as senator for Dublin North Central, which is clearly impossible, but shows how he intended using the Seanad role as a platform for a return to the Dáil in his own constituency. So you’re paying to finance his career prospects too.

Now let’s not just stop at abolishing the Seanad: let’s reduce the number of sitting TDs to 100 to serve a population of little more than four million.