do we need an upper house?

silverharp

Given that Ireland is such a small country do we need 2 houses of Parliament?. Does in create unnecessary bureaucracy?. If the institution hadn’t been around, what would be different today? In Euro terms is the institution as useful as say an extra hospital wing or whatever the opportunity cost works out as?

Mick86

Thought this was here already.

Halve the Dáil, halve the Senate and make it accountable to the electorate. At the moment it's a retirement home for failed TDs and a nice little earner for over-educated, under-employed twits.

Jackie laughlin

Here we go again! Justify the cutback or elimination of anything by comparing its cost to, say, a hospital ward.

This country is politically stable because our constitution works. Modify that constitution by all means but do it carefully and deliberately.

Liam Byrne

Given the crap that's come out of the ministers over Shannon, I'd nearly leave the upper house intact and dump the lower one - shower of useless wasters!

Mick86

Jackie laughlin wrote:

Here we go again! Justify the cutback or elimination of anything by comparing its cost to, say, a hospital ward.

It's probably simplistic, but 166 TDs represent 4.25 million people while 300 million Americans have to make do with a mere 435 Representatives. 646 MPs represent 60 million British people. We are over represented.

Jackie laughlin wrote:

This country is politically stable because our constitution works. Modify that constitution by all means but do it carefully and deliberately.

Granted but our constitution would work just as well with 90 TDs in the Dáil.

Jackie laughlin

The constitution would have to be changed to give a 90 seat Dail. What would be the purpose of the change? The cynics will reply that it it would save money. While that's true, it would save relatively little money. The one positive reason that strikes me - I take it that you are proposing linking representation to numbers of voters and keeping PRSTV - is that it would tend to create larger constituencies.

Mick86

Jackie laughlin wrote:

The constitution would have to be changed to give a 90 seat Dail.

Obviously. But the constitution has been changed on many occasions. Why should it be a problem in this instance.

Jackie laughlin wrote:

What would be the purpose of the change?

What is the purpose of 166 TDs, most of whom rarely attend the Dáil. The vast majority, say nothing and do nothing in the House.

Jackie laughlin wrote:

The cynics will reply that it it would save money. While that's true, it would save relatively little money.

On the contrary, it would save a lot of money in salaries, pensions and expenses. If the worthies themselves could pare as much off a Social Welfare or Health Budget they'd jump at the chance.

Jackie laughlin

I realise that the constitution has been changed but it has to be changed with great care. Think about the mess caused by the pro-life amendment.

You didn't answer the question, what is the purpose of the change?

You asked a rhetorical question about the purpose of the 166 deputies and then asserted that they rarely attend and do no work. This simply is not true. It is a piece of cynicism that could as easily be levelled against 90 deputies.

A reduction to 90 would constitute a miniscule saving in terms of overall state spending. Your final sentence is pure cynicism. I'm certain that some deputies would argue that a reduction in state spending on welfare or health would be a good thing but some would not.

Hotblack Desiato

Mick86 wrote:

It's probably simplistic, but 166 TDs represent 4.25 million people while 300 million Americans have to make do with a mere 435 Representatives.

A federal system of government is not comparable to ours. The states have governments in their own right and there is local government below that as well.

646 MPs represent 60 million British people. We are over represented.

The UK's system is closer to ours, but councils have far more power and funding, so local politics is far more relevant to the public than it is here.
Of course in recent years there's now a Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly and Northern Irish administration as well as Westminster. Add an English parliament and you effectively have a federal state.

Granted but our constitution would work just as well with 90 TDs in the Dáil.

Wasn't it Lemass who wanted a relatively large Dail to increase the size of the 'talent pool' ?

Picking 15 half-competent ministers is difficult enough as it is!

Mick86

Jackie laughlin wrote:

I realise that the constitution has been changed but it has to be changed with great care. Think about the mess caused by the pro-life amendment.

Changing teh number of Dáil deputies should not be as complicated as the Pro-Life fiasco.

Jackie laughlin wrote:

You didn't answer the question, what is the purpose of the change?.

Saving Money.

Jackie laughlin wrote:

This simply is not true. It is a piece of cynicism that could as easily be levelled against 90 deputies.

I would be less cynical if the Dáil wasn't normally empty for the television cameras.

Jackie laughlin wrote:

A reduction to 90 would constitute a miniscule saving in terms of overall state spending. Your final sentence is pure cynicism. I'm certain that some deputies would argue that a reduction in state spending on welfare or health would be a good thing but some would not.

I'm a cynical person, with absolutely no respect for our TDs, the Dáil, Senate, Government, the Presidency, Councillors, Civil Servants, indeed any public institution. I regard them all as self-serving, spend-thrift time-servers. And I have no intention of changing that opinion.

With that out of the way we can save ourselves the bother of dancing around in circles for the next week on this worn out subject.:D

Mick86

ninja900 wrote:

A federal system of government is not comparable to ours.....................................................................................Wasn't it Lemass who wanted a relatively large Dail to increase the size of the 'talent pool' ?

Picking 15 half-competent ministers is difficult enough as it is!

So you want more TDs then?

The Corinthian

Jackie laughlin wrote:

This country is politically stable because our constitution works. Modify that constitution by all means but do it carefully and deliberately.

Just because something works does not mean it is either perfect or closed to improvement.

The upper house in any bicameral legislature is essentially a historical byproduct of monarchy that has evolved into a check and balance measure to the lower house.

The question in the case of the Irish Senate is does it fulfill this function either in theory or practice? Does the Senate have real power to act as such a watchdog (without the danger of becoming a legislative bottleneck) and if so does it carry this function out?

If not one should in fact ask the question of whether it can be reformed to fulfill this role or if, as some suggest, it is a superfluous layer of government with no practical use.

The reality is that most bicameral systems (interestingly, not the US) have been moving towards a de facto unicameral model for a long time, with many newer democracies not even bothering with a second house when they form.

Seanad Éireann seems to be in desperate need for reform on a number of levels. To begin with it's role is no longer clear, having no real powers as watchdog to the lower house. Additionally it's composition has long been rife with political patronage and increasing looks like a halfway house for politicians who fail to get elected as TD's.

Certainly it is in need of reform and, TBH, that reform may realistically be its abolition if it cannot serve any useful purpose.

Carolus Magnus

The Seanad itself is something that like the '37 constitution, has a basis in what was quite popular Catholic social teaching at the time. It seems to have begun its life, serving a sort of ideological purpose more than anything else. The whole thing is a dumbed down version of corporatism. Whereby different sectors of society are represented, so as to encourage cross-class co-operation with the hope being that a flight to communism or something equally radical will be avoided. For the sake of the poor Archbishop's ticker.

It certainly has outlived that purpose now. I would always prefer a Bicameral system over a Unicameral system though, but it depends on the level of oversight and antagonism the Seanad provides to the Dail. As you say Corinthian, that should be its primary aim, and the question is of whether or not it fulfills that function. It's far too hamstrung in terms of powers, and rife with cronyism as it is to facilitate a truly impartial oversight function. It has no powers of veto, only powers of referral and (at best) mildly irritating delay. It rarely if ever exercises these, and rubber stamps most laws. It might be less prone to do so, if the Taoiseach of the day did not have the power to appoint 11 faithful hounds to the body (most recently that was the case with Eoghan Harris.) Indeed, the Seanad might become a real force, if we first made the simple amendment of ending the Taoiseach's appointments. After that, I'd give it a while to re-evaluate my opinion.

Certainly though, the US Congress seems to be the amongst the more genuinely bicameral systems in the world today, and we should perhaps look to there for some inspiration. Looking to Britain has perhaps created its own problems, as the House of Lords there has long been an irrelevancy since the 1911 parliament act. That said though, it's usually dominated by Tories, and has powers which permit lengthier periods of delay of non-finance bills. For that reason, I'd say it was a healthier upper house than ours.

Jackie laughlin

Mick,
I was about to reply constructively to your post -including an explanation for the vacant Dail seen of TV - when I got to your last paragraph in which you rejoice in being a cynic, with ideas set in stone. There is no point in your being here; you have no use for discourse.


I to think that the best course would be reform of the senate as part of constitutional reform of the entire Oireachtas. There may be a lesson in the old corporatist approach to the senate. List the institutions which today inform or should inform public controversy in Ireland and have their members elect senators. The idea would be that every graduate of every 3rd level institution would have a vote, as would every farmer, every welfare recipient etc. Of course some would have votes in more than one "panel" but that's not necessarily bad or problematic and is the case with the university electorate now.

Hotblack Desiato

Mick86 wrote:

So you want more TDs then?

No, I said no such thing, but nice try.