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20+ Senators running for Dáil?

  • 03-02-2011 2:46am
    #1
    bnt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,074 ✭✭✭✭


    I'm new to Irish politics, and something that looks a little weird to me is the number of incumbent Senators that are running for Dáil seats. From the Elections Ireland page I count 21, and I know of at least one more possibilty not mentioned there. (Maria Corrigan in Dublin South, which would make 3 Senators in the race for 5 seats.)

    Is this typical? The candidates seem to be from all parties i.e. it's not simply FF Senators expecting to lose their places. Also in Dublin South - yes, that's my constituency - we have Shane Ross, the "Senator from Trinity", running for only the 2nd time (last was 1992), when he has 30 years in the Senate. Is it simply out of boredom? :cool:

    You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.

    ―Oscar Wilde predicting Social Media, in The Picture of Dorian Gray



Comments

  • #2
    nesf
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,644 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    The Seanad is often used for Proto-TDs. Party hacks who haven't managed to get the public to vote for them in big enough numbers yet. Other use is as a retiring ground for TDs that have ("unfairly") lost the public's support before they reached the age that they could retire.

    Senators who actually make use of the place like Shane Ross and David Norris are rare.


    It's what comes from having a neutered upper house with no power to do anything.


  • #3
    3DataModem
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,077 ✭✭✭3DataModem


    Seanad looks likely to be abolished (according to Enda's PP broadcast). Also some are trying to get on the ABFF ticket.


  • #4
    Chucky the tree
    Closed Accounts Posts: 19,341 ✭✭✭✭Chucky the tree


    There cushy job of getting paid to do nothing in the Senad under serious threat so now they want to move into the cushy job of getting paid to do nothing in the Dail.


  • #5
    amacachi
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23,316 ✭✭✭✭amacachi


    Other than one time the only senators I've had reason to read about were appointed just after failing to get elected to the Dáil. It's wonderful though how some of them manage to run businesses and/or have fulltime and fully-paid jobs as well as the important work they do in the Seanad.


  • #6
    Our man in Havana
    Closed Accounts Posts: 29,473 ✭✭✭✭Our man in Havana


    After the election you will have loads of failed FF TDs running for the Senate. The panels are packed with FF cronies which will facilitate them.


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