Should the Seanad Éireann be Elected?

CelticDragon7

Should the Seanad Éireann be Elected?

Or should it be reformed or abolished completely?

Your views and opinions as always are most welcome!!

Thanks!

Fr Tod Umptious

CelticDragon7 wrote: »

Should the Seanad Éireann be Elected?

Or should it be reformed or abolished completely?

Your views and opinions as always are most welcome!!

Thanks!

How about your views and opinions first please ?

CelticDragon7

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

How about your views and opinions first please ?

No problem my friend. Well I am of the opinion that any house of parliament should be directly elected by the people. But that said I feel the upper house would need to be reformed first so that it actually has meaningful purpose and a clear definition of what it is actually there to do.

There also is obviously issues with the fact that it is 'considered' public opinion that there are already far too many politicians and so I think that a reduction in the number of members of the Dáil Éireann and also pay cuts could help the case for a directly elected Senate.

Seanchai

Abolished. It serves none of its original purpose since the development of the committee system in the Oireachtas.

As the appointments of people like O'Rourke, Cassidy etc show, it's a reward system for loyal or important political rejects from elections or for aspiring candidates at the next election. And don't even mention the Eoghan Harris types and why he was appointed to over €100,000 per year.

The question is, if it's abolished what will the political class create in its stead to give jobs to the boys? Because, the boys must have jobs. Always.

View

CelticDragon7 wrote: »

Should the Seanad Éireann be Elected?

Or should it be reformed or abolished completely?

Your views and opinions as always are most welcome!!

Thanks!

It already is (with the electorate of the "Taoiseach's 11" Senators being one person!). Nobody said all elections have to be direct elections.

As to the reform/abolish question, the first issue has to be "What should a Senate do?". After that we can decide on the need for it or the reforms needed for it.

Jcarroll07

It should be reformed and elections held for it every two years with the ability for it to block legislation. That way a government that is not following the will of the people can be basically stopped. It should have one out of every two election coinciding with an election for dail eireann it which case there can be a clean start every four years with which ever party/s gaining the majority in the dail also gaining the majority in the Seanad (presumably). The role of president should also be reformed to give it a greater role. We should be a proper three hose democracy with check and balances at the moment we are a joke

Noreen1

Jcarroll07 wrote: »

It should be reformed and elections held for it every two years with the ability for it to block legislation. That way a government that is not following the will of the people can be basically stopped. It should have one out of every two election coinciding with an election for dail eireann it which case there can be a clean start every four years with which ever party/s gaining the majority in the dail also gaining the majority in the Seanad (presumably). The role of president should also be reformed to give it a greater role. We should be a proper three hose democracy with check and balances at the moment we are a joke

I'd hope that whichever party is elected in the Dail wouldn't be elected in the Seanad, and would suggest that Senators ideally shouldn't have an affiliation/close links to any political party.
That's the only way the Seanad could ever operate as a check against the Government, as it was originally intended to do.

Annasopra

Radically reformed

40 seats should be appointed in each Dail constituency based on random selection from the electoral register from the electoral register. They should not be able to join a party or sign upto a party whip. Their could be a recall system built in.

20 seats should be elected on list systems and these should be allocated based on the EP constituencies.

antoobrien

CelticDragon7 wrote: »

Should the Seanad Éireann be Elected?

Or should it be reformed or abolished completely?

Your views and opinions as always are most welcome!!

Thanks!

It is elected, I have a vote in it for the university panel. The various local authorities have a vote in it for other panels.

As another poster said not everything has to be a direct election, would you rather for example we had direct (US style) elections for Taoiseach separate from dail and seanad elections? Would you be prepared to accept the consequences of picking FG for a majority party with Gerry Adams for Taoiseach as happens regularly in the US?

COYW

CelticDragon7 wrote: »

Should the Seanad Éireann be Elected?

Or should it be reformed or abolished completely?

Your views and opinions as always are most welcome!!

Thanks!

As someone else said. It is elected. I have a vote in it, as an NUI graduate.

Jcarroll07 wrote: »

The role of president should also be reformed to give it a greater role.

I disagree, if you are suggesting that the apolitical nature of the position be altered. If not, can you expand on your statement.

Seanchai

antoobrien wrote: »

It is elected, I have a vote in it for the university panel.

And what a massive reason to abolish it. I could/can vote for this ridiculous institution. As a matter of principle I have never done so. My parents, who have raised a massive family but who never went to university themselves, are unable to do so despite spending their lives paying tax to this state. That disgusts me, and the rest of my family who have been funded by our parents throughout our education.

Any principled person should see this elitist institution for what it is, and boycott it. It has no redeeming feature, and certainly serves no function for this state's democracy or public service which is A) not currently served by other state institutions, or cannot be readily transferred to one of the said institutions.

Jobs for all the boys and girls (with another antiquated special quota for Anglo-Irish ones, of course). And that's really it in a nutshell.

P_1

We need to understand a) what it is meant to do and b) what it actually does.

IMO it is meant to act as a balance to the decisions that are made in the Dáil but in effect it serves as a rubber stamp for these decisions. Why it does that I don't quite know. Is there a whip system in place in Seanad Eireann?

Secondly we need to understand who elects Senators.

11 are elected by the Taoiseach
6 are elected by graduates of certain universities
43 are elected by various panels of TDs, Senators and County Councillors.

So going by that we can reasonably assume that 11 Senators would follow the current governments view, 6 are nominally independant and the remaining 43 would depend on who is in control of the various panels.

Is the control of these panels public knowledge?

Jcarroll07

I disagree, if you are suggesting that the apolitical nature of the position be altered. If not, can you expand on your statement.[/QUOTE]

I would like to see something like the french system for the president. Where if the presidents party is in control of the Dail then the President is the de facto head of government. But if a different party gains control of the dail then like in the French system were the prime minister run the internal matters of the country like education, health. While the president is in charge of foreign affairs. I just want to see more checks and balance to our system. Presently the presidents needs permission/approval of the dail to speak publicly. And the Seanad is as already said just a rubber stamp. I just don't like seeing power concentrated in one place in our case the dail. We NEED a proper THREE house democracy

markesmith

Interesting Wikileaks cable from 1973 - has much changed?

"Presidency has no power but some prestige. Senators...have neither...Political power in Ireland is monopoly of one institution: the Dail.

voter1983

Senate should be disbanded. Its a glorified talking shop. No actual benefit and full of overpaid ****!

nesf

markesmith wrote: »

Interesting Wikileaks cable from 1973 - has much changed?

From that cable and very important to remember:

A FEW SENATORS-- ESPECIALLY FROM UNIVERSITIES-- DO MAKE SERIOUS CONTRIBUTION TO IRISH POLITICS. MOST, HOWEVER, ARE POLITICIANS WHO COULD NOT MAKE IT INTO DAIL, AND SENATE PARTY COMPOSITION CLOSELY FOLLOWS THAT IN DAIL.

The university senators, even though they can be quite niche in their appeal, do tend towards actually trying to achieve something politically. It's unusual to see the other senators rock the boat by talking about things far outside their party's main policy line. Which is to be expected when these parties are who elect them essentially. They operate similar to backbench TDs in many ways, minus the key voting ability.

Red Kev

I'll vote to abolish it. Whilst I agree that a reformed second house might have some good possibilities for the Irish political system the Seanad will never reform itself.

Proof of this is that since Enda Kenny made his speech to hold a vote on abolishing the Seanad in late 2009 (over 3 years ago) not one single Senator or group of Senators, past or present has come out with any meaningful proposals for reform. Therefore I don't believe that they have any real intent to introduce any meaningful reform and that is why I'll vote for it's abolition.

nesf

Red Kev wrote: »

I'll vote to abolish it. Whilst I agree that a reformed second house might have some good possibilities for the Irish political system the Seanad will never reform itself.

Proof of this is that since Enda Kenny made his speech to hold a vote on abolishing the Seanad in late 2009 (over 3 years ago) not one single Senator or group of Senators, past or present has come out with any meaningful proposals for reform. Therefore I don't believe that they have any real intent to introduce any meaningful reform and that is why I'll vote for it's abolition.

The issue is the only reforms that make any sense are ones that take away powers from the TDs and the Government in particular since it wouldn't have the automatic ability to pass any policy it wants so long as the whip system holds which it generally does.

For Senators to come out and say we should have a proper bicameral system with checks and balances against the Government would be asking the turkeys to vote for Christmas and since many of our Senators are aspiring turkeys it's even less surprising it's not being suggested.

Sierra Oscar

I see that Ógra Fianna Fáil launched their Seanad reform document recently for consideration by the senior party. What do you think of it?

Seanad Éireann Reform Proposal

Personally I would favor actual meaningful reform over abolishment. If that cannot be achieved, then abolish it - but I am not happy with the way the government will not even look into the possibilities for reform first.

VinLieger

Abolishment if it means getting rid of the idiocy thats seems to pervade it like that healy eames thing

Cody Pomeray

The only thing I would really oppose is an upper house directly elected by universal suffrage, as per Senator John Crown's proposals.

What would be the point in having 2 houses of Parliament, both elected on the same basis? The Dáil doesn't need a twin sister any more than we need a bigger Dáil.

As it happens I'm reasonably okay with the idea of the current electoral route to the Seanad. I don't even see the point of abandoning the whip altogether.

I think the best response is not to abolish the Seanad, just to loosen the control of the whip across the Oireachtas, so both houses can become more effective in rigorous debate and democratic policymaking.