How many votes/nominations can Leo potentially have

rasper

Just a hypothetical question, imagine FG win a majority of seats in the next election and are able to form a government without a coalition.

Assuming Leo is still Taoiseach and he gets to nominate 11 members to the Seanad as Taoiseach, he also is a Trinity graduate and on top of that does he still have a parliamentary opportunity to vote again?

Sierra Oscar

He has to nominate 11 Senators prior to the first session of the new Seanad. They all have to be nominated at once and he cannot dismiss any of his nominees. If one of them resigns, or dies in office, then he gets to nominate someone else to fill that seat.

He also gets one vote for the vocational panel as a TD and gets a vote for the Trinity panel as a graduate - but that's just a vote, it's not actually nominating someone to take a seat.

rasper

That's what I thought , thanks

rasper

whats the purpose of the 11 nominations from the taoiseach , there doesnt seem to be any real; restrictions or guidelines , a cynic would say its a way of rewarding certain people or keeping jobs for the boys when considering who kenny picked , a number of GE candidates that couldnt even get elected, Reilly, Coffey etc

George Sunsnow

rasper wrote: »

whats the purpose of the 11 nominations from the taoiseach , there doesnt seem to be any real; restrictions or guidelines , a cynic would say its a way of rewarding certain people or keeping jobs for the boys when considering who kenny picked , a number of GE candidates that couldnt even get elected, Reilly, Coffey etc

Yes you are mostly correct there
The system has been around for decades so all governments since its inception have done this
Kenny though had a few waverer’s who did not support him recently as he actually went outside the usual roll call of unelected t.d’s iirc

Sierra Oscar

rasper wrote: »

whats the purpose of the 11 nominations from the taoiseach , there doesnt seem to be any real; restrictions or guidelines , a cynic would say its a way of rewarding certain people or keeping jobs for the boys when considering who kenny picked , a number of GE candidates that couldnt even get elected, Reilly, Coffey etc

It's to ensure the Government has an automatic inbuilt majority in the Seanad. It was designed for that purpose. The reason being that the Seanad can cause delays in the legislative process and a check and balance is needed considering it is not directly elected by the people - unlike Dáil Éireann which ultimately gives the Taoiseach his / her mandate.

When the Seanad was first implemented it was feared that vested interests could get elected and undermine the authority of the Dáil hence the inbuilt majority via Taoiseach's nominations.

rasper

[QUOTE=Sierra Oscar

When the Seanad was first implemented it was feared that vested interests could get elected and undermine the authority of the Dáil hence the inbuilt majority via Taoiseach's nominations.[/QUOTE]

However the worst thing they can do is delay legislation by 90 days , hardly anarchy.
In fact if the Taoiseach has nearly 20% of the seats to hand out as favours and bribes(worst case scenario), it is hardly classed as a democratic house .
Would it not be better for seanad to act as the check and balance for the Dail, vested interests or not.
Genuine questions as Im fascinated with the process as it is

Peregrinus

Dev's idea was that the Seanad should not be able to block legislation enacted by the Dail, which had a democratic mandate from the people.

Prior to the 1937 Constitution, he actually abolished the Seanad of the Irish Free State, which he saw as a device for preserving Unionist influence in the IFS, and therefore undemocratic or anti-national. This was very controversial at the time, and he was persuaded to put a Seanad back into the 1937 constitution, but he was determined that its role should not be to block legislation or frustrate the democratic wishes of the people as enacted by the Dail. He thought it could play a role in revising and improving draft legislation, bringing to bear perspectives and experience that might not be reflected in the Dail. The whole "vocational panel" system of election was intended to ensure different kinds of expertise and experience would be reflected in the Seanad - that never really worked as intended, but it was the intention.

The ability of the Taoiseach to nominate 11 members served two functions. If the government majority in the Seanad was tight (or non-existent), party loyalists could be nominated to give the government a solid majority, and so prevent the Seanad from being able to block or delay legislation enacted by the Dail. If the government had a comfortable majority, the Taoiseach of the day could use his power of nomination to appoint people who he felt would make a positive contribution to the work of the Seanad as a chamber that could bring expertise, experience, deliberation, etc to bear, or that could reflect diverse perspectives. Or, of course, he could just appoint has-beens or wannabes. And while there has certainly been too much of the latter, there has been some of the former as well. T. K. Whitaker, John Robb and Gordon Wilson were all Taoiseach's nominees to the Senate, for example, and the first two have the distinction of having been appointed by both FF and FG Taoiseachs. Of the current 11 Taoiseach's nominees, 6 are members of Fine Gael and 5 have no party affiliation. Enda Kenny's first group of nominees, in 2011, included 1 FG senator, 3 Labour senators and 7 independents.

rasper

Thanks,that sums it up perfectly and it becomes a lot clearer