Viewpoint Extra: John McNulty & The Seanad

In a post on Monday, I referenced a scandal that had been breaking for a while over a prospective candidate for the Seanad, the upper house of Ireland’s parliament, called John McNulty, who was standing for the Fine Gael party. 

Well yesterday, John McNulty, withdrew his candidacy for the Seanad.  There’s one problem though, the ballot papers have already been printed, so his name can’t actually be removed from the ballot.

Fair enough, there is a situation where he could be elected, but if that ends up happening, all he’d have to do is announce a resignation, and there would be a new ballot held for that seat, simple enough.

The whole situation was a mess.  But I fully expect that Fianna Fail’s Micheal Martin will try to milk this for everything it’s worth, but as it has no worth at all, and as I said on Monday, political points are worthless and meaningless, I don’t see this causing Enda Kenny any further problems.  

Abolish the Seanad? No thank you.

In terms of politics threatening to get out of control, this is one situation where that could easily happen.  Enda Kenny, The Taoiseach, announced that he was bringing forward a bill to abolish the Seanad Eireann, the upper chamber of the Irish Parliament, the Oirechtas.

Unlike here in the UK, where the upper house, The House of Lords, is an unelected body, appointed by the Prime Minister via the system of honours bestowed by The Queen, The Seanad Eireann is made up of 60 members.  11 of these are directly appointed by the Taoiseach.  3 are elected by graduates of the University of Dublin, 3 are elected by graduates of the National University of Ireland, and the remaining 43 are elected from 5 special panels called Vocational Panels, made up of TDs, Senators and councillors.

Yeah, it's a little complicated, and that's one of the aspects of the Seanad Eireann that needs reform.  The Seanad should be directly elected, just like the US Senate is.  Further more, let's keep it simple.  Two Senators elected from each county in the Republic of Ireland, 26 counties, 52 Senators in all. 

That's just one aspect of the Seanad that needs reform, there are many others too.  Nobody thinks the Seanad can survive as it currently is.  But I believe Enda Kenny is wrong to call for the abolition of the second chamber.  In parliamentary democracies, the upper chamber is always the modifier, the body that curbs the excesses of the lower house.  With no upper house, there is no body to oversee the lower house and curb it's excesses.  That is why that abolishing the Seanad is wrong, no matter what additional measures you might put in.  The upper chamber must be there to give legislation a more considered opinion, than the lower house can.  That's what it should be doing, and that is why I would recommend everybody in Ireland to vote against any move to abolish the upper chamber.