Political World
New zeal for Seanad reform only comes after the death knell has already sounded
World of Politics with Harry McGee
The argument for saving the Seanad is a bit like the way we tossed up the prospects for Galway’s senior footballers ahead of their clash with Mayo in Pearse Stadium two weeks ago. Deep in our hearts we felt we might just have a chance and you’d never know; the lads might just pull it off against the odds.
Meanwhile our heads kept on repeating ‘not a chance, not a chance’ over and over again – and so it proved . . . doubly so.
The same goes for the Seanad. We who write about politics for a living feel a bit of a grá for it, a tinge of fondness, a tincture of nostalgia.
When we take the calculators out, and run the spreadsheets and pore over the graphs with our cold unflinching eyes (well, shifty rheumy eyes), the case for preserving the Seanad becomes a far less attractive proposition.
It costs over €10m a year to run and doesn’t really do very much. If you wanted to be very cynical, what it boils down to is 60 underworked people campaigning to save their soft not-very-challenging jobs.
Since De Valera created the second Seanad Éireann when he rewrote the Constitution in 1937, there have been 12 reports recommending reform of the Upper House.
The last one was completed in 2004 by a committee chaired by Mary O’Rourke. Unsurprisingly, it recommended an increase in numbers, from 60 to 65. But it also recommended that half be directly elected.
Just like all the other reports, it was long-fingered. O’Rourke’s Fianna Fáil Government put it on the same dusty high shelf where its 11 predecessors had been placed by previous Governments. The Seanad had become like an overgrown garden, there all right, part of the house, but ignored and never really used.
And so the long tradition of inertia over what to do with the Seanad might have continued had not Enda Kenny stood up in October 2009 and announced – without warning – that if Fine Gael got back into Government, he would abolish the Seanad.
When I wrote about it at the time I said it was “almost up there with Donagh O’Malley’s free education announcement in 1966 or John A Costello’s impromptu declaration of the Republic while on holiday in Canada in 1949”.
Kenny’s announcement that night was so well guarded that it came as news to most of his own TDs and Senators. Many of the latter, while supporting Kenny publicly, have been fighting a quiet rearguard battle to retain the Seanad ever since.
The momentum for abolition really came when Labour came on board in the run-up to the election and made the same argument. Fianna Fáil also included the abolition of the Seanad in its manifesto but it’s beginning to do a reverse ferret on that also.
When de Valera reconfigured the Seanad in 1937, his most important alteration was to make sure it was shorn of its power. The first Seanad had been a bit of a thorn in his side, and had voted down several pieces of Government legislation.
The new iteration reserved 11 of the 60 seats for the Taoiseach’s nominees, thus more or less guaranteeing a Government majority. Only once in recent history – during the 1994 to 1997 Rainbow coalition – has the opposition control the Seanad.
Even when the government is not in control of the Seanad it makes little difference. The Seanad cannot defeat a Bill. All it can ultimately do is delay the passage of the law for 180 days, after which time it is deemed to have been passed.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
An Opposition party is a bit like an invading army trying to surmount the defences of a seemingly impregnable fortress – constantly surveying the moat, the drawbridge, the doors and the battlements to spot any weakness.
For a Government party, the chink usually reveals itself when it tries to push through a deeply unpopular policy – like, for example, the decision to bring the eviction ban to a close at the end of March.
The Government’s thinking was that, by delaying the end of it, it was storing up problems for itself. The longer it left the measure in place, the bigger the queue of landlords who wished to sell up when the restrictions were lifted, triggering a huge number of evictions.
As it was, even ending the restriction now, according to campaigners such as Peter McVerry, was going to cause a “tsunami” of evictions.
Senior Coalition figures admitted that it was going to have an impact on homelessness in the short term.
As soon as the Government announced it was lifting the ban, there was a hue and cry from the Opposition.
Several back benchers in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael expressed concern but were brought around by assurances from senior Ministers that local authorities and approved housing bodies would be given the go-ahead to buy properties from landlords who were selling up and leaving tenants in situ.
However, if there are any upsides to the move, they will not become apparent for months at the very least, by which time there could be a big spike in the homelessness figures.
From the moment the decision was made, the Green Party TD for Dublin Central Neasa Hourigan signalled she opposed the move.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
The last local elections in May 2019 were dominated by the story of a big swing; nothing to do with the voting though – it was the famous swing in the Dublin version of the Dean Hotel that former TD Maria Bailey took a tumble from.
That’s how exciting local and European elections are for the media and the public. As a political story, they ran a distant second to the so-called Swing-gate.
As it happened there were political swings too. In the locals, the Greens made big gains. Fianna Fáil and the Social Democrats made some gains. Fine Gael was treading water. Sinn Féin lost a fair few seats.
It was a little different for Europeans. The Greens gained two seats. Fianna Fáil gained two but failed to take one in Midlands North West. Sinn Féin lost two of its three MEPs. Fine Gael ended up winning four with Maria Walsh taking a second seat in Midlands North West.
At the time, Sinn Féin was on a downward slope and had been since the general election of 2016. What won it gains in 2014, messages of anti-austerity, protests against water charges, no longer applied. It was struggling to find its feet.
It lost almost half its seats in the locals, falling from 159 down to 81. Its share of the vote had dipped to below 10 per cent, a drop of 5.6 per cent.
So, the ‘read’ at the time of the 2019 election was that Fianna Fáil seemed to be continuing its recovery from the nadir of 2011 into the next general election. Fine Gael was in its second term of government and was concerned about holding its own. Sinn Fein looked like it would have a difficult general election.
For the Councils, Fianna Fáíl held remained the largest party in local government and showed strongly in working class areas of Dublin. Its European election was mediocre though.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
In 1980s Galway, we teenagers thought we were different as we listened to U2, wore Smiths badges on our lapels, and railed against the conservatism of our parents’ generation.
But we weren’t. Ireland was a mono-everything society – church, State, political parties, race, and thinking.
We were more conformist than radical but didn’t know it at the time.
At the time there were two dominant political parties. Over 80 per cent of the population voted for them. They included a majority of practically every demographic.
Implicit in that vast vote for the establishment party was a deference, more or less, from the population for the powerful institutions of the State.
The death grip of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael was loosened gradually in succeeding decades. That said, until a decade ago, it was inconceivable to think any other party would be able to form a government.
Because if you didn’t want to vote for Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil, where did you turn?
Labour might have been an alternative. But the party went in with Fine Gael in 2011 with 37 seats and got hammered in 2016 and were left with seven. So they were hardly going to step up to the breach, were they?
The battering of Labour told us another lecture. There had been a long tradition in Irish politics of the smaller party in government taking a hiding after the election. Labour were (nominally) the small party in government and suffered because of it.
What people did not fully realise then was that it was not just the smaller party in government that was coming out worse when they next encountered the electorate. It was also the main party in government.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Catherine Connolly slams Government over “cherry picking” facts on housing crisis
University of Galway to launch online service to battle cancer misinformation
Water leak in Salthill led to “colossal” daily loss of 850 thousand litres
Seanad hears up to 900 on waiting lists across five Galway city schools
100 PhD researchers protest at University of Galway over pay and conditions
City seeks to annex Oranmore, Claregalway, Moycullen and Barna in boundary extension
Tech consultants open Galway hub
Man awarded €142,000 over unprovoked attack in toilet of County Galway pub
Woman convicted of harassing social media guru
New offering from Mercedes-Benz targets the wealthiest of customers
