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Updated, 14:05
ONE OF FINE GAEL’S best-known promises upon entering government was a referendum on abolishing the Seanad – with the signs now pointing to a referendum this autumn on whether to scrap the upper house of the Oireachtas.
The 60-member chamber doesn’t enjoy much public support, with many people seeing it as either a retirement home for wannabe TDs who couldn’t keep their seats, or somewhere for younger politicians to cut their teeth before eventually winning a spot in the Dáil.
Enda Kenny first floated the idea of scrapping the Seanad at the peak of the financial crisis, however – with many supporting the abolition of the chamber simply because it would save some money.
So, with that in mind, we thought we’d have a look behind the workings of the Seanad and see exactly how much the taxpayer would save if it didn’t exist.
We should note from the outset that the costs below only intend to figure out how much the Seanad costs on annual basis; trying to work out the one-off costs of abolishing it – such as a referendum – is an inexact science so we’re leaving it out for now.
Let’s start with the members’ salaries. There’s 60 members, each of whom earns a gross salary of €65,621. (The Cathaoirleach and Leas-Cathaoirleach are entitled to more, but we understand that both have waived their extra entitlements.)
This adds up to a pretty straightforward €3,937,260.
On top of that, every member is entitled to two different types of allowance – the Public Representation Allowance (which is paid on a flat rate, depending on whether expenses are vouched or not) and the Travel and Accommodation Allowance (which is based on the commuting distance to Dublin).
This could change depending on the geographical make-up of the Seanad, but in 2011 – the most recent year for which full-year figures are available – the total bill run up by all 60 senators came to €1,305,820.68.
Add to this the cost of the secretarial help that every Senator gets. Unlike in the Dáil – where members get both a parliamentary assistant and a secretary – Senators only get a parliamentary assistant.
Not only that, but they in fact only get half a assistant. (The idea is that the Seanad was only ever conceived as a ‘part time’ chamber; often, members from the same party will both hire the same person to give them a full-time job looking after both members.)
A parliamentary assistant’s salary is €41,092; each of the 60 senators gets to hire half of one, meaning a total bill for secretarial help of €1,232,760.
Then you get into the slightly more indirect stuff. For every member of the Seanad, there is a “leaders’ allowance“.
Every political party is paid €46,766 in an allowance to take care of additional staffing supports (press officers and the like) for its first five senators, and €23,383 for every additional senator. (Independents are, bafflingly, only entitled to the lower rate of €23,383.)
Based on the current composition of the Seanad, this means Fine Gael gets €561,192; Fianna Fáil €444,277; Labour €397,511; Sinn Féin €140,298 and independents €280,596. All in all, the total allowance every year comes to €1,823,874.
Finally – and one you might not have expected – is the cost of envelopes. (Yes, envelopes.) One of the perks of life in the Seanad is that every member gets a box of 375 envelopes every month, with ‘Dáil Éireann’ or ‘Seanad Éireann’ on the corner, on which postage costs are prepaid.
[Author's note: This was previously stated as 1,000 per month, though this figure was erroneous; while TDs got a thousand per month, senators got 750. This was halved under Budget 2013 so senators will now only receive 375 per month.]
You don’t have to use all your envelopes in one month, but they’re yours to use as you like. In many cases, a member will use only a small number of envelopes to deal with correspondence from the public, with the rest handed over to their political party to use for their own purposes.
This is why you often hear about outgoing TDs or Senators being seen on the day the Dáil or Seanad is dissolved, leaving the building with boxes of envelopes under their arms. Brendan Howlin has compared the envelopes to ‘boxes of money’ because they can be used for any postage at all.
As we mentioned, every member gets 375 envelopes per month; in addition, party whips get 10 times the number of members in their party every month. With 60 members getting 375 per month, and with 48 senators being members of parties, this means 275,760 envelopes a year.
It’s estimated that because of the sheer volume of correspondence, An Post charges only 54c per envelope instead of the usual 55c. This means the annual quota of envelopes is worth €148,910.40.
So what about other staff costs? Well, they probably won’t factor in any savings at all.
Under the current public staffing regimes, staff cannot face compulsory redundancies be laid off, so any Oireachtas support staff whose roles are specifically dependant on the existence of the Seanad would be assigned elsewhere in the Oireachtas.
Even if this were not the case, the likelihood is that the abolition of the Seanad would probably result in more responsibility being given to the Dáil – meaning, ultimately, the staff would be needed elsewhere.
You could also go about trying to calculate the costs of little things like light and heat in the Seanad chamber itself – but this also assumes that the chamber, once vacated by the Seanad itself, would lie idle.
This is an unlikely prospect – the hearings on the proposed abortion legislation earlier this month showed how the chamber could be used for busier or more high-profile events. In Stormont, the chamber for the old Senate of Northern Ireland – abolished in 1973 – is used as a committee room.
So, at the end of the day the costs above are the only ones that are likely to feature. In summary, they are:
Addendum: A few readers have asked in the comments section about the cost of pensions, and why these haven’t been included.
These haven’t been included because it’s a little more difficult to discern, and depends on the length of time for which a senator has served in the Oireachtas – but either way, abolishing the Seanad won’t affect the pensions and severance of everyone who’s in there already.
For the sake of propriety, though, we’ll give the following figures: A member of the Seanad gets an annual pension of €1,640.53 for every year they’ve been a senator. For all 60 members this therefore stands at €98,431.80 a year.
However, members of the Oireachtas do contribute 6 per cent of their salary towards their pension cost – so members of the Seanad actually contribute €3,937.26 a year. Over the course of 20 years (the maximum amount considered for pension purposes) they’d contribute €78,745.20.
There is still a net cost to the taxpayer – a senator who serves the full 20 years would currently get a lump sum of €98,431.50 and an annual pension of €32,810 – but again, these have been left out because every member of the Seanad will get their severance and pension at some point in their careers. Shutting down the Seanad simply means those costs are brought forward instead of pushing them into the future.
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€8,691,549 divided by 60 equals €144,859.15 for a part time job………
Invest the money in needed services
We should scrap all banking regulation too. It didn’t work during the boom so I’m sure we would be better off scrapping the regulator and letting the banks regulate themselves than attempting to reform and empower the regulators office.
I have no confidence in the hse either. We should scrap the hse and then let the individual health service providers run themselves as they are.
The failure of the Gardai to adequately investigate white collar crime also irks me. I think we should scrap the Gardai. No point trying to reform them.
“scrap all banking legislation”
Let me know how that works out for you.
It’s to ensure their pensions or wages will not be harmed..how about keep it and get rid of tds the savings alone would be enormous..
€8.7 million? Yes, that could be put to a lot better use. Roll on with the abolition!
It’s not even about the money. The place is a complete waste of time, that only serves to look after failed politicians, and half crazy misfits
Absolutely Rodrigo , a lot of the the public are missing the point about abolishing the Seanad and pay cuts within the cabinet.. We may save very little but it’s the ‘ gesture’ that we are all in this together, when they spout on about we took this cut and that cut it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference, they are still overpaid by at least 30% in comparison to other countries. The Seanad is a rather large ‘ club’ for members to slap each other on the back whilst they collect a rather large sum of pocket money.
How many nurses and other frontline staff could be employed with that 8 million?
also how many of these people are given this lovely little number and have never ben voted in. some even went for election on more than one occasion for so called major party’s dont get elected and end up get to be in the senate . that says a lot.
This article has the same poor approach that decision makers take when introducing new measures. They only look and the money side of things.
I’d like to see a more in depth analysis that reflects why there is a Seanad, why it is important in democracy, what role it should play in a democratic society and how the irish Seanad stands against that.
In other words, I can see how much it costs us, but to make decision I need to establish what value it adds to the country.
As it is, the article compares to a shopping list.
The senators themselves will be sure to tell you all that when the vote comes around. The article is fine as it stands in my opinion, I have already heard enough about the Senate to make up my mind. However, this is the first time I have seen a full tally of its cost
@Patitas – You’re right, of course, but this article isn’t intended to examine the question of whether it’s value for money or not. It’s only an accounting exercise as a starting point: how can you tell if the Seanad is value for money if you don’t know how much you spend on it in the first place?
Rest assured that we’ll be looking more deeply at the role and merit of the Seanad as the referendum comes into view.
Hi Gavan, I agree, the spending is a significant part of the analysis and it has been very well covered (I should have highlighted that in my first post to be fair), and I will be looking forward to the article that explores the returns/benefits that the Seanad has delivered over the last 20/25 years.
Is the pensions also not a cost?
Patitas – “I will be looking forward to the article that explores the returns/benefits that the Seanad has delivered over the last 20/25 years.”
That will probably be a very short article. While there have been a number of good orators and independent voices in the Seanad over the last while because of its makeup its has served as nothing more than a rubber stamp for the government over a very long period.
In fact I think I read somewhere that its been over thirty years since the Seanad last voted down a piece of legislation that came to it from the Dail. Maybe I’m wrong in that but I doubt you’re going to find many wonderful peices of legislation that emerged from the Seanad.
Those envelopes are very expensive!!
Envelopes should be done away completely, if they want to send letters, use their own. Don’t know a lot about what they are entitled to regarding envelopes but maybe someone can enlighten me, how come the Oireachtas purchases pre paid A4 A5 and airmail envelopes when they are not entitled to them, they are only entitled to DL size, it is us who is paying for these. Only in ireland.
What a waste of money. The amount spent on envelopes when so many services like home help, special needs assistants, phone allowance for elderly all be cut. What happened to using and ordering as you need? What about the cost pensions to senators? How much is this figure? Just a disgrace yet again. It’s the ordinary working person who is been left to dig this county out of recession. Abolish it. No real purpose no real power. Designed on the uk framework. House of lords. Let start thinking and acting for the people of this country not pushing them further into misery.
We don’t need them.
Make it directly electable and halve the number of TDs. Far more fat there and absolutly no loss would be felt. Remove the booby prize/ creche element by electing on same day.
Or have it a bit like the US and have midterm elections that way it could be used as a second critique of legislation, where they actually have a right to stop or amend legislation
Halving the number of TD is a perfect example of the ultimate populist idea that everybody likes but hasn’t been thought through.
Yes it would save money but it would also most likely reduce the number of smaller and independent voices in the parliament and ultimately serve the major parties who would have the organisation to exploit the fact that it would take many more votes to get elected.
If you had an 83 seat Dail you would have constituencies that are twice the size that they are now. That means that you would need twice the amount of votes to get elected. In those circumstances you probably would only have representation from FG, FF, Lab and SF in the Dail. I don’t think there would be any independent who would have the organisation or reach to be get elected in those circumstances.
The US mid-term election is only called that because its mid-term of the Presidency. In actually the mid-term election are full elections for the US House of Representatives, who only get elected on two year terms. For the US Senate its a third of the Senators who get elected for a six-year term. To be honest I don’t think the US is a particularly good example of a democracy in action. Again its an idea that sound great in principle, a complex system of checks and balances. But as has been seen over the last number of years it actually ends up as a strait-jacket, capable of being hijacked by a well-organised extreme group (such as the Tea Party).
Would having no independents in the dail be a bad thing though?
I’m ambivalent on whether having independent voices in the Dail is good or bad. There have been examples of both. However most of the people who constantly call for less TDs tend to be the same people who constantly criticise all the political parties. I’m just pointing out that simply reducing the number of TDs may actually be against what they want.
Wow!
Maybe we should all sign up to DDI, We have to change to make change happen. All these parties, that exist today FG/FF/SF/Labour and Socialists need to be wiped out. Europe isn’t so much the problem, its us!
And what would you replace them with. Why do people seem to think there is some magic formula out there that we simply haven’t found yet? The replacements could be a lot worse.
Look at Italy for example. For years the same parties were elected until around the early 90s when the old order was overthrown and many new parties emerged. And what did they get? The extreme conservative and separatist Northern League, the ultimately corrupt and disgusting Berlusconi and his party. the fascist National Alliance among others.
As for the DDI concept I’m sorry but while this sounds like a great idea in principle it would most likely end up in a mess of self-serving, constant referenda and petitions. Irish people have constantly shown that they will vote for the short-term, self-serving option whenever it is presented to them. DDI is a recipe for populism that would make the current system look like a paragon of virtue.
I wouldn’t replace them I would just cut their money in half and they shouldn’t get untouched expenses. As for the envelopes it should be only as needed and for official business.
Jim is afraid of change, would like things as they are and continue with the Joke that exists!
No I’m not afraid of change. I just think that assuming that change ALWAYS leads to better is foolish.
So Jim, you think this system is ok? It’s a very corrupt system, judges appointed by politicians and enforcing the same laws made by politicians. Senators un-elected and a whip system, councillors with no power and leeching the taxpayer. Anything except the a dictatorship would nearly be as good and communism of course. In the history of Ireland, tell me of one politician that got prosecuted AND JAILED for corruption?
Raphael Burke
The Irish Government is essentially the Taoiseach, Tanaiste and Minister for Finance. Whatever else the Seanad is, it is the only formal legislative moderator in this democracy between the chats of these 3 with IMF-ECB-EU and what gets put into law. Without it, in our Dail, the Govt whip ensures that only what these 3 say really goes.
Many of the abolition calls are to a great degree calls of “it doesn’t make a difference anyway”; that is the real problem. Existence isn’t the real problem, effectiveness is.
Having a bicameral representation increases our freedoms as a country since it moderates the interests of TDs. We have the freedom to shape this moderating structure and are exhibiting a huge lack of imagination. One should be suspicious when the main calls for abolition are from precisely those who are controlled by it on behalf of the Irish. Freedoms that are handed over are never handed back without a fight.
What you say would make sense if the coalition didn’t have a majority in both the Dail and the Senate. Currently anything the government wants to pass will sail right through both houses without much opposition. Then it will land on the desk of the President who has historically signed almost every piece of legislation ever put to them.
For a 4 year period Ireland is essentially a dictatorship at the will of the ruling party. And because the Irish people as a whole are conservative and tend to vote along the centre-right path we essentially keep voting in the same groups with the same policies and beliefs.
There is no Republic.
Patrick you’ve some fantastic big words for so early on a sun morning & your comment is well structured but €8.7 million is way to much for 60 people to have jobs for a few hours a week..
@piohmy There are at least 90 people employed directly by the Seanad – you’re forgetting the assistants.
Oh yes Niamh the famous ‘assitants’ the public service in this country is a basket case, I should know as I was in a department for 24 years, I will only hazard a guess here but 50% of the public service do very little, I did a small bit of investigating, indirectly of course( people love bitching on drink) at a recent get together, in that elite group of public servants ( tongue in cheek) 7 different departments were represented and by jaaaayyyysus, if ya only heard the stories… Starting at 10, break at 11, 2 hour lunch, after 3 phones get ignored, half days here, half days there, popping out to pick up kids ( cover me) junior management appalling, middle management not giving a shite… The list is endless…. We created the public service monster and I assure you, it will take some slaying without peripheral damage. so please don’t talk to me about ‘ assistants’
Jason. Respectfully, what patrick says “makes sense” irrespective of any observations you may have with regard to the balance of power or the lack of any republic. He is calling for reform. We should have a choice between reform and abolition. Reform of the Seanad could address the issues you highlight.
I am stunned at the level of support for abolishing the Seanad in the absence of any greater commitment to wider political reform.
Did we completely remove all banking regulation because the regulation system proved to be completely flawed during the boom?
Can anyone suggest a situation where the abolishment of a dysfunctional system of regulation lead to an improvement in the operation of what was the subject of that regulation?
An empowered Seanad is what we need.
None of the political parties at present have shown even the slightest intention that they are minded to, if they find themselves in government, expend the political capital or legislative effort that would be involved in reforming the Seanad in a meaningful way in line with the aspirations set out in Patrick’s comment and elsewhere on this page.
That is to say that there is no realistic prospect of reform of the Seanad happening in the lifetime of the current Dáil and probably not for several Dáils to come: it simply isn’t a priority and likely never will be.
People who present the option of reforming the Seanad are, thus, not describing a credible alternative: the Seanad will either continue in more-or-less it’s present form for decades to come or it will be abolished. There’s no third option that might realistically happen.
With that amount of money being spent and so little to show for it, then it has to be scrapped, of course the politicians in the Seanad will try to make some excuse as to why it should remain, but at the end of the day, they do not give a damn about anything but their wages.
Can you do a costing on The DAIL to see the reall cost of running this micro country
I know this sounds a lot, but I feel that we need reform not abolition.
A second house is just in a democratic society, if for nothing else a way of implementing checks and balances.
Maybe we need it to be directly elected, maybe we need to separate it further from the existing parliamentary parties…. I don’t know, but I feel that arbitrarily removing an integral part of our democratic process is not the answer.
And yet a majority of European democracies (and most that are around our size) manage to get by with only one House of Parliament.
They have proper anti-corruption mechanisms in place, unlike Ireland! Too many chiefs and not enough indians, except cowboys and horseburgers!
Are you sure Jim.
Of the 29 OECD countries 17 are bicameral.
I don’t have the individual European breakdown – I know of 8 countries off hand in the European community that have single chambers. I don’t think that makes a majority of the 27 states.
It is a complete waste of money, but at those numbers a complete drop in the ocean. The way it is being portrayed would lead you to believe it was a much higher cost to taxpayer.
What kind of return do we get for this €8mill?
I asked the same question, further analysis in another article to come.
I look forward to this article and analysis however having read what the Seanad actually is responsible for its seems like it does very little. I would vote to get rid of it and get rid of it today.
I think you might be wrong there with the Total costs, what about retired senators pensions and then add on the pay off they will get if and when it is abolished.
Padraic – I’m going to adjust the article to reflect this, because you’re not the only person to say it, but I left those out because those costs wouldn’t change if the Seanad was abolished. Every Senator will stop being a senator at some stage; they’ll still get severance pay and pensions at some stage.
For the sake of propriety, though, a member of the Seanad accrues €1,640.53 toward their pension for every year they’re in office. For all 60 members this therefore stands at €98,431.80 a year.
However, members of the Oireachtas do contribute 6% of their salary towards their pension cost – so members of the Seanad actually contribute €3,937.26 a year. Over the course of 20 years (the maximum amount considered for pension purposes) they’d contribute €78,745.20, which goes towards a lump sum of €98,431.50 and an annual pension of €32,810 (if they’ve served 20 years).
Again, though, I left this out because on an annual basis, because current Senators still get their pay and severance anyway, and the costs above are only worked out on an annual basis.
Reform is badly needed, not closure. Retired TD’s on a pension should not be paid to be a senator. Plus when talking about costs remember probably 40% of that money comes back as Tax.
Stephen – I should point out that a former TD who currently serves in the Seanad doesn’t get a pension for their time in the Dáil while they’re still in the Oireachtas. The Houses of the Oireachtas are treated as a single entity for pensions purposes.
That said, a sitting President who is a former member of either still gets their Oireachtas pension (though Michael D has waived his).
People clearly don’t understand what the Seanad is for. It is the upper house of the parliament. As with the House of Lords in the UK it is there to ratify any bills passed in the lower house (the Dáil).
If the Seanad was abolished it would be paving the way for a government to introduce any laws that they wanted to do.
On the costs €8.7m is a relatively low operating cost for a government house. Saying that it could be out towards other frontline services is a bit ridiculous. That €8.7m will just disappear. It would not be redistributed to another department. The government are looking at saving money anywhere they can.
And yet a majority of European countries (and most that are around our size) manage to get by with only one House of Parliament.
Ireland is the only non-federal small country (>10m citizens) in Europe that has two houses of parliament. If other countries don’t need a second chamber, why do we?
I look at this differently; abolishing the Seanad will disenfranchise graduates of NUI & TCD, who live aboard! In the year of the gathering, we will be abolishing a chamber Irish citizens living abroad could vote in.
In 2012 when it was the year of the child, we also cut children’s allowances and carers allowances but never touched the actual social welfare allowance.
Shouldn’t we be worried about this Government and how it’s conducting itself?
Budgets are approved by a council of four men!EU policy aggressively being adapted!
1) re people abroad, there is talk about bringing in legislation to enable people to vote who are abroad &
2) a lot of people saw the passing by the Senate of the Social Welfare Bill as its chance to stand on its own but it sailed through, which was the final straw for most
There are no circumstances under which Irish people living abroad should be allowed to vote. We are a special case – unlike other countries which allow expatriates to vote, the numbers of Irish people living off this island are so large as to be capable of swaying an election – without having to live with the consequences.
What about the already disenfranchised graduates – at home and abroad – of UL, DCU, various IoTs? Not to mention the little matter of any ordinary citizen without a third level qualification. The elitism involved is breathtaking and will only be changed by the vested interests if abolition is the alternative.
We have no right to moan about our government surrendering our sovereignty in order to borrow a few billion if we are willing to allow it to abolish one of the pillars of our democracy simply to save a few million.
A few million which even if saved, will more than likely be wasted elsewhere.
What the Senate needs is reform, not abolition.
A directly elected Senate, two senators from each county, elected two years after each Dáil sits, would act as both sounding board for and brake on a Dáil increasingly out of touch with the will of those who elect it.
Moreover, by limiting the Senate to two Senators per county, regardless of that county’s population, it would ensure that Kerry’ or Leitrim’s voice is as loud in at least one chamber as Dublin’s.
Removing one chamber of a bicameral parliament leaves the other with no one to check its sums – how much do you trust the Dáil?
Reforming the Senate could become the first step in reforming the entire way politics is done in this Republic – abolish it and we will never know.
Yeah but what would we loose? Yet one more avenue of the democracy we supposedly have in this country. What government needs to remove a people’s democracy when they vote to get rid of it themselves?
Sorry val it’s not democracy, it’s enda and eamon’s crew. They didn’t stop FF ruining the country and now pass every thing enda wants so its pointless. 8 million a year for 60 mostly unelected yeasayers is just unacceptable.
How about doing the same exercise for reducing the number of TD’s to about 90?. It would require an amendment to Article 16.2.2 of the Constitution to change the representation requirements to about 1 TD per 50,000 people. Should not be a problem to get that amendment passed by the people.
our government said change,, no change where needed, pensions up the kazoo, we have dick spring one fine example , pensions to numerous to mention ,,, but working in bank for big money and another pension,, am i the only person to see these people have never worked for themselves, paid taxes for others, employed anyone , laid off anyone, they all seem to earn tax payers money, there wont be change, they say we have to pay water charges, house tax, that will keep europe happy,,, does enda not have a heart , people freezing to death, people in hospitals from malnutrition,, and nothing said, all we here about is horse meat, our country is in deep trouble , we do need enda, and pat rabbit out,, and then they want to put in joan burton another dictator,, not one of them have proven one job in this country,
Nine million euro, folks. Tell me, how much is the average banking executive’s annual bonus?
The Seanad is imperfect, absolutely, but that’s because, like the rest of the Irish political system, it’s been abused and manipulated by populist, power-hungry parties. The idea behind the Seanad in its creation was actually to provide a non-political upper house representative of broad sections of society to check the power of the D?il. It’s perfectly possible, for example, that if the Seanad was functioning the way it’s supposed to, we’d never have had this catastrophe of a bank bailout.
Abolishing the Seanad is a political move that suits Enda and his cabinet, whose agenda is to centralise and concentrate power on themselves.
Reform it instead. Open it up to a 25% popular vote on a national list. Change the Taoiseach’s chosen 11 to 11 chosen by the President. Reform the nomination committees so that they’re representative of societal sectors. Most importantly, give it teeth by giving it the power to put proposed bills to a referendum to give us a real say in how the country is run again.
The Irish people are crying out for political blood. Please, think hard about this one; don’t go for Enda’s convenient scapegoat. Vote to retain the Seanad, push to reform it, and use it to go for the jugular.
Http://www.perspectivesbyjack.com
Great article Gavin,keep the people’s blood boiling.
Voluntary service with no expenses or rent’ light or heat. Let people who are interested pay for their interest by renting a room and paying for their typing etc. Fergal Quinn would be first to resign.
Reform rather than abolition – it would also be interesting to look at the costs of all the county/city/town councils. I know they don’t draw a salary, but I expect we would find they cost substantially more than €8million, given the sheer numbers.
We’re certainly vastly over-represented between the Dail/Seanad/Councils; but I’m not sure abolition is the way forward. Having an upper house is important in maintaining democracy. The whole system needs to be trimmed down (probably by at least half), to make the same savings, but keeping democracy alive.
Abolish the seanad immediately as its a poor mans version of the uk house of lords.next step should be a td reduction to 100 or less & further amalgamation of the various strands of local government we have ended up with in our little state. Its no wonder we’re burst.
It’s the only bit of oversight we have in this country. Scrap this and the majority government can pass any law they want and we would only have the president to veto it. Even thought the Seanad votes on party lines they sometimes as in the example of labours recent contretemps create debate on important issues. Someday we are going to need it and a paltry €8mm will be cheap by comparison.
I always say be careful what they wish for.
Gavan- Do a costing on local government also, lets see how much the useless councillors cost us and lets see if a better alternative could be created. Like four regional councils, or reform the Seanad to do council business and elect the senators?
For once I agree with you Stephen (although I think we could probably have 8 regional councils just to keep it someway more local). It’s interesting though that when Phil Hogan released his plans to reduce the number of councils and councillors, people on Journal starting screaming about how he was destroying democracy. I sometimes wonder if people know exactly what they want.
Do Sinn Fein actually get that 140k for party allowance as they only have 3 senators and so no party recognition.
The Seanad doesn’t officially recognise any party groupings so it’s irrelevant how many or few they have.
I do know that SF get very little speaking time in the Seanad because they do not constitute a group. I’m maybe wrong but I was pretty sure there was some recognition of groupings.
Their regular lack of speaking time is solely down to arrangements between the party whips who decide in advance to divvy up the time amongst themselves. (That said, I’m not sure whether SF has a Seanad whip, or why they might be excluded from these meetings.)
There is no reason within the procedural setup of the Seanad itself why any member, of any party or none, should be barred from participating in any discussion.
The majority of people here calling for the retention of the Seanad seem to think that doing that increase democracy. There is no proof of that in any way.
As I have pointed out in a number of replies a majority of European countries (and most that are around our size) manage to get by with only one House of Parliament. Are we saying that all of these countries are somehow less democratic that ours? Checks and balances can be introduced in other way that don’t require a second chamber. The simple fact is that the two chamber model is a legacy of the Westminister system that Ireland inherited when it became independent.
With the concept of a directly elected chamber you can end up with an US style system and while it might be handy to have some brake on government you also run the risk of gridlock as currently is happening in the US. Do we really want that sort of a system either. The US can get away with it because its a economic powerhouse but a small country wouldn’t.
have your say