Axing the Upper House? Ireland votes on the Abolition of the Seanad

Voters are heading to the polls today in Ireland to vote on the abolition of the Seanad (or Senate), the upper house of the bicameral Oireachtas (parliament). It's accepted that the house has largely failed to demonstrate its relevance to Ireland today: there is little to report of changes brought about by the house, and it is not known for standing up to the government. With supporters of abolition claiming that getting rid of the Seanad would save €20 million and cut the number of politicians, it's a message that chimes with a lot of people.

The Seanad is a strange creature. It has limited powers and by and large can only delay Bills (see the Referendum Commission's website for more detail). It is elected by "vocational panels", with the aim of representing different strands of society (this was inspired by Catholic thought about society in the 1930s). However the vocational panels were never really properly set up, and 43 out of 60 of the members of the Seanad are in practice elected by local councillors. 6 Senators are elected by graduates of Trinity College and the National University of Ireland, and 11 are appointed by the Taoiseach (prime minister) to help ensure a government majority.

Claims of "jobs for the boys" and general ineffectiveness have plagued the house, with abolitionists pointing out that it didn't stand up to the government during the financial boom years. This seems a strange argument to me. The strong parliamentary whip system and the weakness of opposition on economic policy from the political parties in both the Dáil and the Seanad is more to blame than the simple institution itself. In any case the idea of an upper house should not be to build into the constitution an institution measured solely by the dissent it generates (a belated show of resistance popping up this week) or to copy the democratic mandate of the lower house, but to bring in more expert voices on specialist areas to add their knowledge and experience to the legislative process. The pros and cons of setting up a upper house that can bring in expert and minority voices into the debate, and the alternative of relying on bringing experts before Oireachtas committees is the central question. That all attempts to reform the Seanad to make it more effective have been scuppered makes a constructive alternative Seanad seem fantasy.

But when it comes down to it, I'm more in favour of keeping the Seanad than abolishing it. Getting rid of the Senate doesn't dilute the dominance of the executive in the Irish political system, or tackle the issue of the over-powerful whips. It won't save much money in the grand scheme of things either. On the other hand I can see the valuable contribution that an upper house can bring. The House of Lords in the UK has many, many flaws - you can't get much more "jobs for the boys" that the Lords! - but its active members have actually done well in generating reports and in the job of legislative scrutiny. A mix of direct elections and selection from vocational panels may be a way of strengthening the Seanad's legitimacy and expertise while keeping it in balance with the Dáil.

Frankly, I'm just being idealistic about bicameralism and what I'd like to see happening. When people go to vote today, they'll be voting against the background of decades of failed reform and ineffectiveness, and it's a tough ask for people to back vague reform. It's sad that the opportunity to refer the Seanad to the Constitutional Convention and then have a referendum was missed.


[There's also a second referendum on today, which more usefully would create a Court of Appeal to help ease the workload of the Supreme Court].

Promising Political Reform

Political reform is high on the agenda in Irish politics these days. Labour now has a paper of 140 proposals (the Twitter approach, perhaps?) for "New Government, Better Government" (PDF). Generally, the papers proposals are fair enough - longer periods with the Dáil in session, greater opportunity for private members' Bills and amendments, greater transparency of executive decision-making (whether it was a minister or a delegated power to a level in his/her department)...

Some of the major changes have been highlighted in The Irish Times:

"-A 90-member convention to draft a new constitution within 12 months
-Abolition of the Seanad
-An Independent Electoral Commission [Note: several functions of this proposed body are currently split among government departments, local government, and independent bodies]
-50 per cent increase in Dáil sitting days
-System for citizens to petition Dáil
-New whistleblowers’ legislation
-An Independent Fiscal Advisory Council to undertake economic projections
-Restrictions on contributions to parties and politicians
-Spending limits on elections
-Ministers to be more accountable for decisions to parliament
-Comprehensive reform of the public service."

Labour would also call a Constitutional Convention to review the Constitution, and proposed changes would be put to referendum. The Convention would consist of 90 members - 30 politicians, 30 citizens drawn randomly as they are for juries, and 30 NGOs/academics. 30 citizens seems too small to me if they want to get a good cross-section of society, and what impact they would make would depend on how the Convention is structured - if debates are fragmented, it could be steered one way or another. I'm also not comfortable with NGOs being represented (or people being included because they are part of a certain NGO): surely Constitutional reform should be a matter of the common good, rather than being open to change by sectional interests? (It also raises the question of: which NGOs? The composition could affect the debate - how strongly, for example, should Catholic views [or religions in general] be represented, with voting rights in today's Ireland?) It would be preferable if NGOs could report to the Convention, but they would not have a vote.

Labour now support the abolition of the Seanad (the Senate). The upper house is elected by panels of outgoing Senators, incoming TDs and by local councillors, university seats, and by Taoiseach appointment (the appointments to ensure a strong government voice). Reofrm of the Seanad has been proposed many times, but has never got anywhere. Fine Gael first called for the abolition of the Seanad last year, and now Fianna Fáil and Labour have jumped on the bandwagon - so now the 3 big parties support Ireland becoming a unicameral state.

I'm not a supporter of abolishing the Seanad, despite it being in a desperate need for reform. There is a place for a legislative house that isn't purely directly elected, which can serve as a check on the whip-driven majoritarianism of the lower house, and which may have time for less party political or more expert debates (depending on how it is elected). Though that's not to say there aren't some good points to be made against having a second house, since there are dangers for duplication. It's good to see the report rejecting the idea of (partially) turning the Seanad into a specialised body for scrutinising EU law because EU law is a broad part of Irish law. This led to the report's best line - "There would be no more point in having a body dedicated to scrutinising EU laws than there would be in having one that specialised in laws passed on Wednesdays."

On relations between the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) and the EU, the report pretty much repeated a lot of what was in the Oireachtas report on the subject last year, though with a few tweaks. Still, it's good to know that Labour is promising to implement these measures.