Democratise the Seanad and utilise it

In ancient Rome there was a political office called the Censor.

His role was to act as a check on the membership of the Senate, to periodically oversee its membership and ensure that it was comprised of those eligible to attend.

The Censor had the power to disbar if someone didn’t meet the property franchise, or if they had bribed or cheated or lacked moral fibre. We might, in this State, consider reintroducing the office.

We have twin problems in Ireland. At one level we are, it seems, literally incapable of governance.

The Irish Water farrago leaves many literally lost for words. What can be said that has not already been said? But it is only one of many areas. Take the funding of higher education.

Everybody in the Oireachtas agrees that the present level is not enough. Most agree that the rot set in when fees were abolished, for high-minded reasons, resulting in the higher education budget being in large part a political decision.

Higher education costs in the short-term but repays in the longer-term.

There have been several reports and commissions into funding, all of which have suggested a range of more or less politically difficult but socio-economically doable solutions. Nothing has happened.

Investment in water, and this is all I will say about it, costs much more in the short-term and pays off much more slowly than money put into higher education.

In a fit of high-mindedness or naked political opportunism we have abolished fees. Instead, a commission has been promised. See where this is going?

Take planning. Since the 1970s we have known the broad outline of the problems underlying our successive serial shocking failures on housing. But nothing has been done.

Overseeing this we have the Oireachtas. We can be too critical of this institution and by extension ourselves.

The Irish State has a long history of democracy and has shown itself to be remarkably immune to the virus of neo-fascism oozing across Europe.

We have a thriving and perhaps hyperactive representative culture. We elect a lower house, in the main, that reflects the country, perhaps a tad more conservative but that may not be a bad attribute in a parliament.

There is a problem arises with the upper house. It should, in a properly functioning bicameral setup, be holding the lower house to account. This happens even in the UK with the House of Lords but not here.

A large part of this is down to the way the Seanad is elected and a larger part is down to how it is ignored. To take the first – we have three electorates. One is the incoming Taoiseach of the day who appoints 11 members. This was designed by Dev back in the day to secure a majority.

Another is the graduate body of the NUI and TCD.

A third is, in effect, county councillors and other bodies. The latter panel is really where the corporatist roots show through. This need not be the case.

The 7th amendment to the Constitution in 1979 allowed for all university graduates to have a vote.

There is no constitutional bar to allowing voters to declare themselves as meeting the criteria of “knowledge and practical experience” under the five panels — culture, agriculture, labour, industry and public service. We need a Censor to sort out the confusion.

Let’s have an office, a small one, that checks to see if one is indeed possessed of “knowledge and practical experience”.

This doesn’t have to be a difficult task — proof would be required for the public administration panel of experience on the local health board.

For the culture panel — you qualify for having won a medal at a feis. For the agriculture panel, you live in the countryside, and so on. Let’s democratise the Seanad.

We then need to use it better. Let’s have the Seanad act as a standing committee that examines the proposed appointees to senior state boards.

Let’s have it quizzing ministers and senior civil service and external experts on proposed technical aspects of drawing up laws.

Poor governance leads to poor economic performance.

* Brian Lucey is professor of finance at the School of Business, Trinity College Dublin.