Former Fine Gael junior minister Lucinda Creighton lobbed another political hand grenade in the direction of Taoiseach Enda Kenny after declaring that members of the Reform Alliance will again oppose Fine Gael policy and support the retention of the Seanad.

Fine Gael’s claims that the abolition of the Seanad will save €20m per year were cast in serious doubt last night after the Houses of the Oireachtas wrote to the Referendum Commission warning that the €20m figure related to costs and “may not fully translate into savings”.

Another Labour Senator is defying the party and is campaigning to save the Seanad.

Campaigning in the referendum on the abolition of the Seanad has kicked off in earnest, with parties on both sides accusing the other of misrepresenting the facts in support of their stance.

A campaign for a No vote in the referendum to scrap the Seanad is officially launching today.

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Clashes have been sparked by Government claims on how much shutting down the Seanad will save taxpayers.

Senators hit out at Fine Gael’s campaign to abolish the Seanad amid promises that savings from closing the Upper House could go to fund services for those with special needs.

Ireland has too many politicians, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has claimed today as he called for the abolition of the Seanad.

A campaign group advocating a reform of Seanad Éireann rather than its abolition has said that the removal of the upper house would silence dissenting voices, limit debate, and amount to a “power grab” for the Government.

A campaign against the abolition of the Seanad says without the Upper House, the Dáil would have too much control and it would represent a power grab by the government.

A campaign to save the Seanad, involving a number of prominent historians, academics and political personalities, will be launched today, promising to strongly oppose the Government’s “populist” proposal to abolish the Upper House.

In Jul 1979, a referendum opening up the third-level graduate franchise for elections to Seanad Éireann was overwhelmingly passed by the Irish people.

At a moment when the capacity of politics to deliver, lead or even describe the kind of social change and economic rejuvenation we urgently need is in question, the future of an institution as detached and as apparently irrelevant as the Seanad may seem unimportant but, as anyone who does not live in an active, participatory democracy will confirm, it is not.