Turkeys and Blueshirts: It must be the Seanad

FINE GAEL senators have been likened to “turkeys voting for Christmas” after accepting party leader Enda Kenny’s decision to call for the abolition of the Seanad.

Mr Kenny, meanwhile, was accused of “regurgitating” the fascist legacy of Fine Gael’s notorious first president, Blueshirt leader Eoin O’Duffy.

The exchanges came on a fractious day in the Seanad, which was meeting for the first time since Mr Kenny proposed the House’s abolition in a weekend speech.

He pledged to do so by holding a referendum on the Seanad’s future if Fine Gael is returned to power.

However, he angered his senators by announcing the proposal without consulting them in advance.

He met with the senators at lunchtime yesterday, shortly before the day’s Seanad session commenced.

Afterwards, Fine Gael’s leader in the Seanad, Frances Fitzgerald, issued a short statement saying the senators “accepted the decision of the party leader”.

A spokesman for Mr Kenny said the senators had “unanimously” supported him. But one senator disputed that interpretation of events, saying the statement of support was much more nuanced. “We accepted his [Mr Kenny’s] right to take leadership positions,” the senator said. “There isn’t unanimous support for his proposal, though.”

When the Seanad session began, it quickly became heated as senators from the various parties clashed over Mr Kenny’s proposal.

Ms Fitzgerald criticised Fianna Fáil for failing to implement Seanad reform, despite numerous reports over the years which recommended drastic overhaul.

However, Green senator Dan Boyle insisted that his party leader, Environment Minister John Gormley, would bring forward a package of proposals for reform before Christmas.

Independent senator David Norris said the Fine Gael senators were effectively supporting their own demise by accepting Mr Kenny’s decision.

“I am 65 years old and do not anticipate seeing pigs in flight, but I am grateful that I have lasted long enough to witness turkeys voting for Christmas,” Mr Norris said.

Independent senator Joe O’Toole accused Mr Kenny of attempting to “peel back the layers of democracy”. In addition to abolishing the Seanad, Mr Kenny wants to cut 20 TDs from the Dáil and elect a number of others by a list system.

Mr O’Toole said the Dáil proposals, in particular, were “offensively anti-democratic”, as they would give party leaders more power in the election process at the expense of the public.

“It is appalling. It is the type of thing that happened in the recessions of the 1930s in Italy and Germany… What we heard over the weekend is a regurgitation of the legacy that we thought we had left behind with O’Duffy in the 1930s.”