Seanad elections - Government must reform vote system

Counting the votes for the Seanad elections begins today, and we should know the outcome by the end of the week.

It is unlikely to make much difference to our political life, because that institution is little more than an irrelevant talking shop, or a political convalescent home for defeated politicians who retain hopes of making a comeback.

Since 1928 there have been 12 major reports advocating reform of the Seanad. There was a major change in the mid-1930s after the Seanad managed to delay important legislation. The Fianna Fáil government of the day essentially abolished the Senate and replace it with another body under the 1937 Constitution.

The current Seanad dates from that time. All the subsequent reports recommended reforms, but those were essentially ignored, because they would have required constitutional change.

Seanad reform is part of the current programme for government.

The 2005 report drawn up by an all-party Seanad committee, headed by Mary O’Rourke, recommended increasing the number of elected senators from 60 to 65, with the Taoiseach of the day being allowed to nominate 12 others. But that report also recommended that more than half the members should be chosen by direct election.

There is no doubt that the election process to the Senate is in drastic need of change. Sixty of the members are currently elected indirectly by politicians — county councillors and members of the Oireachtas, while three others are elected by graduates of the constituent colleges of the National University of Ireland, and three more by graduates from Dublin University (Trinity College).

Graduates of Trinity College have the same representation as the combined total of the University Colleges in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Maynooth, while the University of Limerick and the other new colleges, such as the various institutions of technology have no representation at all. This is patently unfair, and a perversion of our democratic system.

Initially, Trinity College received disproportionate representation in order to ensure an effective voice for the country’s Protestant minority. In earlier years Trinity graduates would have been mainly non-Catholic, because of the attitude of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in discouraging and even blocking Catholics from enrolling, but that practice had long been discontinued. There is now no justification for the grossly disproportionate representation.

There have been suggestions that direct popular elections should be held for the Seanad on a staggered basis, like the US Senate, which began as a body of people elected by politicians in the various states.

Electing members to the Seanad in conjunction with the local elections and with the European elections would provide much-needed significance for the Seanad.