Seanad nominations - Extravagant farce insults democracy

Never has the need for Seanad reform been more apparent than following the appointment of the Taoiseach’s 11 nominations, which were largely an affront to representative democracy.

In the recent General Election the electorate rejected nine of the people nominated by the Taoiseach.

Most eyebrows were raised at the appointment of Ivor Callelly, who was not only rejected by the electorate but also by his colleagues in Fianna Fáil. They declined to give him a nomination for the Seanad election before he was imposed by party headquarters. But he fared dismally in the ensuing election, getting a mere 13 votes, despite having had the advantage of being in the Dáil since 1989 and having served in two different junior ministries.