After scrapping the Seanad, Kenny should then cut the number of TDs

THEY might not quite constitute a “new Republic”, but Fine Gael’s proposals for constitutional reform, to be launched by Enda Kenny today, deserve to be debated seriously.

He might not appreciate the comparison but, like David Cameron in Britain, Kenny is using his battle for reform of the way politics is conducted as a signal that he’s serious about all the other reforms the country needs: “Anyone who can cut the number of politicians can cut the number of bureaucrats too” is his pitch.

It’s clever politics: only 60 jobs are on the line. Promise before an election you are going to savage the semi-states, for instance, and lots of votes are at stake. Constitutional reform, on the other hand, is almost cost-free and if Fianna Fáil were clever, they would immediately adopt the package as their own and move on to the next business.

Some of the proposals are entirely uncontroversial. Seven years is a very long time to imprison someone in the Phoenix Park. Presidents get bored and citizens, in turn, grow weary of them. Bolstering the powers of Dáil committees is sensible, as are amendments to give them greater recognition and a mechanism — similar to that in the Scottish parliament — for the Dáil to consider public petitions and treat them seriously.

All constitutions require a refit once in a while and these are some of the tidying-up exercises that the current government has neglected since 1997.

The headline-grabber, of course, is the promise to put before the people a proposal to scrap Seanad Éireann. Ever since it was founded in its current form in the late 1930s, report after cross-party report has recommended changes in the way it is elected, but all have been allowed to gather dust.

It’s not as though it is some blight on the face of the earth — far from it — but if every spending programme has to justify its continued existence, so must the elements that make up the constitutional architecture. Now Fine Gael might be in a position to make good the aspiration of the PDs all those years ago and move Ireland to a unicameral system.

The Seanad’s problem is that it doesn’t have enough to do. Give it some more powers then, you might say. Turn it into a grand form of think-tank with a responsibility for asking and answering deep, meaningful questions about long-term economic and foreign policy questions. The trouble is, to do that requires a concomitant improvement in its democratic legitimacy.

Currently, 43 senators are elected from five vocational panels by an electoral college made up of TDs, outgoing senators and members of the county and city councils: a total of about 1,000.

Six are elected by graduates of some — not all — universities and the rest are appointed by the Taoiseach according to no particular principle other than that the Government must have a majority. There are some wonderful ornaments on the democratic process within its membership but it’s not even as though it has been used very smartly of late to redress some of the imbalances in the make-up of the Dáil — not enough women, ethnic minorities and so on.

So, while the Seanad has had numerous stays of execution because it does no great harm, it must nowadays be judged according to a higher standard.

It’s a pity then that the New Politics policy paper doesn’t go further in relation to cutting the number of TDs. The fact is that Ireland has more parliamentarians relative to the size of the population — paid at higher rates — than almost any other developed country in the world.

With an estimated 4.4 million souls in the Republic and 166 members of the Dáil, that works out at one legislator for every 26,500 people (Actually, it’s not 166 at the moment: shouldn’t the Government be obliged to pass the writ to fill empty seats due to deaths or resignations within, say, three months?)

By comparison, countries like France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain have roughly four or five times fewer politicians in the main (lower) house of parliament. In Japan, it’s ten times fewer and in the US, more than 20 times fewer.

It could be argued that parliament size is not based on population; that a country has to have a parliament of a certain size from which to draw all the required ministers. At any moment, the bulk of TDs will not be in contention for a government job either because they are from the wrong party, are out of favour, in poor health or just simply not up to it.

Seán Lemass complained in the 1960s that he found it hard to find enough suitable Fianna Fáil TDs to fill the posts. But a Dáil of around 120 should still be fit for purpose. The electorate has a history of wanting it both ways: resenting the number of politicians and their perks while at the same time reserving a healthy scepticism about reform.

Both attempts to alter the electoral system — getting rid of the proportional representation system — in 1959 and 1968 were rejected for fear they would entrench Fianna Fáil for ever more. Now Fine Gael’s new idea of a list system has rightly been attacked for creating two classes of politician: those who have to look after the parish pump and those who can live it up in the Dáil bar every single night.

There is evidence FG has been engaged in some deep thinking about the responsibilities of a TD but the answer is not to create some vast national X Factor contest. Yes, the job of a TD is to go to Dublin and make laws. The inordinate amount of time TDs spend in clinics or at funerals has served the national interest poorly.

TALENTED people shun politics; Ireland’s statute book and reputation internationally suffer as a consequence. Where else in the world would a politician like — take your pick — make it on to the national stage, some ask?

That’s probably too harsh: every democratic country tends to get the politicians it deserves. But a leaner, meaner Dáil (and ministerial team) would improve the standard without the need for a separate caste of super-legislators resented by their constituency peers.

FG would contend New Politics is a package and that the list system would attract into politics the sort of people who would not otherwise consider politics as a profession — just the sort of people the Free State senate was able to claim within its illustrious membership.

I’m no constitutional lawyer but isn’t there a danger here of a pick ‘n’ mix ballot paper being handed out and voters accepting some of the proposals to amend or delete some lines of the constitution and rejecting others? The worst of all worlds could result.

The other danger is a more political one. Enda Kenny is likely to promise today to put his package before the people within a certain number of months after achieving office.

Would FG thank him if any new government he leads were to suffer an embarrassing defeat on any of the key measures so soon into a term of office? It’s not as though the electorate doesn’t have a reputation for giving governments a bloody nose — and for enjoying being courted by multiple TDs, senators and councillors from different parties in a single constituency.