Saving the Senate - Rebirth not closure is the answer

THE idea of offering the Senate as a sacrificial lamb to atone for the failures of our political system has gained unprecedented momentum as a proposal and as a convenient diversion too.

In our tradition of grand-gesture politics, the suggestion that the institution be axed — for the second time — has assumed an immediacy, a fashionable edge.

Éamon de Valera shut it down in 1937, when democracy was challenged right across Europe, as senators had the temerity to oppose legislation his Government wanted to enact. He re-established it as much feebler, less challenging entity under the 1937 Constitution.

The institution has unfortunately come to symbolise the insularity and self-congratulatory nature of our political system and caste. Closing it down seems to be a sentence, reached by nothing more rational than common proclamation, to be imposed on all our political parties for the failures of the last decade.

We may scoff at the upper house of our parliament, regarding it as an indulgence that is as irrelevant as it is undemocratic, as stuffy as it is outmoded but it is no more unfit for purpose than the Dáil and no one, as yet at least, has suggested that we abolish the Dáil.

Of course it is easy to criticise the Senate, why would it not be? Each of the dozen or so reports suggesting reforms that might have made it relevant was ignored with corpse-like stoicism. Had it been reformed, it might have been able to make the contribution most of us, and most politicians too, would want it to make. Had it been reformed, we may well be celebrating its achievements rather than listening to anti-democratic arguments for its closure.

And of course there is the bizarre contradiction at the centre of this rush to hack away at the foundations of our Republic. If we eventually conclude we have neither the wit nor the stomach to make the Senate relevant and decide to abolish it, we will have rewarded the very people who should be reforming it with what all power-hungry politicians crave — less oversight, less scrutiny and less accountability.

Abolishing it would be a victory for those who believe in unfettered power and secrecy. Abolishing it would be a gift to the nudge-nudge, wink-wink gombeens who have done so much to destroy this country and its institutions.

In its current form, the Senate is neither admirable nor fit for purpose and cannot continue. It is used as a refuge for placemen and failed Dáil deputies but that cannot mean it is beyond redemption.

We have argued many times that the next government must establish a department of reform and appoint a full cabinet minister for reform with the authority to impose reform rather than suggest it.

This department should focus on the Dáil, the Senate and local government and work to make them relevant to our democracy and needs.

Closing down the Senate would be wrong and echo the chaos and short-sightedness of recent years. It, and so many other institutions that support this society and democracy, are in dire need of rejuvenation and it is incumbent on us to support that.

We have already been forced to surrender too much because of the Ahern debacle. Rebuild the Senate and through it our democracy. Those who would destroy it have had more than enough victories.