Don’t abolish Seanad, improve it

The proposed ‘public execution’ of Seanad Éireann sums all that is wrong with this Government.

As a former member, I know what is questionable about the Seanad and its electoral system — and what could be done with it in our current crisis.

Instead of wringing the poor old thing’s neck, if we had a government that was serious about a new kind of politics, and a new style of governance, it would make the Seanad function as fully as it could. That would also impress upon us the Cabinet’s pragmatism and its fitness-for-purpose.