Seanad obsolete and useless

Deputy Joanna Tuffy bemoans a lack of in-depth analysis in the arguments to retain or abolish the Seanad (Irish Examiner, 24 June).

Why is the only passion in this debate the pleading of political insiders anxious to protect their own sinecures? The deputy clumsily contradicts herself in what she cites as the storied past of the Seanad. She begins by stating that the main reason given by the Taoiseach for abolishing the Seanad is that we have too many politicians. But she subsequently quotes the Taoiseach’s own words when Enda Kenny stated in the Dáil that ‘no parliament would abolish a house of parliament simply to reduce the number of politicians’. Kenny also stated the Seanad ‘has not worked’.

Deputy Tuffy advises approvingly that Finland, with a population of 5.2m, has five times the number of politicians as Ireland. But she neglected to advise that Finland has successfully operated a unicameral parliament since 1906 when Finnish women became the first in the world to exercise full political rights. Nineteen women MPs were elected to the first unicameral Finnish parliament in 1907.