Seanad recall - Yet another argument for reform

The Seanad was a bit like one of Mozart’s great operas yesterday, one where pantomime is used to shield us from the darkest inevitabilities facing humanity.

The summer demand performance epitomised so much of what is tragic and dysfunctional about our political life.

The members of the Upper House, at least the 45 who turned up, were summoned from their August idyll to consider an EU directive on organ donation which, without any parliamentary scrutiny, was to be enacted without anything more comforting than the endorsement of Health Minister James Reilly. This was only the third such recall in over 30 years.