No to Seanad, yes to real reform
These countries are indeed well run, progressive and do have unicameral systems. To say that Ireland would suddenly have a Nordic blond and beautiful parliamentary system by abolishing the Seanad is simply not true. All three countries have very different electoral and governmental systems to ours, the party list systems employed to elect MPs being the most obvious. It results in a focus on national, rather than local, issues for parliamentarians.
Take Sweden. It has 349 members in the national parliament and in addition a very well-developed system of local government, with proper tax raising and spending powers (30% average local income tax rate, and accounts for circa 75% of total budget expenditure). Many services are provided by regional or municipal government.
In Ireland we have local councillors and locally focused TDs but very weak local government. Meanwhile, we have very strong central government but few national politicians able or willing to really scrutinise government policy, scrutinise civil servants or scrutinise the vast amount of EU directives we adopt.
Yes, we probably can do without the Seanad, but as part of much wider political reform of local and national government. Let us have a proper go at reforming the system. Perhaps even citizens of the Nordics would suggest improvements on their models; the differences between them suggest there is not one single approach. Let us learn from them.
The referendum to abolish the Seanad is a further frustration suffered by the Irish people. Our politicians utterly fail to offer real reform, is this anything more than an agency problem, the insider protecting their own position? I urge your readers to vote No and force our politicians, across all parties in Dáil Eireann, into real reform of the system that has failed us.
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