A Seanad with part-time senators could represent all sides of Irish life

ABOLISH the Seanad and shut down the best chance we have of making politics truly representative. A reformed Seanad could offer a door to public office for the dark side of the moon of Irish life: the people who don’t have jobs.

They have work, of course. Everyone has work. They just don’t have a job right now. They are carers, parents in the home, artists, the unemployed, those with certain disabilities the retired, community volunteers and activists.

A mish-mash of political correctness? Where’s the expertise? Where is the expertise of a jury? It has none except that it is meant to be representative of the society from which it springs. And yet we give juries the power to indict and to free.