Seanad’s storied past ignored by Taoiseach

THE Taoiseach has given us his main reason for abolishing the Seanad — we have too many politicians.

This is populist nonsense, because Ireland has far fewer elected politicians per head of population compared to other countries when you take into account local as well as national politicians.

Finland, which Enda Kenny gave as an example to back up his assertion, has a similar population to Ireland at just over 5m and currently has five times the number of elected politicians that we have.