Government wants more power in fewer hands

Can we trust them? That is the question that voters need to ask themselves as they consider their vote in the Seanad referendum.

The Government is offering you an IOU. You give them your Seanad now, and in return they promise that they will give you critically needed political reform later. Can you trust them to redeem this IOU? Based on their form since the election, I believe that they cannot be trusted.

Our failed political system desperately needs reform. The evidence is to be found in the ruins of our shattered economy, in the dole queues, and foreclosed mortgages. The principal blame for the calamity rested not with the bankers and developers who were irresponsible and sometimes corrupt, but with the politicians who were incompetent.

They were charged with the task of stewarding our economy, and reining in the self-interest of the other groups. They failed, but so did the Fine Gael-led opposition, who never once cried “stop”. Remember: Fine Gael proposed reducing stamp duty at the height of the bubble.

The Labour and Fine Gael coalition promised political reform, greater accountability, and enhanced scrutiny of legislation. Instead, the majority of bills introduced by the Government are now “guillotined”, rammed through with curtailed debate.

Critical amendments to potentially flawed legislation may never get heard, let alone voted on. One example was provided by the recent Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill. I had grave concerns that the law as passed by the Dáil could result in a young girl who might have severe bleeding or other potentially fatal complications of an illegal abortion, avoiding medical assistance, lest she face lengthy imprisonment.

As the only doctor in the Oireachtas, who wasn’t a whipped Fine Gael GP/TD, I had greater freedom of action and I flagged my concerns to the Government.

My amendments were never even heard. The bill was rammed through on the guillotine. The sad reality of the way that the current “reformist” Government does business is that most bills are now handled in this way. Debate is discouraged and actively stifled.

TDs have become glorified local reps, leveraging their ability to help their constituents negotiate the byzantine state bureaucracy into votes at the next election. Critically, they only retain the support of the party at that election by surrendering abjectly to the whips, letting them decide if they can speak, for how long they can speak, on what they can speak, and what they can say.

The Government is asking you to believe it will change its spots if you grant them their wish, abolish the Seanad, and concentrate all power in their hands. They promise that the current stages of Seanad scrutiny of Dáil legislation will be replaced by extra Dáil stages, up to a total of seven. Are we to trust them? Will the toothless whipped Dáil do any better in a seven-stage system than in a five-stage system?

Seven lashes or five, take your pick. Do you trust them?

The Seanad was supposed to bring technical expertise to bear on legislation, expertise that has been cynically and deliberately subverted by the grandees of the big parties, back-room men who converted the upper house into the accurately clichéd “incubator-nursing home” for aspirant or failed Dáil candidates.

Enda Kenny promises that the expertise will now be supplied by the Taoiseach’s nominees to revamped Dáil committees, but again his track record does not inspire confidence. Fine Gael has routinely removed experts from committees, when they fell afoul the party on issues of conscience.

THE Seanad abolition campaign has also been verifiably deceitful. One lie being repeated ad nauseam is that the Seanad has had no function because it hasn’t rejected a Dáil bill for 50 years. The Government knows that the Seanad exists to improve bills, not to block them. In this Seanad alone, 550 amendments have been made to flawed Dáil legislation. These included increased protections from rapacious banks for families caught in the grip of insolvency.

What of the constitutional protections against government power provided by the Seanad? Article 27 of the Constitution allows a Seanad majority, with a third of the Dáil, to refer a controversial bill to the people via the president. It has never been used. Richard Bruton calls it is a watchdog that never barked.

If your watchdog only barks once but saves your family, you might say it was good value.

The Government is endlessly and dishonestly repeating the mantra that the Seanad is elected by 1% of the population, the implication being that 99% have no say in electing this “elitist ” institution.

In fact, 5% of the population can vote for the six university seats, 100% can vote for 43 seats via their county councillors. One person, their Taoiseach, votes for the other 11.

In my reform bill, which has already passed two stages of parliament, every citizen would have the vote. The Government has refused to consider it.

It is also widely acknowledged (including by Fine Gael TD John Paul Phelan) that the saving of €20m which is offered as line one of the Fine Gael poster is a concoction. The Independent Oireachtas Commission stated that it cannot confirm it. Most believe the figure is under €10m, and more likely close to €5m. Brendan Howlin and Charlie Flanagan, the Fine Gael chairman, have said that savings will be redeployed within Leinster House to the new Dáil committees.

It won’t go to schools or hospitals. So abolition won’t increase accountability, won’t save money, and won’t increase expertise. It will concentrate more power in fewer hands.

Vote for reform — vote no.

* Senator John Crown is a professor and consultant medical oncologist at St Vincent’s University Hospital