Letters to the Editor: Journalism holding the powerful to account
I wish to first congratulate the Irish Examiner, its staff, reporters and particularly Aoife Moore and Paul Hosford on some truly brilliant reporting in recent days.
Both the newspaper and its reporters have reinforced clearly the necessity of the press and journalism’s public service role in holding the powerful to account.
One issue which struck me as perhaps being open to misunderstanding by some was the reference in Eoin English’s report in Saturday’s edition of the newspaper to Senator Jerry Buttimer’s “constituency colleague”.
It may of course be correct to say that Senator Buttimer might live in the constituency of Cork South-Central (though I’m not aware of Senator Buttimer’s address), this is not his constituency as a member of the Oireachtas.
With perhaps the exception of three senators, no other senator has a geographic constituency, but rather a sectoral constituency.
Senator Buttimer’s constituency as a member of Seanad Éireann is the Labour Panel, while other senators represent other similar vocational panels or the NUI universities, while three senators represent Trinity College, which may be described as either sectoral or geographic, considering its location is fixed geographically.
It is, I feel, important to clarify the distinction between a Dáil constituency and a Seanad constituency so that the public is always aware that there are no Cork South-Central or Galway East or Dublin Central senators, only vocational panel senators, certain university senators and Taoiseach’s nominees.
Again, I congratulate the Examiner and its staff on their commitment to public service journalism, witnessed particularly over the last number of days.
