THE SEANAD has become a discredited institution in the eyes of many because of the failure of Dáil members to adapt the politically dominated system of election to the house, former tánaiste Michael McDowell has said.
Speaking at the publication of a paper on Seanad reform, Mr McDowell said that when looking at what is wrong with the political system, “you really can’t point to the Seanad”.
“The problem is elsewhere and the choices have to be made elsewhere,” he said. “I believe the people have been short-changed by Dáil Éireann in keeping the mode of election to the Seanad so politically dominated so as to, in the eyes of some people, discredit it as an institution.”
Mr McDowell, a co-author of the paper, said the Seanad election system – via small panels of voters and Government appointments – ensured those in the Dáil could keep the Seanad under “perpetual lockdown”. “They don’t want independence to pose any challenge to their own dominance of the political system and that is why, I think, they have chosen an electoral system which reinforces their own clout when it comes to electing Senators.”
In the programme for government, the Coalition said it would prioritise putting the abolition of the Seanad to the public in a referendum, describing it as an urgent parliamentary reform issue.
With the referendum on children’s rights taking place in November and Ireland assuming the EU presidency in January, a vote on abolishing the house is unlikely to take place until before the second half of next year.
The report, Seanad Éireann: Open It Don’t Close It, compiled by a group of Senators, former politicians and commentators, says the Seanad electorate could, through legislative change, be extended to give voting rights to all those who can vote in a general election.
