Sir, – As a graduate of both Trinity and the University of Limerick, I am delighted to see that the Supreme Court has ruled on enacting the 1979 referendum on the university seats for the Seanad (“University of Limerick graduate wins Supreme Court appeal over Seanad election voting”, News, March 31st).
But how would this reform work? Which universities would go into which constituency? A super-constituency of six seats voted on by all university graduates in Ireland would be one solution. It would likely mean a significant shake-up of the incumbents. Vive la différence! – Yours, etc,
CLAIRE BRADLEY,
Swords,
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Co Dublin.
Sir, – How much public money has the Government wasted in forcing a graduate of the University of Limerick to go to the Supreme Court, which has now ruled that the Government must actually implement a decision made by the Irish people nearly 44 years ago?
In a referendum in 1979, by a majority of more than nine to one, people voted to end the monopoly over six seats in Seanad Éireann enjoyed by Trinity College and the National University. Since then, successive governments have ignored that decision. And since then, as a graduate of Trinity and the NUI, I have refrained in principle from casting my two votes in Seanad elections (most citizens have no votes in them), and pointed out the Government’s failure. Those who sit in the present Seanad should be ashamed to do so in light of the 1979 vote.
Not alone have successive governments failed to reform the Seanad (as opposed to abolishing it), or to modernise adequately Dáil procedures, but they now have the gall to fight this case all the way through the High Court to the Supreme Court despite the 1979 referendum. We have paid for their lawyers.
Will the Government now change the law before July 31st next, as the Supreme Court reportedly says it must do?
What we really need, rather than continuing facile and fiddling referendums calculated to please the liberal elites of Dublin 2 and Dublin 4 while toying with the Constitution, is a fundamentally reshaped document that reflects in practical ways this State’s workable vision of a united and multicultural Ireland.
We might vote in November to replace not just the line on a woman’s place in the home, but the complete outmoded text. It does not have to take 44 years and endless committees. – Yours, etc,
Prof COLUM KENNY,
Dublin City University,
Dublin 9.
