Madam, – Who needs the Seanad, asks Patsy McGarry (Opinion, August 7th). A reformed Seanad could actually be useful.
Might I suggest an Upper House of 50 unpaid senators, eligible only for real expenses that meet the actual bare cost of travel to and from the House, as well as parking and standard hotel accommodation if coming from more than 100km outside Dublin?
Such a Seanad should include 38 nominees of leading voluntary and vocational organisations. Those organisations would be chosen once every five years by a cross-party Dáil committee and invited to pick a person in their area who is recognised for her or his competence and experience. The Taoiseach would retain the right to appoint a further dozen senators but these would all come from Northern Ireland and be persons of standing chosen to reflect the outlook of the various communites there. The new Seanad would have a chance to debate Bills before the Dáil finally voted on them and its vote would have persuasive power.
There is no need to continue the special privilege for particular universities in respect of the Seanad.
As a graduate of NUI and Trinity College, I currently have two votes whenever the Seanad is formed. Most citizens, including graduates of Dublin City University, have none. Representatives of the NUI and Trinity should be too embarrassed to sit in the House while this inequity is perpetuated.
Even worse is the current politicised method of choosing other senators, of which I suspect most members of the public are mercifully ignorant.
Where should this reformed Seanad meet? In the old parliament building on College Green. The least that the Bank of Ireland might do in return for the generous support that it has now received from taxpayers is to return this historic building to public ownership, having first refitted the central chamber for parliamentary purposes. Perhaps the bank might persuade one of those big builders whose overdue interest payments it has so kindly frozen to undertake the refit for free as an act of patriotism.
A reform such as the one proposed here could be easily achieved within months, including any necessary referendum, although we have come to expect in Ireland that a mountain will be made of every molehill of reform. – Yours, etc,
COLUM KENNY,
School of Communications,
Dublin City University,
Dublin 9.