WHEN ÉAMON de Valera proposed the abolition of the Senate of the Irish Free State, he dismissed the second chamber as “the vestigial remnant of obsolete constitutional arrangements”. Now Enda Kenny, as leader of Fine Gael, has proposed the abolition of Mr de Valera’s own constitutional creation, the Seanad.
He claims a second House of the Oireachtas can no longer be justified. Since 1937, few issues have attracted more political attention to less effect than proposals either to reform or abolish the Seanad. In 1954, Seán MacBride, leader of Clann na Poblachta, questioned whether there was any necessity for its existence. And in 1957, when Dr Noel Browne proposed its abolition in the Dáil, Mr de Valera accepted a Fine Gael amendment favouring reform of the Seanad instead. More than half a century later, and despite a succession of constitutional reviews, Oireachtas committee reports and party policy papers, nothing has changed.
In recent months, however, the Fine Gael leader has changed his mind and reversed his priorities on the Seanad. From being a reformist of the upper House, he has become, overnight, an abolitionist. Last March, Mr Kenny outlined some modest proposals for Seanad reform. Last Saturday, without first informing his parliamentary party colleagues, he promised that a Fine Gael-led government would provide voters, via a referendum, with an opportunity to abolish the Seanad.
Certainly, there are valid grounds for criticising the Seanad. Its democratic credentials are questionable. More than two-thirds of its 60 seats are mainly decided by the votes of some 1,000 local councillors – and not by a wider electorate. The six university seats are still filled on a restricted franchise despite the clearly expressed decision of the Irish people. And as Senator David Norris has said, the Seanad has been used as “an intensive care unit for those discarded from the Dáil”. . . or as “a convenient launching pad for aspiring TDs”. Five years ago, the Seanad, in its proposals for reform, accepted that many members of the public regarded it as “weak, ineffective and of questionable value”.
Successive governments have treated the Seanad with a degree of cynicism that, in one respect, has bordered on contempt. In 1979, voters in a referendum amended the Constitution to expand the university franchise to give all third-level graduates – not just those from Trinity College and the National University of Ireland – voting rights in a Seanad election. Legislation was also required to implement the referendum decision. Thirty years later, no government has legislated to make the change.
Leadership, Mr Kenny rightly says, is about leading. Leadership is also about carefully preparing the political ground to ensure success. The best case for abolishing the Seanad is where reform – having been tried – is seen to have failed. Reform of the Seanad has not succeeded, simply because it never has been tried. Mr Kenny was willing to propose reform seven months ago. He was unwise to change his mind and reverse positions – from reformist to abolitionist – so quickly.