Abolishing the Seanad - update

[nwhyte]

It seems that Fianna Fáil have suddenly discovered the virtues of abolishing the upper house of the Irish parliament (see today's Irish Times, here and here). Obviously, given my previous post on the subject, I think this is a good idea. However, I also have to agree with the opposition spokespeople quoted in the Irish Times who see the latest

Comments

[gaspodia]

They do seem to enjoy lurching from one extreme to the other! A second chamber/house works well in most countries as a sanity check, so why go to the extreme of scrapping it?

[nwhyte]

Well, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus (both parts, under current arrangements, though this is likely to change in the event of a federal settlement), Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Serbia, Sweden, Turkey and Ukraine all manage perfectly well as unicameral states. Indeed, Sweden (in 1970) and Croatia (in 2001) actually abolished their upper chambers as part of a programme of democratisation. Both have larger populations than Ireland.

I think it's a slightly different matter if you have pretensions to federalism, but Ireland doesn't!

[nickbarnes]

Both which and what?

[nwhyte]

Both Sweden and Croatia.

[natural20]

It's the sheer... naked need to hold on to power that really disgusts me. "We need to do this, on this one day, so, er, yeah, we can do it in time, but if we need to delay, well, er, it's for the good of the country! Oh, but reducing the stupidly high number of TDs isn't, sure we'll need all the help we can get to have a few seats in the next Dáil!" Nothing they do now is for the good of the country.

Senate wisdom

[sikander7]

I am not a great fan of the Senate either, but I also think that the composition allows for some variety in the legislature. As an example, Senator David Norris represented Trinity College and was a declared homosexual, when such sexual orientations are forbidden. Some people just won't get elected to the Dail but could represent their views in the Senate.

I think the abolishment of the Senate is just an attempt by FF to draw attention away from mismanagement of the economy.

Re: Senate wisdom

[inuitmonster]

In fairness to my country's past, homosexual orientations were never forbidden here, but homosexual actions were.