Kenny's radical Seanad plan causes unease in FG

ANALYSIS:Those who seemed most put out by the party leader's plan were not the Opposition, but Fine Gael Senators

IN TERMS of astonishing public pronouncements, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny’s Saturday night vow to abolish the Seanad was almost up there with Donagh O’Malley’s free education announcement in 1966 or John A Costello’s impromptu declaration of the Republic while on holiday in Canada in 1949.

If Kenny and key party strategists hoped it would light a political tinderbox, their wish was granted. The problem is that those who seem to have been severely singed by the heat of the conflagration are not the Opposition, but the party’s own Senators. The polite, and decidedly modest, ripple of applause that greeted the announcement was telling.

So was the private reaction of a number of TDs, and the public disquietude of the Senators present on Saturday night. Most of them, most vocally John Paul Phelan, Nicky McFadden and Maurice Cummins, questioned the rationale of the announcement (though Frances Fitzgerald, Paschal Donohoe and Liam Twomey expressed support for it). The dissenters were exercised about the way it was announced, with Kenny neither seeking consultation with, nor approval from, the parliamentary party.

The reaction from other political parties yesterday was decidedly muted, with all making gestural nods towards the need for reform, but committing themselves – like all political parties over the past 70 years – to nothing more than nebulous promises.

What marks out Kenny’s proposals is that they are concrete, coming from a party leader. What is more, he has committed to holding a referendum on the proposals within a year.

At the Fine Gael presidential dinner in City West on Saturday night, he baldly put on record that he believes the Seanad should be abolished. In further reform proposals that made the reform-minded Greens look like dyed-in-the-wool conformists, he said he wanted the number of TDs to be reduced by at least 20, and would allow the election of a limited number of people on a list system. Party strategists later said that group could comprise 20 or so. That would see people who ostensibly have little or no connection to politics being elected to the Dáil.

For once, a speech lived up to its “brave and radical” billing from party spinmeisters. But was it also foolhardy – and will it be liable to leave Kenny a hostage to fortune if he doesn’t deliver on the commitments?

Seanad reform has been on the political agenda since the first iteration was created by Fine Gael’s forbears Cumann na nGaedhael in 1922. The only major restructuring was effected by de Valera’s constitutional changes in 1937. The institution has been criticised for its anomalous indirect voting system and the innate injustice of the university panels, which extends the franchise only to graduates of TCD and the NUI. The Upper House, it is widely accepted, lacks powers and has been accused of being irrelevant. The need for a comparatively small country like Ireland to have a bicameral parliament has also been questioned. In all, there are 220 Senators and TDs, roughly the same number as the Netherlands, a country with a population three times greater than that of Ireland.

There have been at least a dozen papers published since 1928 on Seanad reform. The last came from a group chaired by Mary O’Rourke in 2004 that recommended increased powers, a wider franchise, and (critically) five more senators, bringing the total to 65. The current Government proposes that an Election Commission will examine this and other issues. But nobody’s holding their breath for when it completes its work or when the fruits of that work become reality.

What is most surprising about Kenny’s sledgehammer approach is that his policy comes only seven months after the party published a full set of proposals on Oireachtas reform. The gist of Seanad Éireann reforms back then was that 20 of the 60 senators be elected directly by the public and that the six university senators be chosen by all third-level graduates, not only those from the longest-established universities.

So why the massive change of policy and of style? Those close to Kenny said the announcement was the result of an evolving debate in the party. Deteriorating finances in the last six months, allied to the collapse of public trust in the political institutions over politicians’ expenses, made radical reform more necessary. The overall savings, it is claimed, would amount to €150 million over five years. His aides say the speech, with its scorched earth implications for the current status quo, was never going to be received with universal acclaim, especially by those for whom it would mean a P45. Also, they note, it is not set in stone. The 31-plus constitutional changes will need a referendum. That will allow the people to decide ultimately.

Kenny’s net argument is that at a time of crisis, there is a need for a bold gesture. That it certainly is. But it shows a growing tendency for Kenny to adopt a lead-from-the-front style: making an announcement, then running it through the parliamentary party for approval. Similarly, Fine Gael’s good bank-bad bank solution was first disclosed at a speech Kenny gave to the Humbert school in the summer, to the annoyance of some sections of the party, who became aware of the policy when they read it in the papers next day.

Are we seeing Napoleonic stirrings or an impatience on Kenny’s part to show he can grasp the nettle, that he can make the big changes? Is this announcement – with its implications for the very party that founded the Seanad – a step too far? The parliamentary party meeting in Leinster House on Wednesday is likely to be a stormy affair.

Harry McGee is a Political Staff journalist