It is now official that the referendum to abolish the Seanad has been defeated. Though regrettable, it always seemed unlikely that the people would vote to abolish an institution about which most of them have very little information or experience -caution won out.
The question being decided, the debate will now move on to reform. But reforming the Seanad will be a far riskier business than most imagine. Who will be represented in a reformed Seanad and what power should it have to oppose the Dail?
The debate on the referendum was dogged by big promises for what a reformed Seanad will do. Much of this was based on the idea of improved scrutiny and a wider base from which to suggest changes to legislation and decisions.
But this is based on a misconception of what a parliament does. A parliament is not a think-tank, or an arena for deliberation: it's role is to make decisions. There is never a shortage of people -both inside and outside of Parliament- to scrutinise legislation and suggest changes. In almost all cases, there is in fact an overload of ideas and possible actions. The role of the parliament therefore is not to generate ideas for action or to particularly scrutinise the fine details of a proposal (that is done by a much wider portion of society), but to decide a single course of action from the raft of possibilities that are usually served up as a bill passes through it.
This key point was entirely absent in all discussions of retaining and reforming the Seanad -and it created the false impression that somehow legislation will be additionally scrutinised for being read a second time. In reality, as a bill passes through a second chamber, the same raft of options is presented again in a mildly different packaging. The society that lobbied the first house simply lobbies the second house again in mirror fashion. The second chamber therefore does not bring anything new to the proposal, but that is not its role, its role is to represent the interests of whoever appointed it and give them a veto over legislative reform measures.
So why do so many countries have second chambers if their only effect is to hamper decisionmaking? In many countries there are interests to take into account other than the people. In Germany and the USA, there are powerful constituent states, historically in Britain there was the aristocracy, in the early days of this State there was the protestant minority who felt threatened by what they perceived as a catholic Dail. In these and many other examples, the indecision created by a second chamber is tolerated -because the interests of those powerful other actors are too important to ignore and a second chamber grants them a veto over the decisions made by the people's representatives in the first chamber. Furthermore, those interests are not institutionally opposed to reform unless it impacts directly on their interests.
Modern Ireland is a unitary state, with one identity and no significant interest to protect -other than that of the people themselves. Therefore a reformed Seanad can only respectably answer directly to the people, operating as another Dail. There are countries that have 2 chambers directly elected by the people. These are few and their political performance is generally poor. It is not a secret that Italian governments struggle to pass any reforms, because the effort needed to win a democratic vote in 2 houses on a controversial issue is too difficult. Furthermore, 2 electoral cycles mean they are permanently on an election campaign footing. One house effectively stymies the reforming efforts of the other and a state of political gridlock and unstable governments is the outcome. This problem is also visible to a lesser extent in the United States, where the Senate used to be largely appointed by state governors or legislatures -but is now elected by state electorates. The members of each house now get political rewards for opposing the other house. Is this more democratic? Arguably no -representative democracy should mean that the peoples representatives make decisions, but it is difficult to see how democracy is advanced by then having the people's other representatives opposing that decision. The obstacles to reform are doubled and the opportunities for obstructionists are also.
DeValera, in writing our constitution, understood the value of having a single decisive voice for a single people. He purposefully made the Seanad structurally weak so that it could not oppose decisions of the Dail -while still allowing him to give purely political reassurance to the protestant minority that they would have an additional voice in parliament. An authorative second chamber was an unnecessary obstacle to decisionmaking, so he wisely sabotaged the Seanad from becoming a real political voice. Because of this arrangement, our democracy has never suffered from an inability to make decisions -including tough decisions.
Most of the reform proposals that are circulating at present are based on the idea of giving the people direct control over the Seanad -to second guess decisions of the Dail. But of course this ignores the fact that the Dail itself is under the control of the people. If such reforms were approved, the people's voice would be heard in parliament, but from 2 sources -and both houses would have a political incentive to visibly oppose the other house. This would be a disaster for Irish democracy. 2 directly elected houses with every incentive to oppose each other and presenting a double challenge to any government trying to heave controversial motions through -would spell endless political gridlock and undermine the central decisionmaking role of parliament. There would be no additional representation -only less (possibly much less) decisionmaking capacity.
In summary, this writer thinks that now abolition has been rejected, it is best that the Seanad be left unreformed. In particular, directly electing the Seanad in a vocational panel system (as proposed in a recent bill) is a bad idea. The people already have a voice in parliament, giving them another and splitting the democratic voice will only create indecision (possibly paralysis) without serving any additional legitimate interest. Whatever happens next, it is important that parliament retains the ability to decide things -instead of becoming trapped in a tit for tat between 2 equally authorative houses. The debate about the future of the Seanad must be refocused away from the naive idea of our parliamentary chambers operating as grandiose brainstorming sessions or proofreading exercises, rather we must start by addressing ourselves to their actual role -deciding on ideas. We also need to remember that giving more power to the second chamber will inevitably reduce the ability of the parliament to make these decisions.
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