Every single Seanad reform proposal I have seen lately (and there have been quite a few), revolves around giving educated people more power over politics than the average citizen. The starting point is always that there should be lawyers and engineers and business people and people who have run big organisations and doctors etc., and that these people need to be in Government because of their elite skills.
But I ask myself why? Why should the educated have more authority than the ordinary? Assuming for a moment that they will be more competent to govern (which I doubt), what gives them the right to more power? Is it more important that a government is packed with experts or that it is accountable to the people -all of the people equally.
To me, the most incompetent democratic government is better than an unfairly elected government dream-team. Reforming the seanad therefore is a wasted effort in my eyes. A reformed seanad will either be democratic (and therefore a useless replica of the Dáil) or else it will be undemocratic and have the same elitist bias that the present one has (which I find objectionable in a Republic where we are technically supposed to be born equal).
Pointing to other countries is foolish, given that few other countries can be considered models to follow. The House of Lords is hardly an ornament of expertise or democracy. Most of the other bicameral parliaments are federal and have real interests to represent in a second house.
Therefore, to me, democracy and the seanad are at loggerheads. The Seanad's existence until now was only tolerable because it was powerless -but that hardly justifies maintaining it. The seanad today is at best useless -at worst elitist. Reforms can make it more or less elitist, but not fair. Abolition of this elitist institution is the only fair thing to do. Vote Yes.
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