If the Senate is abolished, it cannot be reformed. The fact that
Senate has not been reformed so far is more an indictment of previous and
current governments than of the Senate itself. Institutional inertia is a fact
of life.
Without going into conspiracy theories, why was this
proposal not submitted to the Constitutional Convention; the abolition of one third
of the National Parliament will have far more serious consequences for
democracy in Ireland than reducing the Presidential term of office or the increased
participation of women in politics.
The party whip system has undermined the primacy of the Dáil
over the Government (Art 28.4) and we know from the final days of the last
government that ministers outside the ‘gang of three’ not only were not
involved in decision making but were not even informed of what was happening. Imagine
the appalling vista where the Economic Management Council consists of the
actively malevolent, rather the merely incompetent.
