The Lucky 11

Ivor Callely resigned from Fianna Fail before his party had a chance to deliver a verdict of ‘conduct unbecoming’ upon him. But he will remain a member of Seanad Eireann until its term expires because there is no mechanism whereby his peers can give him the boot. The Seanad Committee investigating the various controversies surrounding Ivor’s expense claims can’t go beyond 30 days suspension if, in their opinion, Ivor’s explanations fall short.

Ivor was appointed to the Seanad by Bertie Ahern as some sort of inexplicable ‘consolation prize’ following the loss of his Dublin North Central Dail seat in the 2007 general election. Thus, you might think there would be some sort of mechanism in place for the current Taoiseach to tell him to pack his bags and get lost. There isn’t.

Fionnan Sheehan, the Independent’s political editor, thinks there should be and that the absence of a Taoiseach’s right to remove an appointee is ‘ludicrous’. What’s more ludicrous is that the Taoiseach has the power to make eleven nominations in the first place and can seemingly use that power to reward ‘favourites’ without any accountability to anyone except himself.

The purpose of the Taoiseach’s 11 is, variously, to provide the government of the day with an inbuilt majority in the Seanad; to appoint persons who will make an outstanding contribution to Irish public life or provide representation to otherwise unrepresented interests (such as Northern Ireland in years past); to implement deals on representation with coalition partners; or give a political leg-up to good future electoral prospects. Finally, a Taoiseach’s appointment may be a way of rewarding the loyalty of party stalwarts, keeping the political careers of failed TDs alive.

Thus Bertie Ahern’s favoured 11 in 2007 included, along with Ivor, Martin Brady who had lost his seat in Dublin North East and John Ellis who lost his seat in Sligo-Leitrim; Maria Corrigan who had unsuccessfully contested Dublin South and Lisa Mc Donald who had failed in Wexford. A new hopeful for Donegal, Brian O’Domhnaill, was included in the 11, as were two representatives of the Green Party (Dan Boyle, and Deirdre de Burca who has since resigned) and Fiona O’Malley and Ciaran Cannon of the now defunct PDs. The writer, broadcaster, journalist, and ardent admirer of Bertie Ahern, Eoghan Harris, became the eleventh, and only ‘independent’ nominee.

No doubt all these fine and worthy Senators are making a significant contribution to Irish public life in their own way; though they could hardly be called the ‘lucky 11’. Deirdre De Burca dropped off her perch when her career expectations could no longer be satisfied, Ciaran Cannon has since crossed over to the ‘other side’ and Ivor Callely has lately become a lightning rod for public annoyance with politicians and their expenses’ regimes in general.

Most of the remaining Senators – 43 of them – are elected by various ‘panels’, with an electorate of about 1,000 county councillors across the country, mostly voting along party lines, which makes the Senate more a Super County Council than anything else. In contrast, the six university candidates have to campaign hard to secure their preference among the sprawling electorates of graduates of TCD or the NUI.

Last year Fine Gael leader, Enda Kenny, proposed abolishing the Seanad, side-stepping his own party’s proposals for its reform. Labour and Fianna Fail favour reform over complete abolition. But the record shows that none of the parties likely to form part of any government in this state will, once in office, do anything other than conveniently forget about Senate reform.

For one thing, they don’t want to upset their party councillors by taking such an important, and exclusive, power of election away from them. Parties can do murky little ‘deals’ with one another across the panels – as Labour and Sinn Fein did in 2007 – to secure election of their respective favourites for Seanad seats, thus boosting the electoral prospects of those Senators in the next Dail election. In some parties, it’s two terms in the Senate to make it to the Dail. Otherwise, you’re out and your place on the panel will be granted to another party hopeful. It suits the government of the day too, to create a majority in their own favour in the Upper House; saves a lot of trouble later on with amendments to Bills and inconvenient motions and the like. And for those TDs who lose out in a general election, a seat in the Seanad can be a political lifesaver. There are very few, past or present, whose aspirations in public life have been limited to a career in Seanad Eireann. But once you’re in, you’re in – for the full term – and what with the salary and staff and expenses and all, as we’ve seen, it’s not a bad gig if that’s your disposition.

The Senate must be reformed. Ivor and his expenses’ debacle are just a symptom of what’s wrong with the entire system. The electoral base for the Seanad should be changed. Parties should be precluded from doing deals with one another to advance the election of their favoured ones. Taoiseach’s nominees should be eliminated entirely. A process of impeachment for all holders of public office, especially those who transgress on financially related matters, might be no end of a good thing too.