TODAY MARKS the 90th anniversary of the first meeting of the Seanad – the upper house of the Oireachtas which is being slated for abolition at some stage next year.
The upper house of the Oireachtas has already survived abolition once: having been scrapped in 1936, in revenge for blocking many of Eamon de Valera’s reform plans, only to be recreated under the new Irish constitution of 1937.
This time, however, Enda Kenny remains insistent that the Seanad is beyond saving – and wants to hold a referendum to abolish the chamber entirely next year. Supporters of the Seanad say, though, that scrapping it won’t save much money and will mean less oversight of the lawmaking process.
So – should the Seanad be saved as it is, scrapped entirely, or reformed to some degree?
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