Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

At the present time we need more democracy, not less. The conscious and deliberate removal or shrinking of a democratic space is and should be a cause for great concern and alarm. Having said that, I acknowledge that there are serious problems with the Seanad as it is presently configured.

How could ordinary Irish people have any sense of ownership over the current Seanad when most people have never even voted in a Seanad election, with the result that the second House is seen as an indigenous version of the House of Lords, where professional elites mingle with both aspiring and failed politicians and retired business people? This in and of itself does not justify abolition. After all, why should the majority of Irish people be punished for the failure of successive Governments to implement much-promised reform measures? Why should the people be expected to pay such a high price in terms of the democratic functioning of the State? Because successive Irish Governments failed to put in place a proper system of governance that is fitting for a modern democratic state, the plain people of Ireland must yet again pay the price and suffer a further diminution of the democratic sphere.

It is simply not good enough to argue for abolition on the basis that the Seanad is elitist and that it has no relevance for the vast majority of Irish people. It is all of these things, but then so is Dáil Éireann, and I do not hear any calls for that House to be abolished.

The fact is that since the foundation of the Irish State democracy, freedom of expression and radical dissent has been subject to excessive scrutiny, exclusion, censorship, ridicule and limits. The machinery of government, as reflected in the two Houses of the Oireachtas, has not produced a system of government that has served successive generations of Irish people well. Indeed, on a regular basis the past failures of the State are debated and legislated for in this House. If the Irish State were a closet it is not an exaggeration to say it would be full of the ghosts of the past crying out for justice.

The state model that emerged in the 1930s is in essence the very same structure with which we work today. That was a State founded on the building blocks of ideological and political repression. It was shaped and modelled to reflect the world view and social conservatism of a hegemonic Catholic, nationalist middle class. Church and State divided the spoils between them and thus, while the shopocracy captured the State and used it to further its own class interests, the church was given free rein to discipline, punish and control the hearts, minds and bodies of the oppressed women, men and children of Ireland. We now know that not only did the State and its institutions facilitate this oppression, it activelyassisted the church through Government institutions and social policy.

The Irish system of government and our State institutions reproduced the Magdalen laundries, mother and baby homes, industrial schools and a class structure that ensured the poor and the working classes were kept at the bottom of the economic ladder and that they were seen to be culturally and socially inferior. While the aforementioned institutions are now a thing of the past, thanks primarily to various campaigns, the institutional legacy of the foundational building blocks of the State is very much evident for all to see. We know that women are grossly under-represented in this House; of 166 TDs, only 25 are female. We also know that at every level of government in this country, what can only be termed a sprinkling of women is to be found at city, county, and Seanad level. Even worse, not one Member of this House or the Seanad is a member of the Traveller community. We have no first-generation immigrants or people of colour. We have no poor here, and the dispossessed and the disaffected of Irish society are nowhere to be found. The working class, the unemployed, the working poor, the under-employed, the stretched middle class and the disabled are not here. That raises the question: if all of these people are missing, who is it that governs Ireland? The answer is that we have an Executive and two Houses of the Oireachtas that are overwhelmingly comprised of a conservative, white, middle-class male elite. This is a group of people that never or rarely questions the exclusionary basis on which its class, gender and racial privilege depends. When the Fine Gael members talk of abolition of the Seanad and the need for the State to modernise, we would do well to keep in mind the ideological philosophy that shapes this party's political world view.

Abolition in this perspective must therefore be seen within the broader context of a Government that not only eagerly pursues harsh and cruel neoliberal economic policies, but that genuinely believes in the social and political utility of such neoconservative inspired programmes.

Therein lies the nub of the matter. Fine Gael’s plan to abolish the Seanad is not borne out of a desire to modernise the State or to open up the formal political terrain to a greater and more diverse populace. Rather the abolition of the second Chamber must be seen within shifts in the political economy of capitalism and the pre-eminence of the neoliberal political doctrine, which this Government has wholeheartedly embraced. In this context the abolition of the Seanad is, it may be argued, a certain type of reform but it is not a progressive type of reform born out of a love and respect for democracy and dissent. It is instead a retrograde step prompted by a deliberate desire to narrow the possibilities for political opposition. In plain language it is a dumbing down and shrinking of the political sphere that will lead to an increase in anomie and apathy towards politics, politicians and political debate in general.

This process is already well advanced and much of what passes for acceptable political debate ignores this disenchantment and disillusionment. The dominant political discourse stresses repeatedly that as a people we have no option other than to embrace, however grudgingly, the politics of austerity. The problem is that this specific brand of austerity is aimed not at the rich and well-off, but at the vulnerable, the poor, the unemployed, low and middle income workers and children. When there is opposition to these measures, such is the power and nature of the dominant ideology that the ruling political elite, the State, its institutions, and the wealthy and affluent class simply soak it up, and render it neutered. Marshall McLuhan’s infamous phrase about the manufacturing of consent is now more than ever apt, accurate and true.

There is an even greater price than austerity to be paid for conformity. Philosophers, political scientists and political activists have long understood that the disposition to disagree, however irritating it may be at times, is the very lifeblood of an open society. They have also warned us that a democracy of permanent consensus will not long remain a democracy. Indeed, a closed circle of opinion or ideas into which discontent or opposition is never allowed, or allowed only within circumscribed limits, loses its capacity to respond energetically or imaginatively to new challenges. Republics and democracies exist only by virtue of the engagement of their citizens in the management of public and political affairs. If angry, concerned, and genuine people forfeit politics, they abandon society to its most mediocre and venal civil servants.

Throughout Irish history Irish men and women have fought and died so that we could be free to determine our own future, in the interest of all our people. The current proposal to abolish the Seanad and replace it with nothing is very worrying to say the least. We already have an exceptionally centralised, powerful and unaccountable system of government where power is concentrated in the hands of the Executive. Conversely, our system of local government is weak, underfunded and characterised by a lack of any real power for local representatives. Thus we are left with a scenario where power is concentrated in the hands of a few elite senior politicians, civil servants and an oligarchy that is embedded in senior positions within the media, academia, business, and the professions. Abolishing the Seanad without reform of local government and reform of the Dáil needs to be seen for what it is: more power for Government while the people will have to make do with less accountability, less democracy and even fewer checks and balances against political corruption, abuse and patronage.

Yet again, it would appear that the people are to be presented with an either-or scenario: abolish the Seanad or keep it as it is, and that is the end of that. There is no talk of reform or indeed of the possibilities of what a reformed and reinvented Seanad could do for Irish democracy. Imagine for a moment a Chamber that was truly representative of the ethnic, racial, socioeconomic and gender diversity that is contemporary Ireland, a Chamber where real people could thrash out and debate real issues that concern all of us, where we could actually for once in our lives see democracy in action. Unfortunately, such thoughts and ideas are outside of this Government’s political consciousness.

Of course, a reinvigorated dynamic political sphere is the antipathy of the neoliberal project. It is therefore imperative that actions and policies are enacted and carried out to ensure such a space does not occur. The Government, had it so wished, had ample opportunity to explore the range of possibilities not just for the Seanad but for extending the democratic sphere in general, had it so wished, but it chose not to. It could have asked the Constitutional Convention to address the issue of political reform in general and, in so doing, prompt and foster wider public debate about political reform in general. Again, this did not happen.

All of this is hugely problematic. The shrinking of the political sphere and a society with a democratic deficit is especially worrying when these factors are coupled with a politics of austerity and a political philosophy that fosters the cult of the individual, the primacy of the market and relegates ideas or discussions of solidarity and the common good all but absent. Irish people need, deserve and are entitled to have a robust and informed debate about what type of society it is that we want live in. Such a discussion would obviously have to address also issues of governance and structures of government. In a mature democracy, this is the debate we would be having.

We would also set about the task of drafting a new constitution that had at its core a clear statement of what a fair and democratic Ireland would look like. The men and women of 1916 did not fight and die so that a Government of aloof and pampered politicians could cut mobility allowances to disabled people. They did not fight so that this very same elite could introduce policies and laws that are, in plain language, a deliberate and conscious rejection of egalitarianism. Sinn Féin believes, just like the women and men of 1913 and 1916, that there is another way forward. We believe that it is conceivable to have a society without poverty, if we so choose. We would do well to remember that what rich people call the problem of poverty, poor people call with equal justification, the problem of riches. In an unequal society, the conscious and deliberate shrinking of the democratic sphere is not only unfair and unjust, it is a betrayal of the people.

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