Chrysalis

Was it a Lourdean miracle or wonder of Fatima that allowed our Taoiseach stand at the podium and announce to the nation he had indeed had a Paulian conversion. This week’s press conference for the announcement of the Seanad Abolition Referendum was not a surprise we all knew this was coming, he had promised this in a carefully planned and well thought out strategy…Oh right sorry he had in fact used the issue as stunt back in 2009 to deflect away from his slipping grip on the Fine Gael reins.
On that faithful night in the Burlington Hotel the then leader of the opposition announced to a packed Presidents Dinner that he was a reformer, a dreamer perhaps and that the fruit of his dreams was the abolition of the Seanad. His first problem that night was that he had not discussed this plan; it seems, with anyone bar a few close advisors. As the stunned room began to digest this bombshell his second problem became clear abolition was not reform no matter what way you spun it.
So the real question is when did the Taoiseach first see that the road to reform lay in the upper house’s demise? I wonder what changed in Enda’s reforming mind remembering that he once said part of this new politics would see a monthly address to the Seanad by the Taoiseach. This (again I assume) was a promise made because the Senate was a chamber that deserved the Taoiseach’s respect and attendance. Well what has changed? Now it seems the Seanad is not worth any respect in fact it is only fit for the bin.
The Defenders
Now the Taoiseach is not alone on the road to Damascus. He seems to be joined by many of the newly elected and promoted former Senators that supported him during the heave late in 2010 (funny that). Paschal Donoghoe has been very active in the media this week and has been quick to talk about the Seanad as a spent force, a chamber with no power and one that added nothing to our democracy. This is funny as I remember that Paschal was himself a member of the Seanad before his august rise to the lower house. If he is so sure the Seanad has no place did he hold those feelings when he was a member and if he did I have only one question – WHY DID YOU NOT RESIGN DEPUTY?
Next up in The Defenders line-up is now Minister and one time Senator Francis Fitzgerald. The timeline is patchy but the talk is that Francis as the leader of the Seanad was only informed by phone on the day its death warrant was announced. This I am told caused her serious discomfort and significant anguish, feelings she made known at the time within the party. Now though flash forward to her successful election to the lower house and subsequent appointment to a ministerial office (a reward for loyalty to the leader no doubt) and we suddenly see another wanderer on that rocky road to Damascus decrying the upper house as a needless exercise in excess for our sparsely populated patch of land on the edge of Europe.
Another of the recruits to the ranks of The Defenders is young buck Simon Harris. As with Paschal he has been quick out of the blocks to do the Taoiseach’s bidding on television and radio. He has eloquently argued the point that the money spent annually on the Seanad is a needless waste of hard pushed tax payer’s money. So it would seem that young Simon hopes that we have forgotten that prior to his elevation to the lower house he was in fact in the employ of the aforementioned Francis Fitzgerald’s Seanad office and so happily took a salary from the pockets of hard pushed tax payers. So the question should be asked will young Simon now make a voluntary donation to the State of those earnings, if in fact the Seanad is a needless financial drain on the State coffers.
Last comment on The Defenders, someone needs to tell Simon and Paschal that Tom Hayes already got the gig…
Now it is not fair to focus solely on these individual parliamentary members from the Fine Gael Party. No no indeed we should look at a lot more of that party’s TD’s. I have spoken with a number them over the past year and when I discussed the issue of Seanad abolition the theme that seems to be consistent is that this is cynical politics at its worst. I was told just how fiery the Parliamentary Party meeting was the week after that Presidential Dinner. There was shouting, walkouts and even tears. The overwhelming reaction was not to push the issue to a vote because doing so would have proved another embarrassment to then embattled leader. More than one told me they really never believed it would arise in government as they felt the Labour Party would not agree.
We were told after the election that we had witnessed a ‘Democratic Revolution’ and that significant reform would follow. What proof have we, well the Constitutional Convention is meeting but they have been (you could argue) hamstrung from the start. They are also not discussing the issue of the Seanad’s reform or abolition. Strange as the abolition of the Seanad would see 75 or so changes to the constitution.
But let’s move away from the humdrum of daily politics and get to the good stuff, political patronage. A clean sweep is what we were promised, gone were the days of quango’s, no more would we see the appointment to State boards of people whose only qualification was party allegiance.
Is that what happened? Is it duck (replace with a similar sounding word if you are so inclined). Instead we have had party hacks appear on the usual lists of appointments to Port Authorities and other boards. We have also seen, as has been discussed recently in the media, a rise in the appointment of Judges who would be regarded as Fine Gael is allegiance. So where are the independent appointment committees we were promised, where is the open selection process we were told would be implemented? A recent appointment to the European Bank of Reconstruction raised more than a few eyebrows. Sean Donlon a former civil servant was an advisor to more than one Fine Gael Minister and one only needs to look at the predecessors in this position to get a feel for how much thought goes into filling it as he replaces former Fianna Fail MEP Eoin Ryan in the lucrative role.
Well yeah silly me I really can see the fruits of this ‘Democratic Revolution’ I am blessed to be a part of. But seriously you will excuse me if I see this Seanad Referendum for what it really is, a cynical and ill thought out plan the government hopes will appease the mob.
I will end with this though; as in the Rome of old ‘Beware the mob’.