I love when politicians stand by what they believe in.

41 comments
  1. A move straight out of the Palpatine playbook, I wouldn’t be too quick to stick down Jedi as your religion in the next census.

  2. Don’t blame her, blame the muppets who voted to keep the failed TD dumping ground thinking it would be reformed. Despite the fact the 7th amendment has yet to be invoked.

  3. Meanwhile Farage declined a peerage because of his opposition to an undemocratic upper house. Congratulations on having less integrity than Farage 👍

  4. Shout out to Aodhán Ó’Ríordáin for doing the same.

    “In January 2013, Ó Ríordáin said he believed it was not possible to
    reform “a discredited Seanad chamber” – some nine months before the
    failed referendum to abolish the house.

    But he said he’d also changed his mind on this following two years of speaking on behalf of the government in the upper house.”

  5. Fine Gael, Sinn Fein, Labour and the Socialist Party all campaigned to abolish the Seanad.

    Is this post suggesting no members of those parties should ever be in the Seanad again, that the people voted to keep in a referendum?

  6. Amazing how we never abolished the Seanad. Even more depressing is that they won’t modernise the franchise somewhat.

    Didn’t the referendum on cutting judicial pay not also fail?

  7. I was in favour of keeping the Seanad and thought the referendum was short sighted populist bollocks. I don’t see campaigners turned Senators as a problem tbh though, obviously becoming the leader of the Seanad is obviously funny at least.

    However, the idea that people who sought to have the Seanad abolished can’t subsequently become Senators is kind of silly. I don’t recall a promise not to engage with the Seanad in the event of the referendum failing being part of the campaign. The referendum was held it failed and the Seanad remains part of the political infrastructure of the state politicians have to engage with it.

  8. I will probably get downvoted to hell and back for this but I don’t care.

    I didn’t vote as I wasn’t living in Ireland at the time, but I was/am delighted the “abolish the Seanad” referendum failed. In my opinion it was and is a load of populist shite, trying to garner sympathy from that “hurr durr all politicians are bad and sleazy and corrupt” narrative for short term political gain.

    The thing costs €8/9 million a year and is worth every penny. Senators contribute well on proposed legislation, in committee and debates and frequently materially alter the final product.

    It is particularly valuable in terms of representing alternative or minority views and is less encumbered by the constituency level influence than the Dail.

    Also, if you abolish the Senate and replace it with nothing, all you’ll accomplish is even further centralising the most centralised country in Europe.

    There is loads that could/should be improved but there is hardly a parliament chamber in the world you can’t say that about. It is isn’t an argument for getting rid of it and the benefits we currently get from it far outweigh the drawbacks.

    I can understand why normal people voted to scrap it. Unless you have some connection to the political system why would you examine the legislative process or how it works?

    What I hated about that referendum was people who were in the know sought to sacrifice a very valuable part of the democratic process just so people would think they were more fucking efficient. And when they lost they never lifted a finger to change anything about it.

  9. Seanad has value if it’s only to keep talented/experienced politicians/people in politics when they lose out in an election.

  10. So much evidence from back in 2016 of FG saying they’ll abolish the USC and them putting out hit pieces on FF saying they would keep it.

  11. Despite the misgivings we have about so many of our politicians, and how thick and incompetent they can be, I do think the vast majority are there for the right reasons.

    Regina Doherty is top of the list of the minority that are there for all the wrong reasons. Ego/power/self-promotion.

  12. I’ve met her a few times professionally. She is one of the most stuck up, arrogant, snobbish pieces of shit I’ve ever come across.

  13. “You were supposed to destroy the Senate, not join them!?!”

    [deep breath]

    “I AM the senate!”

  14. The vote to abolish the Seanad got mixed up with the bad feeling for politicians on the back of the crash

    Instead of voting for what was the right decision, most people just voted to piss off Enda so he wouldn’t get a win, cutting you nose off to spite your face comes to mind

    The Seanad is a waste of money and just keeps the lads/ladies on the payroll. Nobody takes it serious, even Pearse when he was in it kept getting fines for not bothering his arse to attend

  15. I didn’t think it was right to abolish the Seanad.

    I also think people who were rejected by the voters in the previous Dáil election should not be eligible for election to the Seanad.

    Doherty, thrown out of her seat by a disgusted electorate in February, was back suckling on the public teat 140 days later, forcing herself onto voters: a shameless, brazen declaration that she knew better than the voters and was damn well entitled to maintain her lifestyle at our expense.

    That’s not right. The Seanad should be our nation’s secondary democratic forum, not a place where crooked politicians can install their friends in a €350k sinecure (or, in the case of Micheál Martin, where he can become Taoiseach by giving a €350k sinecure to the Green Party deputy leader’s brother, rejected at the Dáil election).

  16. I’d bet a vast majority of them would kill thier own mother’s for a bit of power, I genuinely think morality and ethics are things they cannot comprehend

  17. This is the truest form of political failure so bad they had to give her the top job of the house to stifle any investigation against her.

    Absolute slug of an individual

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