Seanad Reform
page 12
Time to end the TCD3 The era of privilege in this country should be over, but relics from a different generation remain alive in our state. None of these relics is more evident than the privilege enjoyed by Trinity graduates who elect three senators to Seanad Éireann. University graduates elect six of the sixty senators in the Seanad - three elected by TCD graduates and three by NUI graduates. The NUI is composed of NUIG, NUIM, UCC and UCD. The graduates of UL and DCU don’t enjoy any ‘privilege’ when it comes to electing senators into the Irish Upper House of parliament. What’s worse is the entire Institute of Technology sector, graduates from fourteen institutes, are not given the opportunity to vote in the Seanad election despite a referendum which took place over thirty years ago to allow this to happen. To put this into perspective the graduation numbers of undergraduates in Trinity last year was 2261, while the combined NUI undergraduate graduate numbers was 10459. Adding the graduates (Honour Degrees only) from the fourteen IoT’s (6670) and the graduating numbers of UL and DCU (2892) gives a total of 9562 graduates. Doesn’t seem fair does it? This privilege of a single university whose graduates
can elect three senators into the Seanad is outdated and grossly unfair to all graduates. The day of Trinity graduates occupying a special place in our society is long gone. There has been much conversation about the role of the senate in Irish life, the need to reform it or indeed, as Enda Kenny proposes, the abolishment of the senate. I believe that the senate can and should be made work, it should be more relevant to our lives and the work carried out by the Seanad needs to be communicated to the people. Today there are sixty senators, but most Irish people would be hard pressed to name a handful of the senators. With the exception of the graduate elected members the remaining senators are either elected by other politicians or nominated by the Taoiseach. Graduates generally elect independent senators, free from a political party, which creates some free thought in an institution which is getting a reputation for a lack of diversity of opinion or intellect. With notable past senators such as Nobel Laureate, W.B. Yeats, the great days of the Seanad may be over. The current crop of senators are relatively unknown to the general population with many members having lost out at a general election who, despite the electorate’s refusal to elect them, are snuck into a
political position usually to the bemusement of the electorate, who naturally think it’s a case of ‘jobs for the boys’. In fairness to the TCD graduates, their current senators are household names – David Norris, Ivana Bacik and Shane Ross. This is positive for the institution as they are probably some of the best known members of the senate other than those involved in scandal, namely Ivor Callely, and those with a penchant for twittering like Dan Boyle. But there is nothing to indicate that graduates from Institutes of Technology couldn’t elect people who are equally as renowned. It is past time for the six senate seats to be elected from all graduates as a single constituency. The Minister in charge, John Gormley, needs to press on with electoral reform and give all graduates their voice in the Seanad. Whether you are a graduate from NUIG or GMIT shouldn’t give you any less rights than a Trinity graduate. It is indeed time to end the TCD3. Peter Mannion is a former president of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) and vice-president / education officer of the NUIG Students’ Union. He is not to be confused with the current NUIG Students’ Union president of the same name. By Peter Mannion