Abolishing the Senate won"t end the crisis.

As the state engages in a frantic bid to find ways of taking in more money, and reducing expenditure, the public has been doing its bit too, and coming up with its own suggestions. Unfortunately, as has become clear, we the public aren"t coming up with much in the way of solutions either. There are, repeatedly, calls to have politicians" wages cut and their expenses cut - but in the light of the amount this country needs to stay solvent, the savings these measures would effect represent just the tiniest fraction. There were also the calls to have the bankers" salaries capped - but capping those was, if anything, is purely a symbolic thing, aimed at assuaging public anger. The net effect was to reduce the tax income from those salaries to Government. As the public now know, there aren"t a lot of things left to cut, and while it may be popular to lash out at the costs of our politicians, the fact is that even if they worked voluntarily, drove their own cars, charged no expenses, the saving still wouldn"t make a huge impact on the national crisis. However, the frantic search for savings goes on, and now, the public microscope has fallen on the Seanad. Last Friday night, on RTE"s 'Late Late Show', journalist Ian O"Doherty argued passionately about why it should be axed, while arguing back even more passionately, were members of the Senate themselves, led by Westmeath"s Senator Donie Cassidy, who is Leader of the House. O"Doherty focused on the costs, and on the fact that the Upper House sits for, on average, just two days a week, pointing out that there are several other democracies which do not have a second house of parliament. While the Senators did argue their case, not everyone believes that when not sitting in the Senate, they are constantly working for the public good, in their clinics and offices. That said, to get rid of the Senate would be a disaster, a panic-driven symbolic reaction, that would, in fact, weaken this country"s democratic process. It"s fine to say that other countries operate without an upper house, but since the foundation of the State, we have not done so, and the Senate has a very definite role that should not just suddenly be dismissed out of expediency. True, it may be, as Pat Kenny put it, a 'FAS course' for new politicians and an 'A&E' for TDs who"ve lost their seats. But because it"s become that doesn"t mean that it is, as an institution, something that should be scrapped. What may be needed is reform - and the chief of those reforms should be the abolition of the elitist system which gives the power to elect people to the senate to just graduates of the National University of Ireland, and to County Councillors, and not to the general electorate. The Seanad is this country"s equivalent to the UK"s House of Lords, and while the Senate doesn"t have anything like the power that the Dáil has, it has a function in terms of advising government and in terms of debating legislation that has been passed by the Dáil. It can also, indeed, initiate and revise legislation, except with regard to financial legislation. It also holds, however, a 'watchdog' role, and that right to examine all Dáil Bills isn"t just a right, but an obligation, aimed at ensuring that laws made will not have any pitfalls missed by Government, or that they don"t create more problems than they cause. Readers always say there"s 'nothing' in the newspaper they"ve just read; and similarly, voters almost always seem to claim 'their' politician is useless. But because some may feel dissatisfaction with the quality of representation within the Senate, and with the way of choosing that representation, it is not necessary to abandon the institution entirely. That"s not to say there shouldn"t be debate on the future of the Senate, but more to say that it shouldn"t be axed from our system purely to make a quick short-term financial saving.