Seanad referendum (1 Viewer)

[rettucs]

HELP

I don't know what the hell to do. One one hand I want rid of the useless fucks in there. On the other I can see a point in having a 'lower' house.

On another I hate the government

On yet another I hate fianna fail

whats boyd-barrett and his ilk saying about it?

/confused

 

[magicbastarder]

i'm on the fence at the moment, but leaning towards keeping the seanad.

i was suprised even FG did not see the irony in printing posters promising fewer politicians as a good thing.

 

[MacDara]

I think everyone would agree that the Seanad needs reform, but this referendum isn't about reform - it's about dismantling the bicameral system, which is a fucking terrible idea. It's like bulldozing a building because you don't like what colour it's painted.

 

[magicbastarder]

can we have an instaban on any 'i'm choosing to vote to keep the seanad purely because i always vote against the government' responses?

 

[ann post]

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weird day at the office.

 

[Unicron]

I'm voting no, the seanad is deeply flawed and does not work well in it's current form but I feel the solution to it is dramatically reform it rather than abolish it (a few of ideas; universal suffrage, it's absurd that I can vote for it because I graduated from a particular university and the majority of people can't, after that have legislation introduced in it be taken seriously, the members of the house would have a proper mandate, if we have to keep the panels just allow every citizen to join one panel, all panels get a minimum number of seats but the rest of them are divided up in proportion to what the turnout in the election is, that is to say if 60,000 people vote in the TCD panel TCD get's less seats than the candidates in the agricultural panel if 100,000 members of that panel vote, get rid of the Taoiseach's appointments, election via a list system). I'm not sure if all those reforms would be constitutional but I've been told that the big stumbling block to reform without referendum is the panel based makeup of it.

It's a power grab by the lower house and if we're getting rid of politicians it should be in the Dail. We're overrepresented in there, I realise that it would likely require a referendum but fuck it, it should be done.

 

[Diddles]

Get rid of it and let's see how we get on without it, if it turns out there's a gaping void in all our lives we can reinstate it.

 

[rettucs]

Get rid of it and let's see how we get on without it, if it turns out there's a gaping void in all our lives we can reinstate it.

hmm, can we though? And would it need another referendum?

I think @Unicron makes a lot of sense there. I think I agree with what he said.

 

[IFF]

if fine gael really wanted to reduce the number of politicians, why did they increase the number of county councillors from 883 to 950 for the next county council elections?

i am also not satisfied by the reassurance of fine gael in relation to giving more oversight power to the dail.

there is a real independence deficit in relation to politics:

heres how i would reform it all:

1 - county councils - create 12 super councils covering roughly the same population each with 30 members each. devolve real power to this rather than just being a talking shop
2 - committees - the committee chairpersons think they answer to the minister. this should be the other way round. remember in the first season of "the thick of it" when the minister is very nervous about being called to account by the committee. this is a functioning democracy that the committee hold the ministers responsible.
3 - seanad - well maybe go through one of the 4586876843893308974878489032089 reports on reforming the seanad that every single government has completely ignored and see if something workable is there. i think as a body it should have real teeth and not just be a rubber stamping shop to the dail. although one suggestion i recall had it that half the seats should be decided on a single constituency voted in at the time of the european/county council elections.
4 - dail - the clientelism of the dail system is ridiculous. i recall from "up the poll" by shane coleman that an old woman called her local td to get a box from her attic. and he did it. as a politician not only has to compete with other parties but his own party mates, this leads to the clientalistic approach we have unfortunately grown accustom to. brendan corish, former leader of labour had said in the past of the clinics "1/3 of the people want something ******* impossible, 1/3 want something ******* illegal and the final 1/3 are just ******* lonely" . With more power to the county councils, this would allow a smaller dail of say 120 members. 60 elected by single seat constituencies and then the remaining elected by a d'hondt system of proportional representation using a list system to decide who is elected for the parties.


oopsie i did go off on a tangent there. sorry

 

[Psycho Punk]

I'm voting no to give the finger to Enda & Gillymore.

 

[ann post]

so far i've spoken to lawyers for seanad reform and fianna fail.

interesting thing lawyers said was that it was originally created because the nazi's were on the up in germany, and they wanted a way to stop a hardcore government from taking over the country, like a buffer zone.

fianna fail are mostly proposing what IFF said above there. i think its similar to the uk system, but i'd need to check that out.

sinn fein backing abolition, so i'm likely to talk to them next.

 

[rettucs]

I'm voting No

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

I fucking hate when Michael Martin is on the radio and I agree with him.

 

[Unicron]

There's another referendum on the same day too. I only heard mention of it for the first time late last week.

I wonder, if Richard Bruton has been going on about seanad abolition saving the state 20 million (a figure I believe has since been debunked) how much will the new court cost?

 

[ann post]

sinn fein not answering the phone so far.

going to head hunt a few of them this evening.

michael has largely taken his speil from lawyers for seanad reform, who have some FF links.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

sinn fein not answering the phone so far.

going to head hunt a few of them this evening.

michael has largely taken his speil from lawyers for seanad reform, who have some FF links.

He was debunking the touted savings and giving Enda a go for not debating.
Still an awful streak of cute hoor slime though. Can't stand the man.

 

[rettucs]

There's another referendum on the same day too. I only heard mention of it for the first time late last week.

yea I saw that on a telly ad and theres been almost no other talk of it.

what way to vote on that one then?

 

[Unicron]

yea I saw that on a telly ad and theres been almost no other talk of it.

what way to vote on that one then?

I'm voting no on that one too. I do like the proposal that supreme court judges can publish minority opinions on decisions but I'm not especially convinced that we need a new court.

 

[pete]

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[Jim Daniels]

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Thats settled so. I'm voting no.