A voter casts his ballot for the Seanad (senate) referendum in Dublin, Ireland, on October 4, 2013. Cash-strapped Ireland voted in a referendum on Friday on whether to back Prime Minister Enda Kenny’s controversial proposals to abolish the upper house of parliament. AFP/ PETER MUHLY
DUBLIN—Filipinos would say this one is quite close to home and could be a dream come true. They wish.
Ireland votes on Friday whether to abolish its upper house of parliament, a historic move that Prime Minister Enda Kenny argues will save money but which critics say is a power grab.
Opinion polls suggest the government’s plans should pass, but many voters remain undecided and an increasingly vocal ‘no’ campaign has emerged—fueled by Kenny’s refusal to debate the issue on television.
“The Seanad is powerless and undemocratic. It costs 20 million euros ($27.24 million) a year to run and has never engaged with the Irish public the way that it was meant to,” Kenny said in a video message posted on YouTube on Thursday.
“Other small countries like Sweden and Denmark have clearly shown that single chamber parliaments not only cost less but they work much more effectively and with far greater transparency. After 70 years of no change, it is time to save money, put the public ahead of politicians and abolish the Seanad,” he added.
An Irish Times poll last weekend found that 44 percent of respondents said they would vote to abolish the Seanad, while 27 percent would vote to retain it.
A further 21 percent said they did not know, and eight percent said they would not vote.
The money-saving argument has resonance in Ireland, which embarked on a major austerity program after Dublin entered a European Union-International Monetary Fund bailout in 2010.
But critics accuse Kenny’s Fine Gael party of hiding behind a promise of savings to centralize power in the government’s hands and close the door on wider political reform.
‘No-man’s-land’
Independent Sen. Katherine Zappone warned that those pushing a “yes” vote were taking Ireland into “a constitutional no-man’s-land with no idea of the consequences of the decision for this generation and the generations that follow.
“A ‘yes’ vote will see the constitution of Ireland filleted and dismembered,” she told the Democracy Matters conference in Dublin.
Opponents, chiefly in the opposition party Fianna Fail (FEEN’-uh fall), accuse the government of seeking to strengthen its own powers by removing an upper house that scrutinizes and occasionally delays the passage of bills. They argue that voter rejection of the amendment would force the government to reform and improve the Senate, not kill it.
The Senate has 60 members, most of them elected from vocational panels by local councilors and by university graduates, although 11 are appointed by the prime minister.
Historically, many senators tend to be politicians who failed be voted in a general election or those hoping to win a seat in the lower house at a future election.
Rubber-stamp legislation
The upper house is the less powerful house of parliament, often reduced to rubber-stamping legislation from the lower house.
Its ability to delay bills passed by the lower house for 90 days is its most powerful function, but that has only occurred twice in 75 years.
A separate vote on whether to establish a Court of Appeal is also taking place on Friday, with Dublin hoping the new court will ease the pressure on the country’s heavily backlogged Supreme Court if it passes.
Polls open at 0600 GMT on Friday and counting begins the next day, with a result expected on Saturday afternoon.
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