The Government’s decision to extend the university franchise for Seanad elections to include all third level graduates is welcome but its failure to proceed with a wider reform of the system for electing members of the upper house is deeply disappointing.
It is incredible that it has taken 45 years for a government to act on the decision of the people in a referendum to extend the university franchise from graduates of the National University of Ireland (NUI) and Trinity College to all third level institutions. The legislation approved by cabinet this week is due to be brought before the Dáil next month although it will not apply to the forthcoming Seanad election but the subsequent one.
This is all very fine but there is no sign of the Government moving to implement the more far- reaching reform of the Seanad proposed by an expert group chaired by former leader of the House and Chancellor of the NUI, Maurice Manning. The group was set up following the rejection by the electorate in 2013 of a proposal to abolish the Seanad and its brief was to recommend a reform that would not require a referendum.
The Manning report in 2015 proposed that the existing electoral system of five vocational panels and a university panel should be retained but it proposed that every citizen should be allowed to vote and not just county councillors who compose the bulk of the current electorate. The report suggested that 30 of the 60 Seanad seats should be filled by the electorate, the six university seats by all third level graduates and 13 seats reserved for councillors. The Government would retain the right to nominate the final 11 members.
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A controversial aspect of the report was a proposal that the vote be given to residents of Northern Ireland and to all Irish passport holders across the globe.
There was an understandable lack of enthusiasm in successive governments for this but there is nothing to prevent the Coalition from implementing the core recommendations of the Manning report with everybody on the current electoral register being entitled to vote.