Not an original thought went into the final division of the spoils. The Taoiseach appointed his eleven nominees to complete the process of the general election and the Seanad is re-affirmed as the training ground for up-and-coming politicians and a rest home for other loyal, if sometimes worthy, party members who lost their Dáil seats.
There is no new Northern Ireland representative, no spokesperson for emigrants, Travellers or the disabled. There is no independent voice among the chosen eleven to foster even lip service to the concept of a vocational chamber.
With the new Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrats Coalition holding a strong Dáil majority, there was some room for an innovative input to the Upper House this time. It is somewhat surprising, in the circumstances, that the overwhelming majority of the nominees put forward by the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste are party hacks. There is one exception. Senator Maurice Hayes had to be re-appointed for a second term because he is chairman of the Forum of Europe which has played - and will continue to play - an important role in the second referendum on the Nice Treaty in the autumn.
The remaining Senators named by the Taoiseach at the weekend are party stalwarts with one thing in common: the over-riding interest of most of them is to be elected, or re-elected, for their parties to the next Dáil. The defeated Minister for Public Enterprise, Mrs Mary O'Rourke, seems destined to become Leader of the House. Senator Cyprian Brady is the Taoiseach's constituency organiser and manager. Senators Micheál Kitt and Brendan Kenneally are former TDs, joining Senator Pat Moylan as unsuccessful Seanad candidates. Senator Michael Brennan, from Co Limerick, is a local councillor of long-standing. The four PD nominees - Senators John Dardis, Kate Walsh, John Minihan and Tom Morrissey - failed to win Dáil seats in the recent general election.
So much for the time and energy spent commissioning high levels reports by the All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution on the reform of the Seanad. Two were produced since 1997. The latest one, last March, recommended a change in the Seanad's electoral system. It further recommended that, in line with the spirit of the Belfast Agreement, the Taoiseach should nominate four Senators from across the community from Northern Ireland. There should be a person with an awareness of emigrants' issues. These recommendations were ignored.
It is not as if persons representative of civic society did not emerge in the election process. Mrs Kathryn Sinnott stood for the Dáil and Seanad to bring the issue of disability before the electorate. She narrowly failed to be elected. Ms Rosaleen McDonagh, the first member of the Traveller community to get a postgraduate degree, was an unsuccessful University of Dublin candidate. There were fresh voices offering to represent a new civic agenda in the Seanad without threatening the Government requirement to have a majority in the Upper House. More's the shame then that the same old criteria should apply.