Seantor Eoghan Harris on Morning Ireland

imme

Sen Eoghan Harris is to be on Morning Ireland this morning defending John O'Donoghue. Can I be sick now please. Harris is a Taoiseach's nominee to the Seanad and has a compunction to defend the worst of Fianna Fail excess/incompetence.

Biggins

Yet another reason then to close the Seanad!

Joey the lips

Just listened to the councillor. Another ass. Although i have to say its honourable of them to defend they party partners.

There always was honour amound theives!

donaghs

He's an annoying windbag, but also clearly an intelligent and articulate man. But from his public pronouncement (Late Late show etc), it's clear that he serves no useful purpose, except to blindly defend the government. He's a disgrace.

imme

donaghs wrote: »

He's an annoying windbag, but also clearly an intelligent and articulate man. But from his public pronouncement (Late Late show etc), it's clear that he serves no useful purpose, except to blindly defend the government. He's a disgrace.

you should read his column:D. "I thought it was one of the best speeches I ever heard" says Harris.:eek:
Harris has just referenced Talleyrand, the RIC and Dick Spring in 30 seconds. He's all over the place as usual, a little entertaining none the less.

bamboozle

himself and senetor Donny Cassidy are 2 reasons alone that the Seanad should cease to exist...actually you can add Ivor Callelly to that!

suprised after all his great service to the irish racing industry that our countries top trainers & jockeys were not taking to the airways in defence of the bull (sh1tter)

Joey the lips

He has been very funny. He actually said that labour would not have done anything if sinn fein did not push them into it. It reminds me of the school boy

"He made me do it" rubbish.

imme

bamboozle wrote: »

himself and senetor Donny Cassidy are 2 reasons alone that the Seanad should cease to exist...actually you can add Ivor Callelly to that!

suprised after all his great service to the irish racing industry that our countries top trainers & jockeys were not taking to the airways in defence of the bull (sh1tter)

*tongue in cheek* ah leave Ivor alone, he's enough trouble with his boat (refer Evening Herald). I have to agree with you. There are some effective senators in the Seanad though.

imme

Joey the lips wrote: »

He has been very funny. He actually said that labour would not have done anything if sinn fein did not push them into it. It reminds me of the school boy

"He made me do it" rubbish.

Labour being pushed around by Sinn Féin. Distract and mislead is Harris' ploy as usual. Yeah of course Labour are running scared of Sinn Féin, not.

RiverWilde

Ah this bloke makes me laugh. Whenever the FF party needs an apologist he gets rolled out.

The sooner TD's cut 'all' their damned expenses. They get well paid and any 'extras' they want should be sorted from their own pocket. I'm fed up paying for TD's hairdos!

Riv

mike65

To be fair he stated all TD/Senator salaries should be cut 25% and that the whole system of expenses should be reformed rather than lusting after individual heads on sticks.

RiverWilde

Ah yeah but 25% is not nearly enough ... make it 50% to 60% and then I'll listen .... the combination of salary and unvouched expenses means that politicians earn an insane level of remuneration.

Riv

jmayo

harris the whinging geebag is one of the greatest reasons the Seanad should be abolished or at least severly overhualed.

People like him were never elected, but were rewarded for servics performed on behalf of the party or more correctly in this instance on behalf of bertie sleeveen.

The Seanad has a few good senators, Shane Ross being probably head ans hsould er above the rest of the party hacks.
Apart from that the other notables would be Norris and Quinn.

Euro_Kraut

Biggins wrote: »

Yet another reason then to close the Seanad!

Reformed perhaps, but the whole upper house should not be closed down on account of Eoghan Harris.

Darsad

Heard that fool Noel Ahern defending O'Donoghue on Newstalk this morning
he actually had the cheek to say we were only copying the Uk by forcing out the chair . My god to come out publicly with such crap this man is as deluded if not more so than his triple jobbing bro.

Euro_Kraut

mike65 wrote: »

To be fair he stated all TD/Senator salaries should be cut 25% and that the whole system of expenses should be reformed rather than lusting after individual heads on sticks.

Of course he is right. But maybe we can do both - reform the expenses and get a few heads on sticks.

The whole expenses row is very convenient for journalists. Its far easier to write sensationalist articles on expense than actually analysis and comment upon the where they believe the €4billion worth of savings should be made in next months budget.

Darragh29

Joey the lips wrote: »

He has been very funny. He actually said that labour would not have done anything if sinn fein did not push them into it. It reminds me of the school boy

"He made me do it" rubbish.

But on a serious note, this is what is passing for effective and meaningful governance at the moment. We're wondering why the country is in the toilet and we need look no further than JOD and the other wasters like him who are p*ssed stupid on expenses and entitlement. These guys genuinely believe that they are entitled to this level of extravagance and renumeration.

Biggins

Euro_Kraut wrote: »

Reformed perhaps, but the whole upper house should not be closed down on account of Eoghan Harris.

No, not just because of him - but the whole useless bunch.
Its a waste of financial resources that is no longer need.
What practicable use does it now serve daily for the money it costs to keep its doors open!

Euro_Kraut

Biggins wrote: »

No, not just because of him - but the whole useless bunch.
Its a waste of financial resources that is no longer need.
What practicable use does it now serve daily for the money it costs to keep its doors open!

It provides a second oversight of legislation coming through the Oireachtas. They help iron out quirks in legislation. One example a few years back is the banning of opinion polls the 2 days before an election. Its was spotted in the Seanad that there was nothing to stop paper published a poll on the day of the election. The legislation was amended accordingly. The Seanad can also propose legislation (aside form Money Bills) that is brought into the Dail.

We have had some excellent Senator down through the years. David Norris, Shane Ross, Joe O’Toole and Mary Robinson spring to mind. It needs certainly needs reform but in principal it is a sound idea. Do you know how much it actually costs by the way?

Are their any modern democracies in the world that do not have an upper house?

juuge

Dear Mr Harris - O'Donoghue was caught! He's gone - Now Fkuc Off!

kmick

juuge wrote: »

Dear Mr Harris - O'Donoghue was caught! He's gone - Now Fkuc Off!

Well he is standing for election again and is likely to romp home. He may be gone for now but like Arnie he'll be back. He is the next Beverly Cooper Flynn.

Our man in Havana

Abolish the Taoiseach's nominees, the senate should not be a reward for FF has beens that loose their seats in a general election.

Biggins

I've no doubt we will see Mr Donaghue in there some day.
A reward for keeping his mouth shut maybe for not spilling the beans about others and their expenses.

Liam Byrne

kmick wrote: »

Well he is standing for election again and is likely to romp home. He may be gone for now but like Arnie he'll be back. He is the next Beverly Cooper Flynn.

Unfortunately he's NOT actually "gone for now", is he ? I mean, isn't he now an "ordinary" TD - like Ahern & Cooper-Flynn ?

And unfortunately, given the way FF operates, if Kerrymen do live up to it's stereotype reputation as a "joke", FF will probably reward them for their - ahem - "loyalty to de party :mad:" with ministerial position.

walshb

Joey the lips wrote: »

He has been very funny. He actually said that labour would not have done anything if sinn fein did not push them into it. It reminds me of the school boy

"He made me do it" rubbish.

That is actually a very good point that got little airtime. It was actually Sinn Fein who started the ball rolling on the resignation issue. Gilmore then jumped in and took over and got all the credit. But it was SF who first called for him to GO!

eigrod

walshb wrote: »

That is actually a very good point that got little airtime. It was actually Sinn Fein who started the ball rolling on the resignation issue. Gilmore then jumped in and took over and got all the credit. But it was SF who first called for him to GO!

About the only decent point the Kerry County Councillor on Morning Ireland today made was that this is the same Sinn Fein who milked the British Parliamentary second-home expenses system for nearly £500,000. I wonder why they took a back seat once they got the 'O' Donoghue out' ball rolling.

wasper

imme wrote: »

Sen Eoghan Harris is to be on Morning Ireland this morning defending John O'Donoghue. Can I be sick now please. Harris is a Taoiseach's nominee to the Seanad and has a compunction to defend the worst of Fianna Fail excess/incompetence.

I stopped listening to that moron long time ago.

imme

walshb wrote: »

That is actually a very good point that got little airtime. It was actually Sinn Fein who started the ball rolling on the resignation issue. Gilmore then jumped in and took over and got all the credit. But it was SF who first called for him to GO!

nobody listens to SF thankfully. I doubt Gilmore was following SF's lead.

imme

wasper wrote: »

I stopped listening to that moron long time ago.

he can be entertaining, I know that's not what he's being paid for though, like the time he was talking about Síle DeValera and was talking about her porcelain complexion.

Rebelheart

Biggins wrote: »

Yet another reason then to close the Seanad!

Oh my God, this makes me so sick! The Seanad should have been abolished decades ago. The fact that this Harris nutjob was appointed to it by Patrick Bartholomew Ahern as a thank you for ranting in his favour on the Late Late was a simple two fingers to the population from that Ahern person.

How apt that this Harris individual is "earning" his pay by defending yet more corruption, as he himself gets €100,000 in salary and expenses in his role as parasite/Senator in that pointless - utterly pointless - entity, made infinitely more pointless by his appointment to it. Lest we all forget, according to Mary McAleese it was Eoghan Harris and John Cadden who were in effect in control of RTÉ in the 1970s. His role there was marked by censoring his opponents and giving jobs to his supporters. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Disgusting to think of him feigning moral superiority over everybody for so long.

Rebelheart

Euro_Kraut wrote: »

Are their any modern democracies in the world that do not have an upper house?

Loads! A quick google of 'unicameralism' has this list of unicameral legislatures which are formed on a national basis (from wikipedia):


National

• The Azgayin Zhoghov of Armenia
• The Jatiyo Sangshad of Bangladesh
• The Narodno Sabranie of Bulgaria
• The National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China
• The Legislative Yuan of the Republic of China (Taiwan)
• The Sabor of Croatia
• The National Assembly of People’s Power of Cuba
• The House of Representatives of Cyprus
• The Folketing of Denmark
• The Parlamento Nacional of East Timor
• The Riigikogu of Estonia
• The Eduskunta of Finland
• The Vouli ton Ellinon of Greece
• The Congress of Guatemala
• The National Congress of Honduras
• The Országgyűlés of Hungary
• The Althing of Iceland
• The Parliament of Iran
• The Council of Representatives of Iraq
• The Knesset of Israel
• The Saeima of Latvia
• The Parliament of Lebanon
• The Landtag of Liechtenstein
• The Seimas of Lithuania
• The Sobranie of Republic of Macedonia
• The National Assembly of Mauritius
• The Skupština of Montenegro
• The Parliament of New Zealand
• The Storting of Norway (may divide into two chambers for some purposes)
• The Congreso de la República of Peru
• The Assembleia da República of Portugal
• The Parliament of Scotland (historic) until 1707
• The Narodna skupština of Serbia
• The National Assembly of Seychelles
• The Parliament of Singapore
• The Gukhoe of South Korea
• The Parliament of Sri Lanka
• The Riksdag of Sweden (since 1971)
• The Büyük Millet Meclisi of Turkey
• The Verhovna Rada of Ukraine
• The Pontifical Commission of Vatican City State
• The Asamblea Nacional of Venezuela

Go here for a list of non-national unicameral legislatures:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicameralism


I'm surprised at you on this, eurokraut. The work you mention which Seanad Éireann is doing is largely a duplication of the committee system, which itself was imported from the German system in the late 1960s and 1970s. This fact is rarely highlighted. Despite its failings and excesses, the committee system has a valuable role in society. Seanad Éireann does not. It is almost entirely a home for failed and rejected politicians, a place to reward people who have kept the party line or sided with particular people.