No More An Seanaid

Arnold Layne

Seeing how a waste of space, who presided over the water fiasco in Galway a few years ago, and couldn't get elected to Galway City Council has been made a member of An Seanaid; this shows how corrupt the establishment is and the Seanaid should be abolished. It has been shown up as being a fall back for failed politicians and this has highlighted it.

Now we have a new Green Senator that represents no-one but his own agenda and the agenda of some members of the GP.

Its time for An Seanaid to go. It holds no more relevance to Irish Society than compensating former TDs & Councillors who need a parachute payment

dfbemt

Fully agree with all you've said OP but what about Shane Ross and David Norris?

I stay up every night to watch Oireachtas Report in case either of them are on. Pure panto.

Reason #2,984 for it to go.

Go on and play your golf lads

gurramok

Well ardent FF supporter Eoghan Harris is a member appointed by his master's voice. Enough said. Ross is good, a lone voice.

I among the vast majority of the population have ZERO say in who sits on the Senate so abolish this talking shop straight away.

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Arnold Layne wrote: »

Seeing how a waste of space, who presided over the water fiasco in Galway a few years ago, ...

You might want to look into how local Government actually operates here. Essentially it is divided into 2 functions - the Executive headed by the County Manager and the Representative which are the local Councillors.

The local Councillors are there to represent you - in other words they can complain a lot - but they have very little authority to actually make the County Manager to do anything if he/she doesn't want to. The County Manager on the other hand is close to all powerful (A slight over-simplification but not by much).

As such, responsiblity for the water fiascos around the country rests almost invariably with the County Managers. Typically these problems have arisen as a result of under-investment over a period of years. Galway, if I remember rightly, was using a water plant designed to treat water for a population almost half of what it was actually serving (i.e. it was operating way over capacity).

As such blaming any individual Councillor for such a fiasco is almost invariably wrong. It is particularly the case in Galway where the Greens held 1 seat out of 15 on the City Council and 0 on the County Council and, hence, were in no position to force through a solution to this issue even if the Councillors did have the power to do so, which they don't.

The position of Mayor is essentially a cermonial one which changes hands every year on most councils. If there were any real power attached to it, there is absolutely no way the parties would operate such a system. Instead, they'd go out of their way to make sure it was their man/woman who got and held the seat for the duration of the council's term.

Dr Galen

gurramok wrote: »

Well ardent FF supporter Eoghan Harris is a member appointed by his master's voice. Enough said. Ross is good, a lone voice.

I among the vast majority of the population have ZERO say in who sits on the Senate so abolish this talking shop straight away.

abolish or reform?

Sizzler

How did this guy get into the seanad