Search Results for 'Upper House'

Galway is set to become the battleground for an internecine struggle over who will be elected chair of the Labour Party this month as both the party’s Galway TDs - Derek Nolan (Galway West) and Colm Keaveney (Galway East) are understood to be touting for support among their parliamentary colleagues.

In what may be the last Seanad, Galway senator

We have been here before. We said never again would standards be so lax. And yet here we are. The Cloyne Report this week drew attention to how as a Republic we have yet to stamp the State’s supreme authority over the affairs of our citizens. But reaction to its publication – and in particular Government reaction – suggests that we are moving to a position where the State is flexing its muscle as primary carer of the Nation in matters regarding child welfare and our education system. Mandatory reporting is on the way.

Austerity, reform, what do these words mean? Check out Roscommon Hospital.

The GAA is a fine example of an organisation not afraid of change; not afraid to invest in a world class stadium; brave to modify some of their historical tenets to reflect a changed world. The club and county structure provide a fantastic means to relay back to HQ what is happening on the ground. If rules of the game need to be changed, after proposals, discussion and a vote, they are changed, the sport no less engaging. Politics should pay heed.

After witnessing the elevation of his protégé, Robert Troy to the Dail last month, the 29-year political career of Castlepollard businessman Donie Cassidy ended this week in bittersweet fashion after he failed in his efforts to be returned to the 24th Senate.

The only outgoing Mayo candidate in the Seanad elections, Senator Paddy Burke, was re-elected to the 24th Seanad — and the potentially last in its current form — this week on the agricultural panel. Sen Burke was one of the 11 candidates from 28 to pick up a seat.

Galway and the west of Ireland will have voices in the new Seanad Éireann that will campaign and use all the powers it can to represent the concerns and fears of the people, and make the Seanad relevant to Irish political life, so say the county’s newest senators.

Alice Mary Higgins, daughter of Labour president Michael D Higgins, has announced that despite much speculation, she is not running in the Seanad elections.

Seanad Éireann - a retirement home for politicians on the way out, a nursery for aspiring TDs, a powerless talking shop with an inbuilt Government majority, an undemocratically elected chamber, and the most pointless entity in Irish politics - the Upper House of the Oireachtas is all of these.