I hope and trust that all
of the Galway Senators, Fidelma Healy Eames, Lorraine Higgins, Hildegarde
Naughton and Trevor Ó'Clochartaigh will support my five point plan for reform of Ireland’s second
parliamentary chamber, which the Irish people, of whom I am one, today
heroically voted not to abolish.
I propose that the next step in the
democratic revolution on which we have embarked should be to radically reform
the Seanad in the following five obvious ways.
(1) As of 2016, 50% of the members of the Seanad must be
Nigerian taxi drivers.
(2) 25% of Senators must be people from the
Midlands because, let's face it, they have a terrible time and no one gives a
shit what they think.
People from the Midlands
(3) The final 25% should be made up of sex
offenders whose contribution to our national life has long gone unrecognised.
Father Ivan Payne
(4) The membership of
the Seanad will be immediately increased from the current 60 to 120.
(5) The salary paid to
members of the Seanad will, as of Easter 1916, be increased by 50%, with
further incremental increases of 25% each April after that.
I am hoping that a
national consensus of the great, the worthy and the talkative will now form
around these sensible proposals.
A worthy person
A talkative person
And now I'd ask you to all stand, or if it makes
you feel better, lie down for Amhrán na bhFiann.
In my poem I Am Ireland, a contemporary reinterpretation of Pádraig Pearse's original 'Mise Éire', I imagine Ireland not as it could be, but as it actually is.
To read the poem, click on the link at I Am Ireland and scroll down very slightly.
