Is a Nationalist Breakthrough Into the Seanad Possible?
Many people don’t have a clue how the Seanad works, what its purpose is, or how it’s elected. The Seanad is an oddly constructed chamber of the Irish legislature, drawing inspiration partly on Italian corporatism and Catholic ideas about vocational representation in politics to promote class-collaboration. The Seanad is aptly regarded as a body which exists for runners-up from the general election and wind-bags from Trinity College and the NUI colleges.
But with the recent (small but important) right-wing breakthrough at the local elections in June 2024, there may now be a new potential for the election of right-wing senators.
Each incoming TD, outgoing TD and Senator, and sitting councillor in the country gets to vote in each of the six vocational panels for the Seanad. This election is usually held a couple weeks after the conclusion of a general election. By current tallies, there are:
3 Independent Ireland TDs
23 Independent Ireland councillors
6 Rural Independent Group TDs (including two from Independent Ireland).
1 Aontú TD
8 Aontú councillors
2 right-wing independent senators (Mullen and Keogan)
5 nationalist councillors
Probably scores of conservative-inclined councillors, mostly independents, but some FF/FG.
I appreciate this is a fairly broad sweep of politicians, but each is somewhat on the ‘Right’ of politics. They’re mostly all somewhat pro-life, critical of mass-immigration, anti-‘woke’, etc.
Given the candidates who contest Seanad elections are normally such a miserable lot for a right-wing or populist voter, it should be entirely possible to field a right-of-centre candidate with the expectation they’d win 45 first preferences from the above list. For the purposes of the Seanad election, a single vote is recorded as 1,000. Transfers also matter a lot, and because of the somewhat arcane system, surpluses can be redistributed into fractions of votes – strangely.
A voter-friendly centre-right candidate could expect then to win 45,000 first preferences, and to pick up a considerable degree of transfers as they get some support from more conservative independent councillors and disgruntled conservatives from the big parties.
The ideal candidate needs to be someone who’s attractive enough to this quite broad constituency. It’d probably be someone who’s a sitting councillor, an independent, and not seen as too divisive. The Agricultural Panel would probably be a good choice for someone standing on a right-wing ticket, as the only person currently soaking up that vote is Victor Boyhan – the south Dublin Protestant who is very low profile among the ordinary public, but is a hail-fellow-well-met character within the Oireachtas. Sitting Fianna Fáil senator Eugene Murphy was elected in 2020 for this panel, having started off on 44,(000) first preferences.
It's quite realistic that someone like Cllr Noel Thomas could become a senator on the Agricultural Panel after the next general election, if he isn’t elected as a TD that is. This isn’t to say that genuine right-wing nationalists would be elated by the election of such a person, but it would be a better option than wasting the votes that the newly minted nationalist councillors have.
Nationalists need to be thinking about incremental breakthroughs, shifting the narrative in small but significant ways, and using the (new) tools at their disposal. A conscious Seanad strategy to elect a centre-right populist to the Seanad, and targeting one or two well-chosen panels as more realistic than others (e.g. Cultural and Education has only 5 seats and is a bunfight, so it’s unrealistic anyone would get elected there with a base of 45 votes).