The end of the Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and National University of Ireland (NUI) panels in the Seanad is likely to be approved by the Cabinet on Tuesday, with legislation due to be tabled in the Dáil in the coming weeks.
It will mean the end of the three Trinity and three NUI senators and their replacement by a six-person panel elected by all graduates of Irish higher education institutions. If approved by Ministers on Tuesday as expected, the Government will bring forward the Bill to end the present system in October.
However, the changes will not come into effect for the next general election – meaning that the next Seanad will be the last to have the Trinity and NUI panels. The changes, extending the franchise to several hundreds of thousands of graduates of other institutions, will not be applied until the following Seanad election – which may not be until 2030.
The reform of the university panels has long been promised by successive governments, after a referendum in 1979 authorised the extension of the Seanad franchise to other higher education institutions beyond just TCD and the old NUI colleges of University College Dublin, University College Cork, the University of Galway and Maynooth University.
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But that referendum was never legislated for, and in a case take to the Supreme Court by a former University of Limerick student in 2023, the Government was given until next May to reform the university panels.
The Government’s solution is to abolish the current two university panels, which see three senators elected by Trinity graduates and three by NUI graduates, and to replace them with one panel which will see six senators elected by graduates of all designated institutes of higher education in the Republic. Graduates of universities in Northern Ireland will not be included in the new expanded electorate, it is understood.
The university senators have been among the highest profile members of the upper house, with people like Mary Robinson, David Norris and the late Feargal Quinn among their number. The electorate for the new six-seat constituency will be vast, with thousands of graduates from the older universities, the newer universities in DCU and Limerick, the new technological universities and other institutions recognised by law and by the Higher Education Authority in 2022 legislation, all entitled to register to vote.
The Cabinet meets on Tuesday with just three weeks to go until Budget 2025, as the Coalition parties compete with each other to set out their stalls for what is expected to be a large pre-election giveaway.
Tánaiste Micheál Martin on Monday said he was “surprised” at a Fine Gael proposal to increase stamp duty for bulk purchases of houses by investment funds saying it would have been “sensible” to wait for the outcome of a review of the issue being conducted by the Department of Finance.
The thinly-veiled criticism from the Fianna Fáil leader came after junior minister for finance Neale Richmond suggested at the weekend that the 10 per cent stamp duty charge for such purchases should be doubled.
The Government voted down a Sinn Féin proposal to increase the rate earlier this year, though Taoiseach Simon Harris denied his party was making U-turn on the policy.
Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman said his party would be seeking a social welfare bonus of €560 for parents of newborn babies, quadrupling the first child benefit payment.
Budget negotiations between the Minister for Finance and Minister for Public Expenditure, Jack Chambers and Paschal Donohoe, are continuing behind the scenes but it will be closer to the October 1st budget date before final policy decisions are made.
Mr Chambers will also brief the Cabinet on the ruling by the European Court of Justice in the long-running Apple tax case which is expected to be delivered on Tuesday morning.
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