Crowe launches Sinn Féin’s Dublin South West Seanad Referendum campaign

Dublin South West Sinn Féin TD, Seán Crowe, took part in the launch of Sinn Féin’s Equality Not Elitism campaign, calling for a YES vote to abolish the Seanad.

Crowe launched the campaign with some of  Dublin South West Sinn Féin candidates for the 2014 local elections Sarah Holland, Louise Dunne and Fintan Warfield.

Speaking at the launch Deputy Crowe said:

“This referendum is hugely  important and I am calling on people to turn out in big numbers and vote YES to abolish the Seanad in the referendum on Friday 4 October.

“Sinn Féin’s supports abolishing  the Seanad because it represents a blatant inequality at the heart of the Irish political system.

“We know that the Seanad has failed to hold the Government and the Executive to account.

“In fact in the last two-and-a-half years, the Seanad has supported the government on every single occasion, including the introduction of the Property Tax, cuts to Disability Payments and the Promissory Note deal which is costing Irish tax payesr €30 billion.

“The Seanad has promoted political cronies and allies rather than ideas or vision of change. And Fianna Fáil, who now seek to preserve the same Seanad, is the party which has done the most to reinforce the perception of the Seanad as a hot house of cronyism.

“The most damning feature of the Seanad is the elitism, inequality and discrimination that is at its core.

“By restricting votes to an elite of those educated in a number of select colleges as well as City and County Councillors, the Seanad is anomaly in a modern democracy.

“There can be no place in a real republic, based on equality, for an elected office to which only a tiny percentage of the population have the right to vote.

“It runs in the face of the core principle that all citizens are equal. It is obviously wrong to most people that any elected office or  parliament would discriminate against its own  citizens based on where they were educated.

“Sinn Féin seeks to build a New Republic on this island based on inclusivity and  equality for all citizens. We want to see an end to privilege and elitism, and to the cronyism and the  influence of vested interests that have so damaged politics in this country.

“Fairness, democracy and equality of citizenship demand that the current Seanad be abolished. Sinn Féin is appealing to voters to get out and vote in this referendum on October 4th, to vote for change and Vote  Yes.”