Vocational panel

Lists of candidates for Seanad Éireann

A vocational panel (rolla gairm bheatha) is any of five lists of candidates from which are elected a total of 43 of the 60 senators in Seanad Éireann, the upper house of the Oireachtas (parliament) of Ireland. Each panel corresponds to a grouping of "interests and services" (professions or vocations) of which candidates are required to have "knowledge and practical experience". The panels are nominated partly by Oireachtas members and partly by vocational organisations. From each panel, between five and eleven senators are elected indirectly, by Oireachtas members and local councillors, using the single transferable vote. The broad requirements are specified by Article 18 of the Constitution of Ireland and the implementation details by acts of the Oireachtas, principally the Seanad Electoral (Panel Members) Act 1947, and associated statutory instruments.

The closing date for the nominating bodies subpanel is earlier than for the Oireachtas subpanel; political parties wait to see which of their candidates have secured nomination on an outside panel before deciding who to nominate on the inside panel. Parties generally try to distribute their most popular candidates across both panels to avoid falling foul of the minimum elected per subpanel rules. Since the electorate is small and mostly of known party allegiance, larger parties have a good idea of how many quotas they can secure on each panel; they will always nominate at least that many candidates, but typically not many more, for fear of losing out on a seat through "leakage" of transfers. Parties have tight control of the Oireachtas subpanel nominations; in 1997, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael nominees were selected mainly by the parliamentary party and partly by the party leader, whereas the Labour Party's were selected by its General Council, surprisingly omitting high profile ex TDs. Since the 1990s, smaller parties have engaged in voting pacts, each having a nominee on a different panel. Likewise, Gerard Craughwell successfully encouraged independents to support independents in 2016. The question is decided by the clerk of the Seanad, but may be referred by him, or appealed by the candidate, to a judge of the High Court appointed as "judicial referee". No further judicial review is permitted. The Seanad clerk argued that as the INTO was itself a nominating body on the Cultural and Educational Panel, that was the panel on which they would be qualified. Sinnott rejected a suggestion that she chose the Labour Panel because its returning 11 rather than 7 senators increased her chances of winning. In the 2020 Seanad election, Paul Hayes was excluded from the Agricultural Panel on the basis that, although he had the required "knowledge" of fishing, he lacked "practical experience"; Hayes suggested that with more time he could have supplied sufficient documentation to support his case.

The "completion of panels" occurs in public on a specified date after nominations close, when the clerk of the Seanad, assisted by the judicial referee, excludes invalid nomination papers and unqualified nominees, and allows candidates nominated on multiple panels or subpanels to select which one to go forward on. This creates a list of provisional subpanels. The minimum number of nominees for each subpanel is two plus the maximum number to be elected from the subpanel. If there are too few candidates on a provisional subpanel, the Taoiseach must nominate extra candidates to complete the panel. In the 1997 Seanad election, Bertie Ahern was obliged to nominate four candidates across three Oireachtas subpanels, none of whom polled well in the ensuing election. Whereas appointments directly to the Seanad must be by a Taoiseach elected after a Dáil general election, nomination of candidates to complete a panel may be by an acting Taoiseach. For example, in 2020 Leo Varadkar was acting Taoiseach after the Dáil election; in the ensuing Seanad election, Oireachtas members only nominated eight candidates to their subpanel of the Labour Panel, so Varadkar nominated one more to bring the total up to the minimum of nine.

In all panel elections postal voting is used. The clerk of the Seanad is the returning officer of the count, during which each ballot is given the value of 1,000 to aid the transfer of fractions of votes. The electoral college is the same for all of the vocational panels but varies between general and by elections. At a Seanad general election the voters are members of city and county councils, the newly elected Dáil and the outgoing Seanad; as of 2020 these number 949, 160, and 60 respectively, discounting any vacancies. At a by election the voters are the current members of the Dáil and Seanad. At a general election each panel is elected separately, the ballot listing nominees from both subpanels collated together in alphabetical order of surname. Voting is by the single transferable vote (STV), with the modification that a minimum number from each subpanel must be elected. The legislation requires the five panels' counts to be held consecutively rather than in parallel, which delays its completion. Campaigns are out of the public eye but hard fought, as candidates travel the country to meet in person with as many as possible of the voters, who as public representatives themselves engage deeply with the process. The processing of nominations and the posting out, receiving back, and counting of ballot papers requires close to the constitutional maximum of 90 days to complete. The redistribution of an elected candidate's surplus is done by transferring a fractional value of all their votes, rather the full value of a (random) fraction of their votes as is done in Dáil elections. The Seanad method is more accurate but considered too cumbersome to implement at Dáil elections, which have much larger electorates. By elections to fill a casual vacancy use instant runoff voting; if there are multiple vacancies on the same subpanel, separate parallel by elections are held instead of a single multiple seat STV by election. A by election must be called within 180 days of a vacancy arising. By election nominations are from the same subpanel as the departed senator; no body can nominate multiple candidates.

In practice, the vocational element is largely notional. The elaborate nomination and voting process is described as pointlessly complex. Because the electorate is restricted to elected representatives, political parties have a great influence in the nominations. Many panel candidates aspire to stand in the following Dáil election, including ex TDs and others defeated at the preceding Dáil election. Until the 1980s, candidates from the nominating bodies subpanels won the minimum permitted on each panel; this changed when bodies which had been nominating non politicians switched to nominating party politicians. In 1980 Roy C. Geary described as "ludicrous" the fact that the Royal Irish Academy routinely nominated its president for the time being onto the outside panel, despite knowing he would receive few votes, sometimes none at all. The ballot is secret, so no party whip can be applied to the voters; however, analysis of transfers shows a high degree of party cohesion. Candidates typically concentrate on canvassing independent councillors as floating voters. In the 2007 election from the Cultural and Educational Panel, because of the minimum seats per subpanel rule, Fine Gael's Terence Slowey was eliminated despite having more votes than Ann Ormonde of Fianna Fáil; the Irish Independent commented on the "arcane rules" and Fine Gael's "poor planning and failure to anticipate the strategy of the opposition". The by election limit of one nominee per body is most pertinent on the Labour panel, where there are only two nominating bodies: the ICTU, which is allied to the Labour Party, and the ICPSA. In a 1960 by election, ICTU nominee Edward Browne was returned unopposed. There was speculation before the 1998 by election that Fianna Fáil's plan to secure the ICPSA nomination would be stymied by the ICPSA affiliated Garda Representative Association's opposition to the Fianna Fáil led government's policies; but in the event John Cregan was nominated and won the seat. Seanad standing orders make no distinction between senators elected from a panel and other senators, or among different panels. For example, of the four senators on the Oireachtas joint committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine in 2017, only one had been elected from the Agricultural Panel; two were from other panels, while the fourth was a Taoiseach's appointee. John Counihan in 1942 tried unsuccessfully to organise a meeting of Agricultural Panel senators, which Basil Chubb noted as a unique event. While outgoing senators seeking re election keep to the same panel as a rule, there are exceptions; Andy O'Brien, Peter Lynch and Joe O'Reilly were each returned from three different panels in their careers. The fact that the electorate is composed mainly of officials elected in party political elections means the candidates they favour are also party political rather than vocationally oriented. Since the 2008 recession there has been an increased proportion of independent politicians elected at local and Dáil elections, which in turn has led to some independent senators returned from the panel elections since 2014;

Seanad reform proposals may be divided into those requiring amending the Constitution of Ireland via referendum, and those limited to amendment of statute law within the existing constitutional parameters. Those in the former group typically suggest abolishing the vocational aspect of the Seanad as ineffectual and based on outdated political thinking. Proposals in the latter group typically suggest altering the nomination process and the franchise. The 1958–59 Seanad Electoral Law Commission proposed changing the electorate for the outside subpanel from elected representatives to the nominating bodies. Opponents of such a change have suggested that, rather than replacing party politics with vocationalism in the Seanad, it would instead politicise the nominating bodies. The 2015 Manning report recommended that "the concept of vocational representation be retained but modernised", with 13 panel senators still elected on the current limited franchise, and the other 30 popularly elected. The 2018 report of the Seanad Reform Implementation Group was based on the Manning report but altered these numbers to 15 and 28. In both reports, all citizens over 18 could register either for one of the five nominating bodies subpanels or (if a graduate) for the university constituency, but not both.