FAR be it from me to take Enda Kenny’s side in anything if it can be avoided, but isn’t Fianna Fáil making a bit too much hay, still, from the Seanad referendum result?

This week, children’s minister Frances Fitzgerald made one or two respectful remarks about the Upper House, which inspired FF to bleat, yet again, that the whole abolition business was a personal crusade on the Taoiseach’s part.

Has Fianna Fáil forgotten that the referendum was defeated by only 42,500 votes? It calls to mind the luckless half of the American population who spent eight years being falsely accused of having elected George W Bush. More than 600,000 people were against Enda’s Seanad “crusade”, but just under 600,000 were with him on it. Not exactly a solo run.

Published in the Irish Mail on Sunday, 29 December 2013