There is a virtually infallible rule of thumb regarding elections to Seanad Eireann. It deems that, of all the citizens in the nation, the only ones whom we should never select as senators are those people who put themselves forward for Senate selection.
Ivana Bacik, a candidate for one of the three Dublin University (Trinity College) seats in this year s Seanad elections, is a rare exception. A 29-year-old law professor, barrister, feminist, socialist and civil rights campaigner, the woman is so self-evidently unsuited to life among the pompous, prattling, self-promoting windbags of the Upper House that she deserves to win by a landslide.
Ivana first came to national prominence in 1989 when, as president of Trinity Students Union, she was one of four student leaders taken to court by SPUC for providing information on all pregnancy options including abortion. That pregnant mother of all battles was only finally resolved in February of this year with a Supreme Court ruling which effectively decreed that the injunction brought by SPUC against the students was unlawful.
Much to the relief of the students unions involved, the enormous costs of the mammoth seven-and-a-half-year case were divided between themselves and SPUC thus averting what would have been certain financial ruin for the students unions.
More recently, Ivana has been associated with a variety of feminist causes and campaigns. She is a member of the Labour party and sits on the executive of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties. A practising barrister, she specialises in legal-aid criminal defence work. Six weeks ago, she represented Olaf Tyaransen and Tim Murphy, of the Cannabis Legalisation Party, at their Leinster House appeal against the Registrar s decision to deny them official party status. She did so without charging a fee for her services.
So, precisely why does an intelligent, committed political-activist, with a track record of genuine achievement, want to become a member of a discredited, irrelevant, toothless old boys club like the Senate?
I really only decided that I wanted to become a senator because so many female Labour TDs lost their seats in the general election, Ivana asserts. There is a great unbalance there now that I feel should be addressed, even at Senate level.
There are a lot of problems with the Senate and the way it s constituted, such as the fact that there aren t direct elections for most of the Senate positions. The university Senate seats are different because there s more of a campaign, there s more interest.
But I don t think the voting should be confined to university graduates. I think it should be extended, at the very least, to other third-level institutions, the new universities and the RTCs. And perhaps we should look at direct voting for other Senate seats. The Taoiseach s nominees, for example, are a bit of a joke. There s nothing electoral or democratic about that.
Ivana shares the popular perception that the Seanad is little more than a talking shop, but she doesn t accept that talking shop is necessarily a pejorative term.
You could level the same accusation at any upper house anywhere, she insists. At least, people don t get into the Senate on the basis of birth, like they do in the House of Lords. There is a merit to having a talking shop where you re putting forward views that are more diverse and represent minorities. The Senate can make amendments and that s an important power.
The university seats have formed in the past, and they do form now, a platform for people to put forward views that aren t being put forth in the Dail. Even William Binchy (another Senate candidate on the University panel) now; his views aren t put forward in the Dail. These seats provide a useful platform in that way. I don t think we should abolish the Senate. I just think we should democratise it further.
If elected, Ivana Bacik will primarily focus her Seanad contributions on feminist campaigns and issues relating to quality and choice in education, especially in terms of increased access to university education. As a lecturer in criminal law at Trinity, she has been instrumental in the establishing of a new scholarship system which, each year from 1997 onwards, will offer three Law School places to students from disadvantaged schools in inner-city Dublin, Tallaght and Inchicore. The scholarship has been funded by the Bar Council and contributions from individual law graduates.
It was quite difficult to get the idea approved by the Law School itself at first but now we hope it will be followed up in other departments, she says. Almost all the students within Trinity are drawn from the middle classes. I m all in favour of the CAO merit system, but we must remember that that masks an underlying discrimination, against the people who can t afford special grinds or to repeat exams endlessly.
A Senator Bacik would also do all in her power to bring some sanity to the ongoing criminal justice debate, in the teeth of the Zero Tolerance histrionics.
We need a more streamlined reform of criminal law, she argues. It s very ad hoc at the moment. It s really difficult keeping up with all the new legislation on criminal law. And yet, none of it necessarily fits in with the old legislation. The Bail Act was an example of this.
The current attitude is to slap in a new act, paper over the cracks and ignore the fundamental problems within the system. Anyone who has spent any time in the court will know that the system is just breaking down. It doesn t work anymore. There s so much inefficiency, so much injustice going on at a very low level.
If Ivana had been speaking in the Senate the morning after Charles Haughey s testimony at the McCracken Tribunal, what would she have said?
It s clear that he was lying all along, she declares. It s clear that some action has to be taken against him. There s a huge amount of cynicism about it. I don t think anyone expects him really to be dragged through the courts in the way that, for example, John Gilligan was, and to be investigated by the Criminal Assets Bureau. People are cynical about that, and rightly so.
I do think that he should be made to pay at least part, if not the majority, of the costs of the Tribunal and he should be made to face his tax liabilities. That s the very minimum that should come out of this.
Even if that meant Charlie having to sell up his house and his land?
Oh, that would be very sad, for him, Ivana laughs. I think there is a changing attitude in this country towards major fraud. That s exemplified by the way in which the Criminal Assets Bureau have been seizing assets and property on suspicion that it s been gained through criminal activity. We haven t yet had a suggestion that Haughey s house, and so on, was bought through criminal activity, although it s a fine line if he was evading tax which itself is criminal. We are now being tougher on people who, in the past, have gotten away with major fraud. We should be just as strict with Haughey.
Ivana s unusual surname is of Czechoslovakian origin. Her father s family emigrated to Ireland from what is now the Czech Republic when he was still a child and he spent his formative years in Waterford. Ivana herself has been an Irish citizen from birth and lived with her parents in London and Cork before moving to Dublin.
Ivana s greatest political influence is her mother. My Mum was involved in the women s movement in Cork when I was growing up, she recalls. I remember her giving out condoms on the Cold Quays in the 70s. I always thought of myself as being feminist and socialist but the first time I got actively involved was when I came to college and joined the Women s Group and what was a very left-wing Labour student party.
In keeping with University Senate Panel convention, Ivana is standing as an independent and not as a member of the Labour party. Though she is convinced that Labour didn t achieve as much as it should have in coalition government, she believes that the party did make a positive difference, and she has thus far withstood attempts by some of her radical left friends to persuade her to quit the organisation.
Ideally, I d still like to see us taking a more principled stance against coalition, she affirms. But I don t see there being an alternative to Labour for young radicals, a real alternative. That s a problem with our system, that the left isn t strong or organised enough to be radical.
I know a lot of radicals within the Labour party and within Democratic Left. That s really the only space for them, other than the far-left such as the Socialist Workers. I have friends in the Socialist Workers and I respect their views. But I don t think, in terms of really affecting change, that there is any route other than through the Labour party. It is still the party of the trade union movement. It s still got the historical roots in working-class politics that no other party has.
Much has been made of the fact that Ivana Bacik is the current Reid Professor in Criminal Law and Criminology at Trinity College, a post previously held by Mary Robinson. It was Mary Robinson too who represented Bacik and the other students in the early stages of their legal struggle with SPUC. Does Ivana see her own career following a similar trajectory to that of President Robinson?
I don t think so, Ivana smiles. I like my memory of Mary Robinson from when she used to teach in Trinity. She lectured me briefly, in sea law. She was a very formidable woman. I remember her in court and she was incredibly impressive when she was taking our case, very tuned into the political reality. She had a slightly abrupt manner as a lecturer and as a lawyer but I didn t find her aloof as some say they did. You d see these flashes of humour and warmth.
As our lawyer, she was great on that first day we went into the High Court, in October 89. She d told us to pack our bags before we went in because we might be going straight into jail after that. I remember my Mum in tears that morning. It was all very fraught and very tense. As it happened, the hearing went on for a couple of days, and the judge recommended that it be referred to Europe and found that the evidence against us wasn t enough to find us in contempt of court. That was the most intense time of a very intense year.
Would Ivana like to be a TD one day?
I don t know if I would like a political career. The main difficulty for me would be that you d have to toe a party line. Independent TDs have more freedom but, at the end of the day, the Dail is run along party lines.
Does she ever envy her law school contemporaries who are already raking in the big bucks by plying their trade at Tribunals and the like?
No, I don t, Ivana Bacik retorts emphatically. I ve never been interested in commercial law and that s where the big money tends to be. Criminal law and employment law and public interest law are the areas I m interested in, in particular. They don t pay well, generally, but they re much more interesting, to my mind. I wouldn t happy or fulfilled in any way doing the more lucrative forms of law. I don t have any huge ambitions to own Inishvickillaune. n