It would be perfectly reasonable for Mark Duffy to consider himself to be on the first rung of the ladder to Dáil Éireann following his success in the just-completed Seanad elections. By and large, the Seanad is widely regarded as the warming-up area for eventual election to the main chamber of government; one need look no further for confirmation than to note that half of those elected to the Upper House had tried for, but failed, to reach the Dáil. So the Ballina man has precedents aplenty to look to as he sets his sights on higher things.
Time was when the Seanad was an arcane, half-secret, comparatively genteel institution that commanded little public attention and where the general public would be hard pressed to name any of its members or try to explain what functions they performed. But hard-nosed politics has taken over, and the main parties now look to the Seanad as a training ground for promising novices who are on their way up in the political world. (Occasionally, of course, the Seanad is used as a soft landing for those whose days in senior hurling are over and who are enjoying a last summer before........

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