Thank you. Irish affection for the ‘cute hoor’ dates back to colonial times. “The Irish RM”, by Somerville and Ross, is the ‘locus classicus’. There seems to be this lingering belief that if the ‘cute hoor’ does well he’ll benefit others – ot that the emulation of his sharp practice will advance people’s interests. In any event, he provides great entertainment and material for gossip and tall rales. It appears it will take a long time before a majority of the irish population will be convinced that ‘cute hoorism’ is ‘negative-sum’ game.

It looks like we’re shaping up for a conflict between Official Ireland and the many ‘insiders’ it protects – represented by FG, FF and Labour – and those on the ‘outside’ – increasing rapidly in numbers and being represented by SF and the hard left.

Some Labour TDs are not unaware of the pitfalls. The Labour Party chair presents a disingenuous justification for, at least, some in Labour taking up the cudgels on behalf of some of the ‘outsiders’ (in today’s IT). He might be more convincing if his seat was not at serious risk following the decision to cut the number of TDs and if he were a bit more convinced about the primacy of the Dail in addressing and resolving these conflicts.

The only question that remains is whether the established parties will recognise the ‘writing on the wall’ and change tack before the next election or decide to hunker down and hope to weather the coming storm.

My money is on the latter. The overwhelming pressure is on FG and Labour to hang together rather than be hanged separately. FF will hedge its bets, behave in its usual opportunistic fashion and hope that it will secure more seats than SF at the next general election.

Until then I’m afraid we’ll have to sit and watch the social divides expand and become more glaring while the domestic economy sinks in to the mire.

I see where you’e coming frm, but, as an economist I tend to fall back on good old demand and supply. TDs are purveyors of representation and governance. It’s up to them to develop better offers. Voters rightly cherish their ultimate power to choose. But the revealed problem is the nature of representation and governance between elections. However, voters are still stuck with the choices put before them.

If the three main established parties stick to their current tack there is a stronmg possibility that SF will refine its combination of populist, atavistic, isolationist nationalism (which tends to be the preserve of the extreme, xenophobic, unhinged right in other EU member-states) and emply, but potentially dangerous, hard left rhetoric to give the established parties a bit of a drubbing and secure power at the next general election with some other fellow-travellers.

In my view, the possibility of this outcome is the only thing that will force the established political class to offer better representation and governance. The risk of the loss of power is the only incentive they understand.

However, it needs only one informed, clued-in and articulate individual to get the ball rolling in the right direction – as highlighted in the movie “Twelve Angry Men”.

Even if this doesn’t happen, in this age of instant and widespread communication, all 66 will have contact with people outside the process. I expect the Government will try to impose all sorts of secrecy and confidentiality constraints.