By Gary Murphy Harry McGee the political correspondent of the Irish Times had a very interesting article in Saturday’s paper Irish political lobbying: who’s who and how does it work In it he notes that despite the current government pledging in its revised programme for government to introduce a register for lobbyists, so far there…
[Given to Political Reform in Ireland Conference, University College Cork, 26th March 2010] If the appetite for political reform emerged as a result of the economic crisis, then we should probably look at what caused the crisis. Power within the political system is centralised to government. It was government decisions that got us here, so…
Some interesting discussion in the Fruits and Votes blog, which among other things argues that my call for a smaller Dail is off the mark – http://bit.ly/dnDCDQ
by Michael Marsh, TCD Micheal Martin admitted on RTE today that an election now would devastate FF if current poll estimates proved to be accurate. At the same time, perhaps paradoxically, speculation about the likelihood of a collapse in the government’s Dáil support seems to have intensified. While Green support looks more firm as their…
[The following is an edited summary of my remarks to the Political Reform conference, hosted by University College Cork, March 26 2010.] It is good to see that political reform is now on the agenda of some of our political leaders. More and more people are calling for large-scale political reform, with an ever-growing list…
The reshuffle on Monday underwhelmed most observers, partly because Brian Cowen had given indications that there’d be a major overhaul of government. New faces would be introduced, old, tired names dropped and this would reinvigorate the government in the lead into the next election. There was supposed to be a new dawn. Reshuffles are not…
POLITICAL REFORM IN IRELAND Friday, 26th March 2010 Council Room, North Wing University College Cork Conference Programme 10.00 –10.15 Registration Tea and Coffee 10.15 – 10.30 Conference Opening Prof Neil Collins – University College Cork 10:30 –12:30: Session One Reform Please! Chair: Noel Whelan – The Irish Times Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr Dara Murphy…
The recent financial crisis and meltdown of the Irish economy has sharpened focus on the shape and operation of our political system. A long line of politicians, commentators and academics have now emerged, notably George Lee, Dan O’Brien (The Economist), Noel Whelan, Dr Garret FitzGerald and Professor Gary Murphy. UCC will extend the debate with…
A couple of things strike me about Fine Gael’s ‘New Politics’: 1. Much of the debate in the last few months concerning political reform has focused on two assumptions: (a) ‘Ireland is broken’ (taken from The Irish Times series on ‘Renewing the Republic’) and (b) the political institutions are responsible for this. While there is…
David Farrell The Fine Gael New Politics reform document deserves a close read. There may be details that any one of us might disagree with (e.g. why waste time voting to reduce the President’s term by two years?); there may be other issues we might have liked to have seen included that aren’t (e.g. the…
Irish Politics Forum 