A topic that emerged rather unexpectedly from the We the Citizens event that I attended in June was the importance of civic education. At my table, the argument for focusing attention on this topic was that citizens need to be politically well-informed in order to understand the powers of political offices and the consequences of …
Two weeks ago, it was reported in a post on this site that Second Republic, an independent citizens’ group campaigning for political reform (which we are both involved in), was preparing a detailed proposal for a process of citizen-led political reform in Ireland. The group has today released a draft of their proposal for public comment and…
Jane Suiter This move towards open government may arguably be the biggest piece of political reform that this Government has undertaken and yet they have made little of it. Yesterday, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform launched a new databank, improving access to data on public expenditure back to 1994. For now only very…
Adrian Kavanagh, 22 June 2011 The latest edition of the Irish Independent-Millward Brown Lansdowne series of opinion polls almost mirrors last month’s Red C-Sunday Business Post-Red C opinion poll and offers very good news for Fine Gael whose support levels are seen to stand at 5-6% higher than the levels attained in February’s general election. Applying my constituency level…
Very interesting article from Shane Ross on Sunday about his perspective on the ‘contest’ for the PAC chairmanship. If you didn’t get to read it, I’d suggest following the link for a look. This is a story that went relatively unnoticed in the Irish weekend radio/newspaper coverage that I picked up from Amsterdam, but it…
By Jane Suiter The Government is now 100 days in office, a date by which it stated it would have achieved significant reforms. Eyes have of course been on the economy but what is its record in political reform? The Programme for Government promised reform in a number of area including parliamentary reform, a broader…
From Jane Suiter The new Dáil committees made their first appearance today as reported here and here. The government is flagging its reform and ministers have been keen to stress that this will be a new era for committee powers. If this were true it would be excellent. We know through the work of Niamh Hardiman…
By Oliver Moran A surprising aspect of the debate on political reform over the past few months is that discussion has been not only on the question of what needs to change but also on how we are to answer that question. It is possibly a consequence of the seriousness of the situation that we…
Just noticed a piece in the Irish Times yesterday . It appears that the senior mandarins in Finance are once again to dictate the pace of top level pay across the public and civil service. In the last round of negotiations the mandarins held out to be omitted from the cap and it now looks as if…
In recent days there have been reports of widespread nepotism continuing with Irish political parties. assistants and drivers who are family members. Some of those involved have justified this by citing the involvement of those given the work in electoral work over a number of years. The Oireachtas spokesman told Joe Duffy today that all…
Irish Politics Forum 