By David Farrell (June 21, 2010) The following letter appeared in today’s Irish Times: Madam, – On behalf of sixth class girls of Scoil Phádraic Cailíní, we would like to put forward some ideas about children having a say in political matters. After a debate in class we began to realise we would have to…
Today’s Sunday Independent provides some skimpy details of a fresh survey by Quantum research. Unfortunately, they have not provided much if any details, apart from that the sample size was 500 respondents. The main issue that is assessed is what the voters think of likely alternatives to Cowen and Kenny.
Details of today’s Irish Times/Ipsos Mori poll can be seen here. Quite a shift since the last Red C poll, discussed in a previous posting. Even allowing for the usual issues of margins of error and different polling methodologies, this is a dramatic result for Labour and not the best of news for Fine Gael…
The clock is ticking on when the long-awaited by-elections will be held. Donegal South West has had a vacant Dail seat since Pat ‘the Cope’ Gallagher was elected MEP in June 2009, while Dublin South has been open since being vacated by George Lee in February 2010 and Waterford since Martin Cullen stepped down in…
Post by Michael Marsh In his Irish Times column today Vincent Browne once again called on the Labour Party to form an alliance with the forces of the left and create a real alternative to the centrist and right of centre governments we have seen in Ireland in the past. Analysis of the weakness of…
In the various debates on the media, on twitter and on blogs like this there has been much call for specifics, for real practical suggestions on reforms that could be implemented without the need for full scale referendum debates over constitutional reform. To that end, those of us involved in making regular contributions to this…
Strong stuff from Elaine Byrne and Fintan O’Toole in today’s Irish Times. The latter berates the Irish people for lacking the ‘political viagra’ necessary to push through true political reform; whereas the former throws a punch directly at blogs such as this for ‘pouring cold water’ on the question of fundamental constitutional overhaul. Fair points?…
In today’s Irish Times (http://bit.ly/azsuil) Labour leader, Eamon Gilmore provides more detail about his proposal for a Constitutional Convention: “Labour’s proposal is that we should convene a 30-member constitutional convention with an open mandate. Ten of its members would be drawn from the Oireachtas, 10 from non-governmental associations and organisations, and 10 ordinary citizens selected…
In today’s Irish Times John Rogers is the latest to propose electoral reform as the solution to all our woes. The gist of his proposed new system is as follows: “Let’s assume a Dáil of, say, 120 deputies. Let us arbitrarily, for the sake of discussion, divide that membership into two groups. The first comprises…
With the British media all dewy-eyed over yesterday’s Rose Garden love fest, some of the more interesting details in the Conservative/LibDem coalition agreement have slipped by largely unnoticed, particularly those relating to electoral and political reform (summarized in an earlier posting on this site) – one or two of which are worth considering here. The…
Irish Politics Forum 