Post by David Farrell (October 22 2011) Speaking at a roundtable on political reform last night that was organized by the Political Studies Association of Ireland, Minister Hogan said that details about the proposed constitutional convention will be confirmed within weeks of the presidential election. And, he made it clear that a citizens’ assembly would…
Post by David Farrell (October 17, 2011) Due to great interest from various organisations and individuals abroad, The Constitutional Society in Iceland has obtained and published an independent English translation of The Constitutional Bill delivered by The Constitutional Council 29 July 2011. This can be found here.
Post by David Farrell (October 17) This year’s PSAI takes place on October 21-23, in the Royal Irish Academy on the Friday and Newman House (Stephens Green) on the Saturday and Sunday. The over-arching theme of this year’s conference is “political reform in Ireland”. Details about the conference and how to register are available here.…
Post by David Farrell (September 29, 2011) Today’s Irish Times reports on a speech yesterday by (former leader of the Senate) Maurice Manning to Senators. This results from the Senate’s initiative to invite ‘outsiders’ onto the floor of the chamber to speak frankly to them. And by the looks of things Dr Manning’s comments were…
Post by David Farrell (September 17, 2011) Today’s Irish Times editorial draws attention to the preliminary findings from the Irish National Election Study (reported here) that Irish citizens appear to hold a very different view to most of our party leaders (and most prominent media commentators) about our single transferable vote electoral system.
Post by David Farrell (September 13, 2011) The Irish Times reports today (here) that the proposed constitutional amendment to reverse Abberylara — a move that was promised in the Programme for Government — was published yesterday. This will give Oireachtas committees the sort of scrutiny powers that are common in other democracies. The referendum on…
Post by David Farrell (August 16 2011) Today I received the awful news that my mentor, colleague and friend, Professor Peter Mair had passed away while on one of his regular family holidays in Ireland. He will be known to many readers of this blog for his writings and speeches on Irish politics (for a…
Post by David Farrell (August 13, 2011) As reported in earlier posts on this blog, this government has made some quite impressive progress on implementing the political reform proposals proposed in its Programme for Government. They’ve made a good start. But, arguably most of this has been the low-hanging fruit, the relatively easy targets. We’ve…
Post by David Farrell (August 2, 2011) Today’s Irish Independent has good coverage of the situation regarding expenses for TDs and Senators. The details of how the ‘unvouched’ system works is usefully explained here; and this article reports on just how much expense have been drawn down by certain members, showing that more than 20%…
Post by David Farrell (July 14 2011) Ireland is not alone in considering a reduction in the number of parliamentarians. In the UK the size of the House of Commons is to reduce from 650 to 600. In the Netherlands there is debate over possibly reducing their parliament by a third from 150 members to…
Irish Politics Forum 