Many people seem to believe that a cross party consensus on a four-year economic plan is a good thing. While agreement that the budget needs to brought back towards balance is positive, demanding agreement on the policies necessary to get there is nonsense. What we need is an election and a government that has a…
This has been mentioned in passing on this site before but perhaps it is worth its own thread given recent events. The Irish Times points out today that It is not just Fianna Fáil that has behaved badly over ethical legislation and transparency. Because political donations below a certain limit do not have to be…
Elsewhere on this site the full text of Lucinda Creighton’s speech to Magill is produced. However, there are no comment faculties there and given the importance of some of what she said I thought I would link it here for comments. She is obviously disillusioned but makes some interesting points. In particular she points to…
Eoin O’Malley takes Dr Ed Walsh to task for his call to reform the electoral system. Essentially he argues if we want to reform the political system we need to rebalance power within the political system. We need to enable greater scrutiny of government to allow the opposition and backbenchers do their job. The public…
The Irish Times reports that Fianna Fail is completing a submission to feed into the Government’s promised White Paper on local government reform. The report indicates that there is some disagreement among the Coalition partners as to the importance of mayors with Fianna Fail preferring less executive powers. There is also some discussion on amalgamating…
One half of last night’s RTE Aftershock programming was devoted to political reform, with both commentators calling for a new constitution to replace Bunreacht na hÉireann. In essence Dan O’Brien of the Economist Intelligence Unit argued that PR-STV ought to be replaced by a list system (he did not specify whether that should be open…
Here is an article from the Irish Times today outlining what we have all long suspected that senior Irish cabinet ministers indulge in a peculiarly Irish form of pork barrel, directing funds at their home constituencies. Voters are assumed to vote for candidates who have a good chance of becoming a minister in order to…
The Irish Times series continues with a thoughtful article from documentary maker Nuala O’Connor. Much of the reaction has so far been a call to offer solution. O’Connor specifically mentions the 1919 Democratic Programme. An interesting exercise could be to compose a similar document relevant to the 21st century?
The Irish Times has begun a series on political reform with the underlying premise of renewing the Republic. MacConghail writing in the Irish Times points the finger firmly at political culture and recommends primarily the reform of local government. A wider look at how the Cabinet is actually composed may also bear fruit. Ireland is…
Irish Politics Forum 