David Farrell (July 22, 2010) The Joint Committee launched its long-anticipated final report (relating to its deliberations over the electoral system) earlier today — running at over 200 pages, with 29 recommendations. There is lots to pick through, but for me the main headlines are the following: The establishment of a Citizen’s Assembly to consider…
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…
David Farrell (July 17, 2010) A letter in today’s Irish Times calls for debate about political renewal: Madam, – Now that the members of the Dáil and Seanad have gone to the beaches and the races, discussion of public affairs moves to the summer schools, where participants listen to the great and the good in…
Posted by Eoin O’Malley (15 July, 2010) Even if there is no inquiry into the events leading to the decision on the Bank Guarantee Scheme, the Dáil Public Accounts Committee release of many of the relevant documents today, should allow us to draw some conclusions about the adequacy of the process, information etc. The documents…
Vincent Browne’s article in today’s Irish Times takes up a familiar theme; typically described as the institutional ‘weakness’ of the Oireachtas, or as Browne puts it rather more forcefully, the idea that the Oireachtas ‘plays no meaningful role in our society’. In many ways, this is the flip side of the debate on the electoral…
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…
Eoin O’Malley (6th July, 2010) Little attention is given in today’s papers to Brian Lenihan’s appearance before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service yesterday. There he answered questions on the proposed Commission of Investigation into the banking crisis and in doing so made some statements on how he sees his ministerial responsibility.
David Farrell, July 5, 2010 In a letter in today’s Irish Independent, a correspondent writes of how the “obsessive behaviour” of Mr Gormley: “has become more than just an embarrassment to the Government, it has become a dangerous impediment to this country’s economic recovery and the creation of much-needed jobs. Along with business leaders, United…
The Summer School will analyse the political, economic and administrative systems that have allowed our economy to be brought to its knees and will propose solutions. The nature and structures of our parliamentary democracy and our political culture will come under particular scrutiny.
Eoin O’Malley (28 June 2010) The decision to review the advice and structures of the Department of Finance is to be welcomed (see Eddie Molloy and Dan O’Brien on this here and here). It is pretty obvious that the department lacks the capacity to give good advice to ministers, and that it was careful never to give…
Irish Politics Forum 