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…
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…
Just a quick post to provide some findings from the survey of members (follow link for complete details) in the previous Dáil discussed on last night’s Frontline. Basically, there are no such things as social/political ‘facts’. But when it comes to the ‘role of a TD’ debate – it’s nice to have some evidential basis…
NOTES ON PROPOSALS FOR POLITICAL REFORM MADE AT SEMINAR OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENTARY (FORMER MEMBERS) SOCIETY HELD IN THE DAIL CHAMBER ON FRIDAY JANUARY 21ST 2011. Posted on behalf of Gemma Hussey by David Farrell (March 2, 2011) 1. A draft of expenditure proposals in the Budget should be published six weeks in advance with…
From Jane Suiter Reformcard – the political reform scorecard developed for election 2011 – has scored all the political parties. We evaluated each Parties’ proposals in five categories of political reform – Oireachtas reform, Electoral reform, Open Government reform, Public Sector reform and Local Government reform. Details on each are set out below.
The editors and contributors behind polticalreform.ie have teamed with a large volunteer team of project managers, web designers and others to produce ReformCard a measurement tool to rank each party based on the quality of their policies on political reform. We hope this will prove a critical instrument in informing the election 2011 debate. It…
Eoin O’Malley (10 January, 2011) A bit like democracy, motherhood and apple pie, everyone is in favour of the separation of powers. But how does it work in Ireland and what happens when there’s a conflict between the branches of state power? What should happen?
Labour has published its 140 proposals for the reform of the political system. I have not yet finished reading it but thought it might be worthwhile to post the link now.
Irish Politics Forum 