Fianna Fail has released their manifesto today. There is a large section on political reform, covering some 8 pages. In many ways these are radical proposals, the pity is that none were even considered over the past 13 years. Crucially, there appears to be some measure of joined up thinking. For example, the party only…
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…
Posted by David Farrell on behalf of the 50:50 Group (January 31, 2011) Dear Deputy, The 50:50 Group is a single issue national advocacy group that has come together to campaign for equal political representation in Irish Politics. Our desire for change reflects the public mood to move to a more inclusive form of…
John O’Brennan (10 January, 2011) It is somewhat perplexing for many Irish citizens when they find that individuals elected to political office very recently decide to jump ship, once a seemingly better career opportunity presents itself. It is only 18 months since the elections to the European Parliament took place in July 2009. The Parliament’s…
David Farrell (January 10 2011) Former Attorney General John Rogers has returned to the theme of electoral reform. In a presentation on The Week in Politics on RTE last night and also in today’s Irish Times he set out the latest version of his ideas for a new electoral system (for discussion on the previous…
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.
Guest Post By Daniel Sullivan In this piece, I’m going to try to outline two of the problems in how the electoral system currently functions, coupled with some of the practical realities that accompany them, and then suggest two forms of electoral change that would actually address those problems. These problems and from which almost…
Posted by David Farrell (December 28, 2010) To succeed, political reform needs three things to happen: a reason for the reform, leadership to drive it, and engagement by citizens. We have the first; there are early signs of the second; the third is still a long way away.
The Irish Times has an interesting series this week on where we should go from here. Some of the ideas so far are insightful and thought provoking. Joseph O’Connor points to the huge programme of political reform which is needed and argues for a bottom up approach that envisages change coming from the people inlcuding…
By Claire McGing (on behalf of the PSAI Gender and Politics specialist group) The recent failure of the talented Labour Dublin City councillor Rebecca Moynihan to win a nomination to run in Dublin South-Central in the upcoming general election (the three candidates who were selected are all male councillors) has once again raised questions about…
Irish Politics Forum 