Posted by Elaine Byrne For the last ten years, Ireland was one of the only modern democratic parliaments in the world which was legally prevented from inquiring into matters of national importance. Thursday’s referendum to overturn the 2002 Maguire v Ardagh Supreme Court decision on the Oireachtas Abbeylara inquiry seeks to rectify that. In principle, parliaments should…
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) 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.…
Posted by Elaine Byrne As part of a process of internal reform, the Seanad have established the Seanad Public Consultation Committee (SPCC) which will be launched next week. According to the Oireachtas press release, this Committee will use new procedures to open up access to the Seanad and to invite submissions from the Public. It…
The Sunday Independent-Millward Brown Lansdowne poll offers a somewhat different picture of the political landscape to the Sunday Times/Behaviour & Attitudes poll of 4th September. While it continues the trend of strong poll showings by Fine Gael, this poll sees Labour’s standings back at the levels enjoyed by the party earlier in the year and marks a stark contrast to the…
Ken McDonagh 06.09.11 Enda Kenny’s 20th of July speech on Child Protection was broadly positively received by Irish public opinion. That it was given by a practicing Catholic and leader of a conservative and Christian democratic party only amplified the message that a final straw had been reached as regards child protection and the responsibility…
By Michael Gallagher The first of these questions seems to have acquired ‘Is the Pope a Catholic?’ status, with apparent unanimity that the existing nomination requirements are too exacting. To recap, a would-be presidential candidate must secure the nominations of either (a) 20 members of the Houses of the Oireachtas (TDs and Senators), or (b)…
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 (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…
Two weeks ago, it was reported in a post on this site that Second Republic, an independent citizens’ group campaigning for political reform (which we are both involved in), was preparing a detailed proposal for a process of citizen-led political reform in Ireland. The group has today released a draft of their proposal for public comment and…
Irish Politics Forum 