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…
Jane Suiter This move towards open government may arguably be the biggest piece of political reform that this Government has undertaken and yet they have made little of it. Yesterday, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform launched a new databank, improving access to data on public expenditure back to 1994. For now only very…
Liam Weeks* It is widely recognised that adoption of a (closed) list electoral system would give political parties the power to increase the number of women in the Dáil. Women could be placed at the top of each party’s list of candidates, thus guaranteeing their election. However, if we are to see electoral reform, it…
Posted by Gary Murphy – President, Political Studies Association of Ireland. Garret FitzGerald who passed away on Thursday 19th May was a valued friend of the Political Studies Association of Ireland. He regularly participated at our conferences and events and attended many book launches supported by the association. Much has been written and spoken since…
posted by John O’Brennan Submissions are still being accepted for the 2011 Undergraduate Awards of Ireland. The awards are now in their third year and are open to undergraduates in their final or penultimate year of study in any third level institution on the island of Ireland. Students are encouraged to submit essays/projects completed as part of…
By Jane Suiter Political reform ran a poll here for a number of weeks, it has taken a little time to report the findings for which I apologise. We received some 485 responses to the poll with people from 16 to 65 responding from most counties across the country. These are of course not nationally…
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Posted by Matt Wall In today’s Irish Times, the editors of this site published a co-authored piece, calling on the next government to get off on the right foot in implementing their reform plans. We suggested several steps that a new government should take from the get go to demonstrate that campaign promises of political reform…
