The value of independent parliamentarians

Liam Weeks The current government parties have 77 seats. The combined opposition of Fine Gael, Labour and Sinn Féin have 75 seats. The balance of power in the Dáil is thus held by the 10 independent TDs, who include 2 ex-PDs, 4 former FF TDs (one of whom has resigned from the party), one FF…

Department of Finance

John Considine and Theresa Reidy University College Cork The Department of Finance has set out its mission statement in very broad terms. Its role is ‘To support the achievement of the Government’s economic and social objectives by promoting a sound, sustainable economic and budgetary environment, continuing improvements in the efficiency of public services, and an…

Eamon Gilmore calls for the establishment of a Constitutional Convention

In today’s Irish Times (http://bit.ly/azsuil) Labour leader, Eamon Gilmore provides more detail about his proposal for a Constitutional Convention: “Labour’s proposal is that we should convene a 30-member constitutional convention with an open mandate. Ten of its members would be drawn from the Oireachtas, 10 from non-governmental associations and organisations, and 10 ordinary citizens selected…

Yet another misguided proposal for electoral reform

In today’s Irish Times John Rogers is the latest to propose electoral reform as the solution to all our woes.  The gist of his proposed new system is as follows: “Let’s assume a Dáil of, say, 120 deputies. Let us arbitrarily, for the sake of discussion, divide that membership into two groups. The first comprises…

Britain (for once) blazing a trail on political reform

With the British media all dewy-eyed over yesterday’s Rose Garden love fest, some of the more interesting details in the Conservative/LibDem coalition agreement have slipped by largely unnoticed, particularly those relating to electoral and political reform (summarized in an earlier posting on this site) – one or two of which are worth considering here. The…

Whatever happened to the Jenkins Report?

With electoral system reform very much on the agenda in the UK at the moment, it would seem that the considerations of the Jenkins Commission should be at least getting a nod from the various players involved. For anybody interested here is a link to the full report of the Commission. The Commission was opposed…

LibDems can make government work for them

The recent election must have been a major disappointment to the Liberal Democrats but that doesn’t matter because they have the ‘whip-hand’ in government formation. The party has ‘walk-away value’. If they don’t like a deal with the Conservatives they have other options (Labour & LibDems, with SDLP and Alliance brings you to 320). The…

The British 2010 election proves just how awful first-past-the-post is.

The British first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP; often referred to as single member plurality) is long past its sell by date. The most recent wave of democratic consolidation across East and Central Europe, Central and Southern America, and parts of Africa have witnessed an explosion of interest in electoral system design. And some established democracies –…

Labour Party’s proposals for constitutional reform a welcome addition to a much-needed political debate

Eamon Gilmore’s uplitfting ‘One Ireland’ speech to his party conference (http://bit.ly/crTAaq) this weekend ended with a set of interesting proposals for political, public sector and constitutional reform, with some pretty novel ideas such as the one to establish a Department of Public Service Reform. The major plus was just how many of the issues that…