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…
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…
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…
(uploaded by Fiona Buckley on behalf of the PSAI Gender Politics SG) At a conference in UCC in September (Moving in from the Margins: Women’s Political Representation in Ireland) organised by the PSAI Gender Politics Specialist Group and UCC’s Women’s Studies Programme, former Minister Gemma Hussey called for the establishment of an organisation to promote…
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…
Adrian Kavanagh, 5 November 2010 On the basis of the most recent general election results in Donegal South West, this might be expected to be one constituency where Fianna Fail could actually have a realistic chance of winning a by-election (thus becoming the first government party to do so since Noel Treacy won the Galway…
By Matt Wall Fintan O’Toole’s summary of the reforms that he proposes in his new book: ‘Enough is Enough’ advocates ’30 key steps’ to that we need to take to reform democracy in Ireland – many of which have been debated intensely on this site. Some of these are more contested than others, there are well-rehearsed arguments on either…
Adrian Kavanagh, 15th October 2010 When electoral boundaries were being redrawn for City abd County Council electoral areas in 2008, the terms of reference set for the two electoral area committees were changed so that, apart from exceptional cases, the minimum number of seats per electoral area would now be four, and not three as…
By Matthew Wall In this post, I would like to open a discussion around the idea of imposing term limits on our TDs. This is not an idea that has heretofore received much attention in Ireland. As such, the post is primarily concerned with ‘crowd-sourcing’ peoples’ opinions on how term limits would play out in…
Sarah Carey’s article in today’s Irish Times is the latest contribution in the debate on whether we should consider adopting party-level gender quotas for the nomination of candidates. This article appears to me to be a particularly striking example of the combative rhetorical strategies that both sides of the debate have employed. Several opinion pieces on this topic have followed the…
Irish Politics Forum 