By Kevin Rafter (Dublin City University) Some years ago when writing a biography of Martin Mansergh – then a backroom political adviser – I had the opportunity to interview Fr Alec Reid, the Redemptorist priest who was a central player in the Irish peace process, and whose funeral took place this week.
Every day there is some opinion piece or other speculating about the possibility of a new political party emerging in Ireland. Journalistic eyes are peeled, watching every movement, signal or nuance from the likes of Lucinda Creighton, Michael McDowell, or any other obvious contenders seen as most likely to lead the way in establishing a…
By Claire McGing, NUI Maynooth Parliaments, of which the Dáil and Seanad are no exception, are highly gendered institutions. Since the rules were written by men at a time in which women were not expected to participate in politics, the very norms, rules and culture of parliament conform to a male lifestyle. This is why the idea of…
President Michael D. Higgins has caused some controversy (though this might be too strong a word) for his more outspoken comments on some issues. In a speech he gave in DCU in September he was highly critical of neo-liberalism as an ideology and economics as a discipline. We should hardly be surprised. Most know where…
Although the office of President of Ireland has attracted a great deal of public attention, especially since the election of Mary Robinson in 1990, the presidency has been the subject of little analysis. This gap in our knowledge of Irish politics is filled by this timely collection, which brings together a set of studies that explore the political role…
The Department of Government, UCC, in partnership with the Centre for Study of Wider Europe in NUI Maynooth is delighted to announce an upcoming conference ‘Reflections on Forty Years of Irish Membership of the EU’ in University College Cork, 28-29 November 2013.
At a conference in the IPA recently there was some talk about changes in how ministers and civil servants are held accountable, and for what they are held accountable. The traditional doctrine of ministerial responsibility, set out in the Ministers and Secretaries Act 1924, hold the minister to be the Corporation Sole, so s/he is…
The underpinning values in freedom of information are openness and transparency. They can be regarded separately as openness represents an individuals right to access information and transparency representing a persons ability to scrutinize the decision making process. The need for adequate freedom of information provisions was summed up the Australian Senate Standing Committee on Legislation…
A recent post on The Story blog (see here) reveals the government’s cynical move to introduce last minute changes to the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill 2013 that will make FOI prohibitively expensive and therefore, in large part, unworkable. This (1) is contrary to what was promised and will put Ireland even more out of…
I am the co-director (with Dr Kristof Jacobs) of an ECPR workshop at the 2014 Joint Sessions in Salamanca (see here for details). Academics from ECPR member institutions are welcome to apply. Deadline for proposals — December 1. The puzzling relationship between economic crisis and democracy Recently, a lot of research efforts have been…
