In an op ed in today’s Irish Times, Dr Anthony O’Halloran reminds us of the important constituency service role played by our TDs (see here). He argues that Irish political commentators are universally negative about this role, painting it in negative tones and tending to suggest that such behaviour is atypical. While the article makes…
Declaration of interest: I am one of the members of the academic team advising the constitutional convention on its work programme. The Irish Constitutional Convention is most of the way through its work programme. Many journalists and other commentators were critical of the Convention when it was launched. But among those who have witnessed its…
Elaine Byrne, University of New South Wales: 5 August 2013 Following from Dr Theresa Reidy’s excellent post on the need for a political reform “roadmap”, perhaps the political science community might once again engage in an updated version of the “reform scorecard” which was conducted prior to the 2011 general election. The best roadmap right now is clarity.
By Claire McGing, Lecturer in Political Geography & Irish Research Council Scholar, NUI Maynooth This week (July 30th), Fianna Fáil published the party’s new Gender Equality Action Plan 2013-2018. In a foreword by the party leader, Micheal Martin TD, it is noted that the under-representation of women in Irish politics “is a systematic problem, which requires…
Posted by Theresa Reidy (UCC) Fine Gael launched its campaign to abolish the Seanad last week and this week, we finally got the date for the referendum. Political reform is back in the headlines and set to take up a reasonable chunk of the airtime during silly season. Seanad abolition is one of the central…
Elaine Byrne, University of New South Wales: 23 July 2013 It is with no small irony that the Minister with responsibility for Small Business consented yesterday to a judgment for €2.47m against him and his wife at the Commercial Court over unpaid loans. John Perry’s long-running difficulties with Danske Bank raise underlying questions about Ireland’s ethics framework…
Post by Mary C. Murphy, University College Cork The 2011 Irish general election produced an exceptionally high level of turnover of TDs. 76 or 45% of the current 166 Dáil members were never TDs before. This represents the first time since 1923 that a majority of those elected did not belong to the previous Dáil.
For those of us who have been following the progress of Ireland’s constitutional convention, tomorrow promises to be an important date. According to the Dáil’s schedule of business, the Department of the Environment Community and Local Government will be providing a statement on the Convention’s first report tomorrow afternoon/evening. While (to the best of my knowledge) no…
And so they’re off! The Fine Gael party today launched their referendum campaign to abolish the Seanad, with Richard Bruton in the driving seat as director of elections for the party and Regina Doherty as his deputy. Having brought this issue to a head, the onus is now firmly on the government, and particularly on…
It now seems a forgone conclusion that Lucinda Creighton will vote against the Fine Gael party whip in the vote on the abortion bill later today or tomorrow. Many of the commentaries on this suggest that this will jeopardize her political career: she will lose her junior ministerial position as Minister for Europe; she will…
