The 2012 Annual Conference will be hosted by the University Of Ulster, Magee Campus, Londonderry, and will take place on 19-21 October 2012 in the City Hotel, Queen’s Quay. The headline theme for this conference will be “Politics, Culture and Society in a Changing Ireland“. Full Details available at http://psai.ie/conference.asp
A link here to the RTE Player’s version of ‘Inside the Department’, a documentary that provides some interesting insights into the realities of governance in today’s Ireland. Among other things, it documents the difficulty of leading a department that you have verbally eviscerated in opposition (“malevolently dysfunctional” is a particularly good catchphrase).
John Drennan’s Sindo article points to growing backbench opposition to the government’s proposed referendum on abolishing the Seanad. This development is unsurprising, given the tightness of electoral margins in Ireland’s political system and the personal investment of Oireachtas members in retaining their positions (although, as we all know, the pension’s not too bad if you do get the…
Posted by Elaine Byrne The Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality has invited written submissions from interested groups or individuals in relation to the Heads of the Criminal Justice (Corruption) Bill. If you wish to make a written submission you can send it to the Clerk to the Committee at: justiceanddefence@oir.ie before the end…
Posted by Matt Wall A letter to the Irish Times from six former Senators represents a faltering start to the campaign against the government’s plans to abolish the Seanad. The six argue, as many others have and will, for reform rather than abolition. Sadly, their case is not helped by the farcical nature of many of the ‘debates’…
By Michael Gallagher Earlier this week the Minister for Justice announced proposals to amend several articles of the constitution dealing with the role of the judiciary, specifically to add a Civil Court of Appeal and a Family Court, and to reconsider the ‘one judgment rule’ in Article 26.2.2. Details in a press release of 17…
Posted by Eoin O’Malley (20 July, 2012) A central theme in constitutional politics is the separation of powers. The Irish constitution doesn’t refer to this directly, but it is implied and the courts have assumed that a separation of powers does exist. While we can reasonably argue that the judiciary is independent of the executive…
Interesting article from Dan O’Brien in the Irish Times here, flagged up by Paul Hunt in a comment. Should Ministers also be TDs? A response that usually comes from the political system on this is that there is provision to nominate 2 ministers via the Seanad, though this very rarely happens. Would having a minister…
Really interesting debate on the government’s plans to involve citizens in Irish constitutional reform with contributions from: this site’s Elaine Byrne, Conor O’Mahony, a constitutional law expert from UCC, and Oliver Moran from the Second Republic civil society group. Labour’s Alex White gamely defending the government’s performance and plans to date – though he was…
Posted by Elaine Byrne The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform hosted a conference on lobbying in Farmleigh recently. These presentations were made available today. Regulation of lobbying policy proposals. The presentation by Lynn Morrison, Integrity Commissioner & Lobbyists Registrar of Ontario. The presentation by Áine Stapleton, Department of Public Expenditure & Reform. Minister Brendan…
Irish Politics Forum 