Guest Post by Anthony O’Halloran On Thursday, March 10th an important opportunity will arise to change the gender landscape of Irish politics for the better. The first important constitutional obligation of the 32nd Dáil will be to elect the Ceann Comhairle. Most of the public commentary to date has focused on how the next Ceann Comhairle…
More hints are emerging about the government’s intentions relating to the election of the next Ceann Comhairle. As reported in a recent post, the government is about to propose a change to Dáil standing orders so that the Ceann Comhairle of the next Dáil will be elected by a secret ballot of all members. As a number of…
Eoin O’Malley (10 March, 2011) For much of the election campaign parties promised that there would be a change to the way politics was done. This continued to the first day of the 31st Dáil. But will it? One way to judge the government is by the programme for government, and another by its actions.
The editors and contributors behind polticalreform.ie have teamed with a large volunteer team of project managers, web designers and others to produce ReformCard a measurement tool to rank each party based on the quality of their policies on political reform. We hope this will prove a critical instrument in informing the election 2011 debate. It…
Labour has published its 140 proposals for the reform of the political system. I have not yet finished reading it but thought it might be worthwhile to post the link now.
Posted by Eoin O’Malley, 8 December, 2010 Fionnán Sheehan reports in today’s Irish Independent that the government is considering putting a question by referendum on election day to abolish the Seanad. This might be seen as a genuine attempt at reform, a desperate attempt to divert attention from the obvious – the economy -, or a way…
It’s the not the government, but the Dáil that elects the Ceann Comhairle. The constitution makes no reference to how the Ceann Comhairle is elected, so if the Dáil wished to change the rules of election, it is free to do so.
Posted by Eoin O’Malley In the political calculations made last week on the removal of John O’Donoghue and selection of a new Ceann Comhairle, two things seemed to be most important in the Taoiseach’s calculations. One was the FF/ Green majority – so getting a Fine Gael or Labour TD would have eased the pressure…
Irish Politics Forum 