I was really majoring on the issue of too many Cabinet Ministers, not overall Dail representation.

At the moment, as far as I can gather, the latter is controlled by a section of the Constitution.

Notwithstanding that, a reduction in real terms is needed; maybe to, say, two per county = 52.

With a maximum of Six Cabinet Ministers, who would vacate all constituency affairs while in the Cabinet, duplication &overlap might be eliminated, leading to better & more efficient decision-taking.

In answer to your comment about food & energy. Both are products of Natural Resources, thus, as they are both answerable to the same Minister, any conflict can be sorted out at a much lower level.

The component parts, which are presently controlled by a plethora of ministers, would, in future, be managed by professionals from the Civil Service, with suitable qualifications.

The balance of elected TDs would remain in their constituencies and manage in the manner of local councillors.

The “right qualifications”, you say?

I think that they’re election by the voters, nothing more, nothing less. Anything else is (to put it mildly) undemocratic and reeks of middle-class elitism.

As for 6 ministries? I agree that we’ve way too many juniors (and why are they so often addressed by the media as “minister”?, they aren’t so they shouldn’t be) but 6 ministries is lunacy. What is the minister for Natural Resources going to prioritise in a conflict between food and energy?

The public don’t elect people who are good managers, why do you think they would do so if the numbers were smaller?

The reality is that Dail Eireann & Seanad Eireann are grossly over-manned.

One TD per 100,000 of adult population is more than sufficient for this small, open, island economy.

There will never be efficiency as long as there is overlap in the allocation of responsibilities to the various Ministries.

The constant re-shuffles and awards of Junior Ministries militate against any possibility of an orderly Administration.

Six Ministries (Including a Taoiseach – as Foreign Affairs Minister ) would make an ideal management Team.

After all; what is there that requires these legions of ministers?

- Beyond Justice (including Defense); Finance; Communications; Natural Resources and Human Resources?

All other administrative functions could be managed by suitably competent professional civil servants.

Think Small: Simple: Efficient.

I don’t want to be flippant, but I think a lot of women can’t be bothered with mainstream politics because they have better things to do with their time.

That said, personality type is arguably much more important than gender in making the choice to enter public life. I’m not aware of any studies that show that women behave substantially differently to men when it comes to exercising power, which makes a nonsense of all this ‘gender quota’ insanity.

The number of women elected to the Dail has remained around the 20 mark in the past four elections since 1992 (22 in the 2002 and 2007 elections) but at least a dozen or more of these female Teachtai fall into the ‘family business’ category in that they either have a close relationship to someone who blazed the political trail before them (husband, father or brother) or come from what might be termed political families. All part of the ‘skills to get the job’ I reckon, which as you point out isn’t the same thing as having “the skills to do the job”.

But I think you’re way too charitable in suggesting that “we see the Oireachtas make mistakes all too often because it lacks a broad enough representative base to know when it is being conned”. I’m afraid I’d attach considerably more weight to the posession of some altogether less flattering attributes exhibited by our political class that account for the bad decisions.

Again as Cathal notes “There is no correct profession, though some areas are significantly underrepresented in irish politics like engineering and science.” my point being that we see the Oireachtas make mistakes all too often because it lacks a broad enough representative base to know when it is being conned. Simon has referred to this before when gender quotas are proposed, the problem for me isn’t the lack of women in politics but the lack of people. More teachers and lawyers simply because they are women won’t properly leaven this bread. And the reason many women don’t get involved are largely the same as the reasons engineers and folks with a 8-5 grind and a commute don’t, they don’t have the time to do the things that get you elected but which don’t make you a useful member of parliament, and they don’t see the point in applying for a job that you end up not being able to do because of the things you have to do to get it. The skills to get the job; aren’t the skills to do the job.