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10 Reforms
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Now obviously none of the reforms any party is proposing is going to be implemented. In 10 years time we will have the exact same political system. So I thought I might as well make up some of my own. Some or all of these could be recycled.
- In most countries with a party list system they chose the cut off to be around 5%. I.e. If you get 5% of the vote you get some seats. Now while I am not a fan of list systems. I do like the idea of democracy being more representive. So to replicate this effect in PR-STV I would purpose 10 seater constituencies. In that way 5% of the vote roughly will get you a seat.
- I would reduce the members of the Dail to 130. This will be formed of 13 constituencies.
- 12 of constituencies would have no geographical factor with the person being assigned them at birth. They will vote in the constituency of their birth month. (While Births are not totally even across months it is close enough)
- The 13th constituency would be the foreign constituency. This will be split into 5 inner constituencies. USA, Britain, Australia and NZ, Europe and the rest of the world. The reason for this separation rather than having people stay in their birth assigned is a.) to bring specific influence from these regions into the dail and b.) make it easier for TD’s to relate to their constituents. Voting for these people will be subject to a 1 euro tax to shut up the no tax no representation slogan.
- Reform local government. Split Ireland into 4 regions. Dublin, Munster, South –mid Leinster , Connaught Ulster rest of Leinster. I.e Create 4 regions with roughly a million people in each. Elect Governers of these regions with extensive powers over local planning, public transport etc etc. Give them tax raising powers via a local income tax. Also in these areas we will elect local parliaments with full time representives, 50seats. Replacing the current county council system. This system will be modelled on the US state system. This will allow the Dail to be a legislator with the regional parliaments providing the parish pump.
- Do more on North South councils. People from Donegal spend hours going for care in Galway, when Derry is a few miles away. Have Ireland contribute to the Northern Ireland budget in return for get use of their hospitals in border regions etc, we can reciprocate in terms of electricity and gas etc
- Make the Seanad universal voting and give it the power to send legislation back to the Dail for a 66% majority as opposed to the standard 50%., The Seanad will be elected half way through a dail term. If the opposition start voting down everything for the sake of just being bad the electorate will see it and punish them. Gives the opposition a more important role but also gives them responsibility not to be just whiny.
- Donations will be banned both private and corporate. The state will provide a set amount to each candidate to spend on their election campaign of €5-10,ooo. Postering will subject to the littering laws.
- It is a oldie but a goodie sort out the freedom of information act.
- All Coalition agreements have to be published.
Simon,
You’re breaking my heart! There will be no political reform…
There’d better be! Otherwise the likes of me will be heading towards Leinster House with a bag of stones and , believe me, that would be some sight to behold.
Some excellent ideas in your list, especially on decentralisation and reform of local government.
Reform of the political system is indeed a good idea but if there are 4+ million people in Ireland there are 4+ million ways to reform the system and most of them would be dictated by what goes into the wallet.
Something we should remember is that our current system worked very well until it got into the hands of the wrong people.
The trouble with any voting system is that noble ideals have a short life-span and “democratic” principles are soon based on the lowest common denominator which is based on power, privilege and money.
Therefore the person who wants to be elected soon learns to cultivate these human traits and we see it first in the social issues like divorce, abortion etc because these do not hit the wealthy in the pocket. Rather they help the unscrupulous because these things tend to create a divided and insecure society and they are usually the first things introduced in new “democracies”.
So if you want true reform of the political system it will have to be robust enough to withstand constant attack by greedy, selfish and power-hungry people. In the past the only people who have been able to do this have been kings and dictators. So maybe we could have the best of both worlds and we could elect a dictator for a set period of time. Chavez comes to mind!
Agree in point 7 that the opposition should have a more involved role. As it stands every proposal by a Government is attacked by the opposition (who state this is their role in government), with the result that we become immune to any objection. More honesty by an opposition party, where they attack policies they have real issues with the content, rather than the people who propose it.www.telltales.ie
Whoever would have thought that political and institutional reform would creep up to almost equal jobs/economy as the key issue in a general election here?
I prefer to start with what I regard as the common currency of politics ie. power. This gets one mentions in Simon’s posting and does not appear to be the focus of his options, although it may underlie his preferences.
The challenge we now face in this Republic is to design, implement and use a series of checks and balances to limit the scope for excess by the powerful, whether they be public or private, elected or appointed in order to ;
•ensure competence and moderation in government
and
•overcome inertia at government level, both national and local;
so that our constitution is a framework for a free government that limits, restrains and allows for the exercise of political power, which we as citizens of a Republic own. (IMO, Article 6.1 of our constitution is clear on that “All powers of government, legislative, executive and judicial, derive, under God, from the people, whose right it is to designate the rulers of the State and, in final appeal, to decide all questions of national policy, according to the requirements of the common good.”)
We need to ensure that our way of governing ourselves has both
•the means to be successful for the common good with increased democratic accountability
and
•the capacity and of adapting to the changes that constantly descend upon it.
IMO, we need some straight-forward changes that would quickly convince us, citizens, that the governing classes are serious about political and institutional reform.
To get us on our way, in a recent paper (http://www.dcba.ie/static/doclib/Towards_a_Second_Republic.pdf), I proposed the following five changes to our way of governing ourselves which could be implemented immediately without any changes to the constitution:
1. Improve the skills of the Cabinet [New Blood for Cabinet – 2 non-TD Ministers p.68]
The Constitution allows two members of the Senate to be appointed as “outsider” ministers. Since the Taoiseach can appoint anyone to the Senate he could use this route to make up for the obvious skill deficiencies of the Cabinet. Most Irish people seem to regard this as quite abnormal. In fact, many European countries appoint Ministers from outside Parliament/the national assembly.
2. Improve the effectiveness of the Cabinet [Better with less – cutting the number of Cabinet Ministers p.73]
The Cabinet could be reduced to just 7 members which would improve effectiveness and reduce costs. Fewer Ministers would ensure also that the influence of the “outsiders” is not overwhelmed by “traditional” politicians. Ministers of State are not required to be TDs and the skills available to departments of state could be improved by appointing outsiders with experience to complement that of the ordinary politician. This would be a clear sign that Ministerial rank is not seen as a reward but rather as a public service which requires the best talents available to the country.
3. Reduce the Size of the Dáil [Less TDs – A Commitment to Political Reform? p.77]
The number of TDs could be cut by up to 25 (i.e. by 15 per cent) without Constitutional change. This would have two useful effects. It would lead to a reduction in costs and it could marginally reduce clientalism by increasing the size of constituencies.
4. Establish a Public Utilities Commission [Improve the public service – a Public Utilities Commission as an example p.84]
The functions of a number of regulatory bodies could be combined into a single Public Utilities Commission which would report directly to the Dáil. Such a body would reduce the number of state bodies. A direct relationship to the Dáil would give it a role not unlike that of that of the Ombudsman or the Comptroller and Auditor General.
5. Restore full Freedom of Information [Freedom of Information (FoI) p. 88]
The 2003 Freedom of Information Act should be repealed to restore the full power of the original 1997 act. This change would restore a crucial element in the spectrum of checks and balances which are so necessary to assure the delivery of accountable and transparent government.
If we see changes like this being implemented, we will have the confidence to effectively face the enormous difficulties of the recovery plan.
Transforming our government and public service cannot succeed without starting at the top. We must look at the size and composition of the Cabinet and Dáil. Neither the National Recovery Plan nor the EU-ECB/IMF agreement addresses this key area of decision making.
As we set about reengineering our institutions, we need to separate those things that we can do immediately and those that need constitutional change.
Interesting. However if we appointed non elected people to be ministers say 5 years ago. One of them would have been probably Seanie Fitzpatrick.
Appointing non elected people to be ministers? What a daft idea. Nepotism comes to mind. Sean Fitzpatrick would hardly get a look-in.
“Improve the skills of the Cabinet…” I would have thought that the skills shown by the cabinet over the past few years could not have been surpassed. It took sheer genius to get the electorate to believe that they should be held responsible for the debts owed to those who flooded the country with hundreds of billions of €uro in the most reckless and profligate manner. Not only that but then to have us believe that the ECB/IMF under whose noses all this took place are doing us a favour by taking over the government of the country and keeping us in penury for generations to come.
@EddieL: what’s wrong with using the Taoiseach’s Seanad seats as they were intended – to bring experts into the Oireachtas, so that they are available to serve in the Cabinet? It’s not like the usual incumbents are so shining that using them this way could end up worse.
@Simon: and he would have gone to gaol under corruption law for manipulating the Government for the good of the bank by now, one would hope. That’s no argument against a good idea.
4: @Donal, regards point 4: bloody good idea, so long as it would be resourced correctly, staffed by people who know the fields, and given teeth (witness Comreg’s “if Eircom says it, it must be true” behaviour for how this could go disastrously wrong).
@RandomPunter
Just is case you did not get a chance (yet?) to look at the further specification of what I wrote for a PUC, the following extract may indicate that my cast of mind is similar to yours….
ps. 85-86 (http://www.dcba.ie/static/doclib/Towards_a_Second_Republic.pdf)
“…..
The advantage of a PUC would be to minimise
· the risk of the regulatory bodies becoming captured by those they are to
regulate ie. become the “down-town office” of interest groups;…..
Setting up the Public Utilities Commission should be used to bring in people with proven experience to makeup the Commission (which should not have more than 5 members), but also the staffing. This should enable learning from different ways of getting things done.
86
4.10 There should be a deliberate, carefully implemented policy of employing people with experience and expertise from outside Ireland. This is no different from public policies and practice for changing performance (both in the public and private sectors) by
bringing in people, including many Irish people, or companies from abroad eg.
· Foreign Direct Investment in manufacturing and services;
· Scientific and technical skills eg. as part of Science Foundation Ireland programmes;
· Contractors for the National Roads Authority’s Programme;
· Appointing a experienced non-national as the Inspector of the Garda Síochána;
· The appointment of an Irish person with considerable experience abroad to lead the cancer management strategy within the HSE;
· The appointment of a new Financial Regulator.
4.11 The Competition Authority should continue to have full, and enhanced, powers as needed to investigate activities, bodies and persons coming under the aegis of the PUC, in addition to its work covering the provision of other goods and services. This is necessary as part of the checks and balances needed to limit the scope for excess in a democratic
state with a market economy.”
RandomPunter: “what’s wrong with using the Taoiseach’s Seanad seats as they were intended” There was a time in our beloved little country when good political intentions and actions reasonably matched each other.
But that era has vanished like the morning dew on a Summer’s day.
The world is now ruled by two basic principles (1) when it comes to money and politics nothing can be left to chance and (2) the easiest way to make yourself rich is to create poverty around you. These are lessons poor third world countries have now learnt the hard way while we could afford to live in our own dreams of a Utopian world.