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Dan O’Brien on seperating the roles of TD and Minister
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...
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Should Ireland appoint non-parliamentary ministers?
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...
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Possible referendums on Articles 26 and 34
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...
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Early days of the SOS (‘Save Our Seanad’) campaign
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...
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40 Dead Men Walking: Self-interest prods disinterested political elite into...
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...
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Striking a better balance between democracy and regulation
Theresa Reidy and myself had a piece in the Irish Times earlier this week on the need to think about change for referendum rules. Many of the comments on The Irish Times site were from no voters in the...
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Lessons from Children’s Referendum
It is still far too early to be definitive in the analysis of the result of the Children’s Referendum obviously research is needed in order to ascertain why turnout was so low and why people voted in...
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Deliberative democracy: Lessons for practitioners
Here are some edited highlights of the Deliberative Democracy conference held in the Royal Irish Academy some weeks ago, including interviews with the participants there – some of the world’s leading...
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Damn lies and statistics: How do two polls give such divergent results?
Posted by Eoin O’Malley (21 February, 2013) A poll released today by the Pro-Life Campaign seeks to ‘challenge the notion that there is broad middle ground support for abortion in Ireland.’ This polls...
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Parliamentary privilege isn’t meant to be for this
Posted by Eoin O’Malley (12 March 2013) The ‘sort-of’ revelation on Twitter that Deputy Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan may have used his Oireachtas privilege have penalty points wiped juxtaposes nicely with the...
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9/May/2013 – New Directions in Referendums; Politics and Campaigns
May 9, 2013 – Jane Suiter and Theresa Reidy co-convenors of the PSAI Voters, Parties and Elections Group are holding two events on referendums examining all elements of campaigns from a global...
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Professional politicians and political reform. (Matt Wall)
A couple of interesting stories in the Irish media today caused me to re-consider the notion that political reform should be the exclusive domain of elected politicians. With their electoral mandates,...
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Is the Seanad Bill 2013 what we want?
Posted by Eoin O’Malley (15 May) A new Seanad reform bill was introduced in the Seanad today by Senators Katherine Zappone and Fergal Quinn. It is available here. The main point of the bill are that...
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The Irish Constitutional Convention illustrates how ordinary citizens can...
Post by Harry McGee, political correspondent The Irish Times. This article originally appeared in the Connacht Tribune, 12 June 2013 I have to say I was sceptical about the notion of a citizens’...
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Let’s think about the type of inquiry that will work before we set one up
The current calls for some form of inquiry into the economic collapse and the government’s response to it are understandable in the light of the Anglo tapes. While they probably didn’t reveal much...
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The Irish Constitutional Convention: citizen-oriented political reform in action
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...
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Democracy and Other Matters
Dr Seán Patrick Donlan, School of Law, University of Limerick Predictably if depressingly, the debates around the Government referendum on the abolition of the Seanad have proven to be as ideological...
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The Wrong Referendum?
Interested in how we can make our parliament fit for purpose? This public discussion on Dáil reform is open to anyone who thinks our Dáil can do more for democracy. The debate in the run up to the...
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The Quinn/ Zappone Bill – a fundamentally flawed measure
Post by Richard Humphreys SC In order to offer a ‘workable’ reform that they claim could be on the statute books by Christmas the Quinn/ Zapponne Seanad Reform Bill makes a lot of compromises. Due to...
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Does the referendum on the Court of Appeal contain any hidden dangers?
By Michael Gallagher Most of the debate over the 4 October referendums has focused on the abolition of the Seanad, understandably enough, but there’s another referendum too: the 33rd amendment on the...
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