Ceann Comhairle John O'Donoghue yesterday raised the question of whether or not the demands of daily journalism had led to a certain trivialisation of politics.
He also questioned the use of time by TDs and Senators, asking did the Dáil really need so many 30- and 40-minute speeches on the general principles of a Bill or if TDs' time would be better spent studying the details of legislation and listening to views from outside the Oireachtas.
Mr O'Donoghue stressed he was only raising these questions and not trying to settle them as he was precluded from doing so in his independent role as Ceann Comhairle.
Speaking at a lunch organised by the Institute of European Journalists, he asked: "Do the momentous changes which have happened over periods of many years in European politics, in Northern Ireland, and indeed in relation to the Irish economy, get under-reported on a daily basis?"
Mr O'Donoghue said the reality of legislation and political progress was that it took a lot of time and did not often fit the daily news cycle.
"And in the absence of such stories about parliamentary business, political coverage in some newspapers can concentrate on the trivial, whether it is a political soundbite that sounds clever but may not mean much, to whether Enda landed a verbal punch on Bertie or whether Bertie landed one on Enda.
"Or even whether 'the Ceann Comhairle raised his voice'. These things assume an importance because they can be said to have happened yesterday. Other developments such as the ending of the Northern Ireland conflict or the transformation of the Irish economy did not happen 'yesterday' and so may not receive the day-to-day coverage that they deserve," he said.
He told his audience he recognised that the media had other priorities besides public service and had a need to entertain, and not just to inform and educate.
"The old saying 'Rome wasn't built in a day' applies to all political endeavour. Political change is a slow process, the passage of legislation through the Oireachtas is a slow process," he said.
"Does this make it difficult for the daily news media to report it well, and is there anything we as politicians and you as journalists can do to change this?"
Mr O'Donoghue said he had started an ambitious programme to increase public awareness of what took place in Leinster House and had already visited a number of schools. His visits had copperfastened his belief that reports of apathy among young people had been overstated.
Challenging the view that politics changes nothing, he asked who would have believed that "Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness would be touring the world as part of a double act that has become known in Northern Ireland as the chuckle brothers?
"A joke is being told these days in nationalist circles in Stormont that Ian Paisley has taken to the beer. This is because he walks the corridors of Stormont saying 'where's McGuinness?' all the time, as Sir Edward Carson's statue declaims from his pedestal outside," he said.
In contrast to such change, he said the business of Dáil Éireann sometimes seemed mundane and trivial. He asked if changes could be made to make the work of the Oireachtas "more understandable without compromising is seriousness".
