MacGill Summer School: A Government backbencher has called for a reduction in the number of TDs.
Ms Fiona O'Malley, the PD deputy for Dún Laoghaire, told the MacGill summer school in Glenties, Co Donegal, yesterday, that the abolition of the dual mandate should have gone hand in hand with real Dáil reform. She added that 166 "vainglorious egotists" represented an awful lot of ambition to try and contain.
"The vast majority of us will never advance to higher office and this can be dispiriting. To give TDs clearer functions in policy and a greater role and relevance in policy formulation, I believe that we should reduce the number of TDs to 100. This, coupled with a strengthening of local government, would enhance our democracy."
Ms O'Malley said that by concentrating on the messenger role rather than the role of legislator, and scrutiniser of Government policy, TDs had perhaps allowed governments to make poor policy and Ministers to act corruptly. "We need a change of culture in Government and the civil service to allow greater scrutiny."
The Fine Gael TD Mr Denis Naughten said that while many political commentators were critical of the role of TDs as advocators on behalf of individual constituents, many pieces of legislation would never have seen the light of day were it not for this function.
"Through this element of our job, we see first hand where the system is falling down, and how it needs to be reformed. Therefore, I firmly believe that a critical part of the role of every public representative is to be a messenger and an advocate."
The Sinn Féin TD Mr Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said he believed TDs needed to be effective representatives of their constituents as well as policy and law makers acting in the national interest, while Green Party TD Mr John Gormley said the role of the media had to be examined when it came to restoring respect for politics and politicians.
"While there is undoubtedly a lot of responsible reporting on politics, much of it indeed an increasing amount, trivialises and sensationalises."
The summer school also enjoyed an act by actors Joe Taylor, Malcolm Douglas and Susie Kennedy, who have something of a cult following from their enactments of the various tribunals on RTÉ's Tonight with Vincent Browne.And tribunal veteran, Paul Cullen of The Irish Times, gave a personal guide to the tribunals.
On lawyers' fees he claimed that journalists had been soft on the issue "perhaps because we largely share the same middle class professional values and count many lawyers among our friends.
"Cutting tribunal fees should be the start of a re-examination of the role of the legal profession in our society, not the end," he said.