DÁIL REFORM:IRELAND has the right number of TDs by international standards, according to a group of political scientists, who describe as "red herrings" proposals to cut the number from 166.
The academics, who rated political parties’ election manifestos for the political website reformcard.com, gave Fine Gael the highest score at 73. Labour came second with 68 out of 100, while Fianna Fáil got 58. The Green Party was on 53, with Sinn Féin chalking up 26 marks.
However, the eight political scientists did not score the parties for changes in the electoral system because “changing the electoral system is not fixing the system”, said Prof David Farrell of UCD.
He described proposals to have fewer TDs in the Dáil and to reduce the presidential term from seven to five years as “red herrings”.
They were “interesting ideas” but were “not going to change much about politics”. There “is good political science that shows that Ireland is exactly right in terms of the number of Dáil deputies we’ve got internationally as it stands”.
Dr Eoin O’Malley of DCU said: “You can’t have a smaller Dáil, abolish the Seanad, populate a government and expect to have talented cabinet ministers and have a committee system that works.”
The manifestos were assessed under five reform categories – Oireachtas, electoral, open government, public sector and local government.
Fine Gael was weakest on local government reform. “While they came out tops today, if there are new policy documents coming out we will rate them” and the rankings may change, said Prof Farrell.
At the launch in Dublin of their assessment of the manifestos, the academic panel said Fine Gael scored highest in open government reform and joint highest on Oireachtas reform with Labour.
Fianna Fáil were strongest on Oireachtas reform, including the proposal for a secret ballot on the election of ceann comhairle.
Sinn Féin scored highest on electoral reform, while the Green Party scored the most marks for local government reform.
The Green Party had credible reforms on political funding, but all parties were weak on opening up government data. All scored poorly on local government reform.
Researcher and co-founder of the website project Joe Curtin said they were “trying to bring clarity to the debate on political reform”. A lot of what there was was “bluff and bluster rather than fact and cold analysis”.
The academics are Prof David Farrell (UCD); Dr Eoin O’Malley and Prof Gary Murphy (DCU); Dr Jane Suiter, Dr Theresa Reidy and Dr Clodagh Harris (UCC); Dr Elaine Byrne (TCD); Dr Matt Wall (Vrije University Amsterdam).
