Like fox-hunting, criticism of TDs for the length of their holidays is sometimes portrayed as cruel and unfair. And even as somebody who enjoys the pastime, I do sometimes worry about the suffering it causes. Against which, I would argue that TD-baiting is part of our culture and that it helps control the public-representative population - which, at one per 25,000 citizens, is already the highest in Europe, writes Frank McNally.
But I thought the Irish Mirror went too far this week in dubbing our politicians the world's "laziest". The basis for the claim was an international league of legislative output, in which the Dáil was found to be wallowing just above the relegation zone, on an average of 42 bills a year.
This compared with, among others, the parliaments of Luxembourg (109 bills), Australia (161), and the global superpower of law-making, Finland (233). Even Capitol Hill averages 232 bills a year, according to the survey, although the per capita representation of Americans makes their politicians a threatened species compared with ours.
The Dáil's numbers do look like under-performance, right enough. But this raises the question of whether legislation, per se, is a good thing. Yes, producing it is the primary role of parliaments, and only the most committed anarchist would argue we don't need laws. Even so, we should surely hesitate before inciting TDs to increase their output, willy-nilly.
Britain's statute book is littered with absurd edicts, from the prohibition on dying in the House of Commons to Cromwell's ban on eating mince pies at Christmas. Putting a stamp (and therefore the monarch's head) upside down on an envelope is still treason.
A local law in Liverpool makes it an offence for a woman to be topless in public unless she works in a tropical fish shop. And in France, apparently, it remains illegal to name a pig "Napoleon".
These laws all probably made sense when they were framed. At any rate, they would have helped their makers to a higher position in the international legislative league during the seasons in questions. But given the propensity for such laws to arise naturally, we should hardly be goading politicians to improve their figures.
The examples mentioned are mostly just vestiges of ancient times, you may say. And yet there is a medieval ring to one of the latest proposed laws here, contained in the Immigration Bill, to the effect that a marriage involving one or more foreigners in Ireland shall henceforth be deemed invalid unless the Minister for Justice is notified three months in advance.
This looks a belated reaction to the Eight Hundred Years of Oppression. One would have thought we were over all that. But clearly the marriage of Aoife and Strongbow - of which the High King of Ireland was not notified in advance - still weighs heavily on the Department of Justice, which has at last moved to close the loophole.
Or perhaps the measure is required for other, more urgent reasons. The fear of libertarians everywhere, however, will be that this is the start of a slippery slope. Once the measure is passed, the next justice minister might feel the need to expand the marriage-notice provision - reviving the feudal Droit de Seigneur law, for example, and claiming the right to deflower all foreign-born virgins in the interests of State security.
All right, that probably won't happen. Most laws passed by the Dáil are well-intentioned. So are most TDs. Indeed, it is a rare politician who, when asked why he or she entered public service, does not speak of a passion to "change people's lives for the better". And that alone should make us nervous.
Much as I appreciate the ambition of strangers to improve me, I prefer to attempt this myself insofar as it is possible. In the meantime, their idealism on my behalf needs to be kept on a tight rein. So, for all that we might enjoy complaining about them, TDs' long holidays may not be such a bad thing. And the low legislative output should, if anything, be a model of best practice.
Yes, critics will point to the huge cost of maintaining a parliament. But perhaps we should think of the even greater cost that might accrue should so many people on a self-confessed mission to change our lives be given free rein. Think of it: if they didn't have the summer off, they might be introducing new legislation when the rest of us are out of the country, and unable to keep an eye on them.
An agricultural metaphor may be helpful at this point. The best way to think of the Dáil, perhaps, is as a combination of the setaside and REPS environmental schemes. Essentially, urgent legislation aside, we pay our TDs not to produce any new laws for most of the year, and instead to let their talents as draughtsmen lie fallow. Their innate idealism must then express itself in other ways, such as feuding with each other and being generally colourful. In the process, Leinster House becomes a sanctuary in which rare birds and other kinds of wildlife flourish. And the country is a better place overall.
fmcnally@irish-times.ie