Madam, – Garret FitzGerald’s comment (Opinion, December 4th), “It is now clear to everyone that our present political system is dysfunctional” and furthermore “disillusionment with our existing political system is now universal” is a serious wake-up call from an elder statesman.
Dr FitzGerald supports the adoption of a list system whereby TDs are appointed in proportion to the votes received nationally by their respective political party. This would deliver nationally focused TDs as opposed to parish- pump TDs. The Labour Party’s recent proposals for political reform evasively ignore popular calls for a national list system, abolition of the Seanad, and a reduction in the number of TDs. Fine Gael has rejected the list system idea.
Such a system is used in Denmark to appoint a proportion of parliamentary deputies. The rest are elected by the people. With a population of 5.5 million there is one directly-elected politician to approximately 40,000 Danish citizens.
Fine Gael’s policy of reducing the number of TDs by 20 to 146 would, with our present population of 4.5 million, leave the ratio at about 30,000 citizens per TD. This is more than we can afford. Moreover, this reduction will not change the fact that the main focus of individual TDs is to placate their constituents in order to ensure re-election.
Clearly, pressure for effective political reform will not come from within the political status quo, turkeys generally not voting for Christmas. Already independent groups such as Claiming Our Future, 2nd Republic and Political Reform are leading the way for change. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Garret FitzGerald’s obsession with PR-STV continues unabated by evidence or logical argument (Opinion, December 4th). He argues that the electoral system is to blame for our TDs being prisoners to local interests. But there is nothing inherent in the electoral system that means that TDs must compete to fill pot-holes. It is voters who choose TDs on that basis. But they could (and some do) vote on the basis of a contribution to national policy debate.
Those who do vote for someone who is available to fill out forms or make representations might be acting quite sensibly, because the Irish bureaucratic system is very responsive to TDs’ requests but quite slow and unhelpful in response to those of ordinary citizens. Even under a new electoral system the people will still expect TDs to act as the broker between the citizen and the state.
However, if we remove the “hotlines” TDs have to government departments, and have a public service that treats citizens with some respect, perhaps voters would consider policy issues when voting. – Yours, etc,