If the current electoral system in Ireland has reached the end of its useful working life, then a look at the arrangements within the member states of the European Union, the core of the world's well-established democracies, is a useful starting point in the debate on reform.
The mixed member proportional system (also known as the additional member system), under which a percentage of MPs are elected in single-seat constituencies and the remainder from top-up lists to ensure proportionality, is employed in Germany, Greece and Italy. The majoritarian first-past-the-post system is in place in France and the UK. With the exception of Ireland all others have settled on the party list system of proportional representation (List-PR).
It is noteworthy that, with the exception of Italy, those countries in the EU that have tinkered with their electoral systems (or contemplated doing so) in recent years are those that do not use the List-PR system - France in the 1980s, Greece frequently since its return to democracy, the UK since the current government gave the Liberal Democrats a commitment to hold a referendum on the issue before the 1997 general election. And now Ireland.
It is also striking that as the former Soviet-bloc countries joined (or rejoined in some cases) the democratic European mainstream more have plumped for List-PR than any other system. As regards Ireland's Single Transferable Vote (STV) system, not a single country in the world that has participated in the democratisation wave of the past two decades has adopted it.
These patterns suggest that the electoral system that best balances the sometimes conflicting objectives of legitimacy and proportionality on the one hand with effectiveness and stability of government on the other is List-PR. With only one other example of STV worldwide (the tiny island state of Malta), they also suggest that its deficiencies have been considered to outweigh its advantages.
Chief among these deficiencies is the excessively local-orientation of STV. In Ireland it tends to return TDs who, even if they are so inclined, have little time to devote to policy formulation as they attend constantly to constituency matters. As a result, civil servants and State agencies have often been obliged to provide the strategic vision in policy formulation.
Indeed, there is arguably no country in the EU in which elected politicians have as little input into shaping strategic policy goals as in Ireland. The underdevelopment of the parliamentary committee system relative to the European average is but one obvious manifestation of this.
The cliche that all politics is local has been repeated so often in Ireland that it has become something of a truism. If all politics ever was local, it is emphatically no longer the case as international economic and political dynamics affect states as never before. The sovereignty implications accompanying Ireland's membership of the EU are the most important manifestation of this.
According to Demos, the UK think tank, 30 per cent of all new legislation in the member states emanates from Brussels. The crucial forum in which this legislation is framed is the Council of Ministers. If Irish parliamentarians, and hence ministers, are prevented by their constituency burdens from driving policy formulation at home, the difficulties at Council are magnified many times where a detailed grasp of the issues is essential in winning over 14 other ministers whose interests are often, if not always, different.
Given the type of minister the electoral system produces and the burdens it places on them, it is unsurprising that with a few notable exceptions the performance of Irish ministers at Council has been less than stellar. Though it must be added that Ireland's near unique constitutional requirement for ministers to be sitting members of the legislature, shrinking the ministerial talent pool still further, is also a factor.
With Ireland's recent economic performance the envy of many other EU member states and per capita GDP now above the EU average, the strategy of benefiting by pleading small size, peripherality, etc, will no longer pass muster. Instead, ministers will have to convince their peers that what is in Ireland's interests is also right for them.
The second major deficiency of the current system is the leverage it gives to independent TDs elected with a mandate that does not include interests beyond those of their immediate constituents. In the 1997 general election, of the three independent TDs upon whom the current minority government depends, none obtained even half of 1 per cent of national first preference votes.
As assertive independents have been a prominent feature of Irish political life for so long, the power they exercise receives scant attention, but from a European perspective this appears as more than a mere quirk, it seems downright undemocratic. No other country in the EU has institutionalised structures that allow individuals representing such a tiny proportion of the electorate wield so much power.
With regard to alternatives to STV, versions of List-PR have proven effective in the overwhelming majority of small and medium sized mature democracies in Europe. There is little reason to believe that a tailored version would not function equally well in Ireland. Given the culture of particularly close links between TDs and their constituents that STV has engendered, a system that minimises the trauma of loosening these bonds would best suit Ireland. As such, the Danish variant, with multi-member constituencies and a national list, is worth closer analysis.
Multi-member constituencies with open lists allow voters to choose between individual candidates or the party of their choice. This ensures that the MP-constituent connection is maintained. However, the constituency list becomes relevant as approximately 50 per cent of the electorate in Denmark vote for a party rather than a candidate.
This makes the predetermined party list more important, resulting in a lower turnover of MPs than in Ireland and less extreme pressure on representatives to compete, with each to be seen to provide for their constituents. In contrast to some other models, it also ensures that no one party dominates constituency seats.
The national list in Denmark tops up the seat allocations of parties, guaranteeing very high levels of proportionality. It also ensures a cross section of society is represented in parliament, offsetting the bias in multi-seat constituencies that favours those whose professions bring them into frequent contact with the electorate.
Currently, the two most common professions in parliament - public servants and private-sector white-collar workers - account for 58 per cent of MPs (this compares with teachers and farmers making up 40 per cent of the current Dail). However, unlike many other countries, the Danish national list accounts for a mere 23 per cent of MPs, limiting the role of party leaders in determining who will be elected - the main argument against List-PR.
Although the Irish are among the most satisfied with their overall system of governance in the EU (according to region-wide opinion polls), the deficiencies of the current electoral system are increasing in the light of deepening involvement in Europe and Ireland's changing relations therein.
As STV is not fundamentally flawed, only more imperfect than some alternatives, root and branch reform is unnecessary. With a slight reduction in access to TDs that the Danish model offers (which would be offset, partially at least, by the planned strengthening of local democracy) the electorate would eventually benefit from improved governance at the national level and better representation at the EU level - a trade-off that merits considered debate.
Dan O'Brien is European Editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit in London.