Madam, - Again Joe Patton (August 15th) repeats the nonsense that a size of a parliament is related to population.
At the risk of repeating myself ad nauseam can I again point out, as I did in my Irish Times article, that population has little to do with it?
Parliament size is decided by three questions: 1. Is a country unitary, federal or confederal? A confederal state has a very small central administration with the states in the confederation having their own governments. Federal systems spread government over national and regional level, giving a moderate-sized national parliament. Unitary states like Ireland have no regional government so everything is done at the centre, requiring a large national government.
2. Does the state have a presidential or parliamentary system? The more presidential the system, the smaller a parliament can be.
3. Does the state have a "Westminster System" of government or deviate from it? Ireland, like most "Old Commonwealth States" (those who achieved their independence by the mid-20th century) uses a variant on the "Westminster System", whereby ministers are chosen from within parliament. That rule is set down in the Constitution and only the voters can change it.
Jason Fitzharris (August 7th) asked about the point of having TDs who do not participate in debates. The role of a TD is defined by the voters.
TDs who spend their time in the Dáil chamber almost invariably get sacked by voters who want them instead in their offices on their phones and writing letters on the voters' behalf.
In the last election, a host of widely acclaimed national legislators, such as Alan Shatter (the most prolific author of private members' Bills in Irish history), Jim Higgins (endorsed by the normally hypercritical Vincent Browne) and Jim Mitchell, whose work on the Public Accounts Committee won national plaudits, were all sacked by their electorates. There is no point blaming TDs for not sitting in the chamber and legislating when the voters sack those that do and elect those that don't.
Finally, Joe Patton asks "if the number of TDs were halved, would we notice any difference in the way the country is run?" The answer is "yes". The smaller the Dáil the larger the quota, meaning that the Dáil would be dominated by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Labour would be squeezed, while there would be no Greens, no Sinn Féin, no independents like Joe Higgins. The present system may be bad, but Joe's and Jason's solutions would make a bad situation far worse.
Superficial and inaccurate comments about Dáil size are unlikely to generate the sort of debate we need to have about improving our system of government. - Is Mise,
JIM DUFFY,
Glasnevin,
Dublin 11.