Sir, – Fintan O'Toole's article (Opinion, November 24th) opened by sharing his amusement about my posters about a public meeting on "Political Reform", and then went on to describe previous failures of political reform. As a non-incumbent, I respectfully disagree.
Since being first elected last year, I have consistently pushed for reform. I have taken zero expenses, as they are unvouched and I disagree with that in principle. I have also brought forward a motion to end unvouched expenses in the council. Corporate donations are now effectively banned. We had the most far-reaching local government reforms since 1890s, reduced the number of councillors by over 40 per cent and extended new responsibilities to local authorities.
Political discourse is improved thanks to political reform, with heads of Bills now regularly referred to the relevant Oireachtas Committee for civic society and expert engagement during a Bill’s infancy.
That’s not to mention the strengthened Freedom of Information Act, Dáil sittings increasing by 33 per cent, a whistleblower framework, creation of a lobbying register, a new process for State boards appointments, the establishment of the first Constitutional Convention, the introduction of gender quotas and eight referenda – the most in a single Government term – held over the lifetime of this Dáil.– Yours, etc,
Cllr NOEL ROCK
Drumcondra,
Dublin 9.
Sir, – Fintan O’Toole (Opinion, November 24) decries the failure of the Oireachtas in providing effective oversight of the budgetary process and he is correct in pointing out that this issue has festered for some time.
However, he is somewhat misguided by laying the blame solely at the feet of “spineless” elected representatives.
Rather, he should be directing his ire on the fact that TDs spend the vast majority of their time dealing with constituency issues because that is what will see them re-elected.
This is a failure of both our electoral process and the unwillingness to reform local government.
By reforming our electoral system and by devolving more power down to our councillors at a local level to deal with local issues we can free up our TDs to devote more time to national issues such as budgets.
– Yours, etc,
ALAN KEEGAN
Raheny,
Dublin 5.