Madam, – The type of electoral system proposed by Dr Garret FitzGerald (Opinion December 4th), an Additional Member Electoral System, already exists in Wales for elections to the Welsh Assembly.
In 2004 a Welsh electoral commission carried out a review of this electoral system. In its review it found that the Additional Member Electoral System creates two categories of electoral representatives and that this was an intrinsic defect in the system. A survey conducted by the electoral commission revealed that the Welsh public perceived the list seats in the assembly as consolation prizes for parties which failed to win constituency seats. The commission recommended a move to PR STV as the electoral system to elect members of the Welsh Assembly in order to bring about more proportional outcomes in elections.
In Ireland PR STV is long established as our electoral system. Twice voters have rejected referendum proposals to abandon PR STV. Despite this, the campaign by a few commentators, including Dr FitzGerald, to move to a different electoral system continues apace, given oxygen by our economic downturn and the perceived need for quick fixes to our problems. But the Welsh example is illustrative of the folly of abandoning the most democratic of electoral systems, PR STV. If we moved to an Additional Member Electoral System, Dr FitzGerald correctly points out that it would be the larger parties that would win the constituency seats, and the smaller parties and independents would be consigned to the consolation list seats in our Dáil. Far from the Irish public viewing those elected on lists to the Dáil as the superior TDs, it is only natural, considering those TDs would not be directly elected, that the voters would view them as not having a true democratic mandate to represent them in the Dáil. – Yours, etc,