I agree that 158 is ridiculous for a country our size. However there as to be a minimum number to provide 15 cabinet ministers and perhaps another 5 junior ministers. There also needs to be sufficient numbers to provide a credible opposition. I would have thought these requirements could be met with a maximum Dail of 100 TDs’.nnOf greater concern is the foot dragging over local authorities. How it is possible to justify more than 10 city/county councils in state of 4.25 million?

Actually when you compare Ireland to countries of our size we are close enough…

Norway (+.5m) 169 MPs
Finland (+1m) 200 MPs
Denmark (+1m) 179 MPs
New Zealand (-100k) 120 MPs

So in comparisions we are there or thereabouts. How they are made up… And is there a need for a senate should be questioned…

An example is that in every major Organisation you need a IT dept with an CIO to oversee the various IT challenges ahead. His job is to get the right information into the right hands at the right time. In major customer service organisations he is usually ranks for influance just behind the CEO and CFO.

Now tell me who we have elected who has a basic computer science degree never mind the real skills of a CIO…

That may be true Cowboy Paddy, but you can be sure that the MPs in those countries are not on same planet as our TDs in terms of pay, expenses, lack-of-intelligence and corruptness!

If we tried to have it down to 60. 40/20 Govt. Opp. split. What an absolutely crap choice of Ministers that would give, there would not be enough to do the job.

People will say, oh sure they fupped it anyway. That is plain, but why go out of the way to ensure that the country is never reformed politically, all just to save less than one bankers bonus.

Given international norms, 158 is considered too small for a country this size, and many of the countries that have more TD’s than us are incredibly well run.

Here is a novel idea, forget about the expenses and costs of the Dáil, which change nothing but demand that people do their job, be held accountable, demand the Guards do not turn a blind eye anymore to political corruption.

Pay 166 TD’s double, treble, whatever their salary and hold them accountable and concerned with national interest and you’ll have massive reward and value, Pay 100 half the salary but do not demand concrete legal and political reform and you can write this country off.

Nothing until they’re 65. Better hope Simon Harris doesn’t lose his seat or he’ll be waiting the guts of 40 years.

@John – Just as food for thought, there’s a generally accepted principle within political science that the size of an assembly should be, as a general guideline, equal to the cube root of the population it represents. In Ireland’s case, with a population of 4,588,252 (as per Census 2011), this would be… 166!

In Germany’s case it’d be 435 (rather than 620), and in the UK it’d be 396 (as opposed to 600). In the North it’d be 121, compared to the 108 who are actually in Stormont.

As a caveat, though, it’s never really been established (to my knowledge, anyway) about whether this rule should include all levels of parliament, so you could argue that the 166 should include Senators too. Whether there should be 166 TDs and 0 Senators, of course, is another matter…

Germany is a federal republic were any of the functions of government are devolved to the local states.

This one.

It’s a possibility, though unlikely. Meath was only fractured into two three-seaters in 2007 and the population’s continued to grow disproportionately since then. Maybe if Meath was reunified it’d have to go back to a 5-seater, but Meath West also includes part of county Westmeath, which would then go back into Longford-Westmeath. There, though, the remaining four-seater is already close to the 30k limit (29,200 based on 2011 population) so adding more territory, or more seats, might push it over the limit…

MEATH!

The 3-seater constituencies are not great for the objectives of widen the base while maintaining a decent size Dáil. More 5 seaters and fewer 3 seaters would be beneficial so long as they dont combine counties, which often means an effective if not actual split in the constituency (i.e. In Laois-Offaly, larger parties did well, because people from Laois would vote for the Laois Candidate, whereas people in Offally would vote for the Offaly candidate; ensure what was effectively two 2-seater constituencies). 5-seaters also icrease the proportionality of the system. So while the reform is a step in the right direction, giving 3.95 TDs per constituency as opposed to 3.86 TDs per constituency.

Meath obviously should be combined as much as possible to create a 5-seater in there somewhere. We currently have Meath East (3), Meath West (3) (which contains part of West Meath) and WestMeath-Longford (4) (which contains the other part of Westmeath).

A five-seater would be better, definitely somewhere between the different pieces of Meath.

A fair point Ailis but I could not see any party voting for it. Some because it would mean a drop in their Public Reps pay and others because it would mean a drop in their funding, or so we are led to beleive.

Ailis,

Wouldn’t it encourage the independently wealthy to seek political office? Would they be motivated by patriotism or personal concern?

Would you seriously do that job for 50k? Really? I can guarantee you that if you really knew what the job entails, you would think twice about that

Nice idea but I think on balance it would dissuade the most capable.

You couldn’t blame a patriotic high achiever in a well paid job from declining to run for office because he/she would have to take a big cut in income. Only the super wealthy can in practice take money out of the equation if considering politics as a full time job.
Patriotism should be a motivator but being a politician is a crap job and I think MOST who get into it don’t do it for the money but are motivated out of patriotism and civic duty. Maybe I’m being too naieve about that.

So in a framework where there are the appropriate checks, balances controls, accountability etc, all other things being equal I think there is a case for being quite generous in the remuneration of politicians.

And before the deluge of vitriol descends about the “current lot” in power I make the above points as a neutral standalone concept and not in the context of the performance of our current masters which of course makes any debate about this more difficult.

Alright, I hear all your points, and though I dislike the idea that money should be a primary concern for someone who holds office, I propose something else. Only pay them for the hours they actually work. Let it be a motivating hourly rate, but only for the graft they put in. Also forget these long drawn out holidays and replace them with flexible leave. It’s ridiculous to have such a long stretch between business of the day.
In sorry but as it stands, and as a taxpayer, or the customer so to speak, I feel I am not getting value for my money and the product is sub standard.
Honestly I think the amount of TDs is irrelevant if the work they do is rubbish, and equally if it is good! I stand by my assertion that they are paid far too much- they moan that we are not a competitive nation, well if there ever an a demonstration of poor value, it’s that shower in the Dáil and all their cronies! I am sick of all the miserable scrounges, and I want some vision.

Ailish I agree money shouldn’t be a primary concern but I think it also shouldn’t be a ‘penalty’ that would dissuade someone otherwise well motivated.
Sounds to me like you could have a lash yourself at running!

Well, in the past the system has favoured the likes of teachers who can just try the TD thing for a while but still get to go back to their old jobs and get their full pension etc. Hence the likes of Enda…

It’s a job that could be a brief one so I don’t think we want talented people to avoid it because if they leave their current job they’ll end up making less money and could end up unemployed after the next election. No shame in being made unemployed, but you’re not going to take a risk on a job that could put you in that position unless you’re being well paid for it.

@Ailis

Agree with most of what you say. Politicians expenses should be paid out when they give in their honest monthly receipts just like everyone else. Do away with this ‘entitled allowance/expenses’.

I think that a 50k salary topped up by a 50k expense account is more than generous. As far as I am concerned they should all be benchmarked and for every broken manifesto promise they break deduct their salaries by 10 grand. This would result in one of two coutcomes – they stop making self seving promises during election campaigns and or greatly reduce their drain on the public purse. After all if the Labour TD Eamonn Maloney can live on his 90 000 euro salary without claiming a penny for expenses, then the rest of them can.

Martin,
Whats with the pushing of your own political movement on every thread??? I visited your website and quite frankly I found it nieve and in some parts disturbing. Thats me speaking as a working middle right voter..
D

Er… that’s the danger of saying stuff without checking first. There are 98 councilors on Manchester city council. And 2.2m people in Greater Manchester. And it’s not even clear if Manchester city council don’t just represent the 455,000 people in the city itself.

So, um, yeah Manchester has far MORE per capita representation that Ireland does.

To be clear, these cuts would only take effect from the next general election – it won’t be the case that sitting TDs will lose their seats immediately. Anyone who loses out next time around would get no more than what any other retiring/defeated TD would get after they step down.

That can’t be the case. That makes too much sense. Was there a misprint in the press release? TDs don’t give up on a gravy train if there’s one to be had.

Them’s the breaks. You can’t change a parliament while it’s still sitting – the changes only kick in the next time it’s dissolved.

Not a cent until they reach pension age, under new rules. Check your facts rather than chucking up trendy cynicism.

They’ll have to be dragged from the trough kicking and screaming!!

Yes Tony, me and my trendy hipster cynicism. You haven’t the foggiest as to how much these guys are creaming off the system. Read all the facts you want from your reports but they’ll never tell you the full story. You go ahead and believe what you read. As for me, I’ll stick to what I see first hand everyday.

Martin, My psychic powers seem to be on the blink today probably due to the weather and I can’t sense the link to your website. Please excuse my obvious failings and provide one.

50K for a TD… Get into the real world… The actual hours they work for the money they are on…. Nobody would do it… I see people in the private sector of which i am one who get more money for less hours…
Everyone thinks they can do better but when push comes to shove its all talk and huff….

They don’t work that hard. Especially back benchers.

Made me LOL ^^

Paul true,but as a well known store says “Every little helps”.Less snouts in the through can only be a good thing.

It really is so indescribably small, that it is like worrying about someone steal daffodils from your front garden, while ignoring the people taking everything down to the floorboards in the house.

The no’s are immaterial, wages are immaterial, the main objective is reform of how politics and power operates in this country. Anything bar that is just throwing scraps off the table.

Are people truly represented by their representatives? Are your representatives accountable to you for the actions they take when they say they are representing you?

What “crisis of democracy” would this be?

I have a feeling you would be the exact same person who would be complaining if they raised the number of TDs – probably your argument would be “more money wasted on these bailed-out-bank-funded members of parliament”!

You also contradict yourself, you say you are “no fan of the parliamentary system” yet you call for more “accountable democracy”. You sir, are a hypocrit.

Would you be the Englishman who walked to Dublin?

You’re right, of course, to be looking to break the current stranglehold of the existing parties by the creation of a new one, and you’re right to be doing it now to build your support from the grass roots until you’ve a reasonable force at election time. It’d be no use whining at election time that there’s no alternative, it’s way too late at that point.

But I think you’re not entirely right to be so dismissive of new independents, a tight alliance of such people, who find common cause on national issues could be a mobilisable force, at the very least in your initial stages.

Which is another serious problem because cities are the engines of a modern economy, but Ireland is dominated by the rural agenda.

You obviously didn’t bother reading or examining the report. As it becomes very plain to see, Dublin and the Dublin commuter belt are both up in rep’s.

Dublin’s const’s haven’t been changed for years in a meaningful way, given the massive population growth, it was well over due.

And bring in some sort of rules on recall and accountability.

Leitrim with the same number of TDs as Dublin or Cork is a nonsense.

I think the geographical basis should be altogether ended, and it should be based on date of birth (adjusted for variations in the number of people born in different months). This would end the disgusting constituency clientelism, and be a step towards genuine democracy.
We should also return to the legal number of ministers, and stop this dishonesty of having multiple ‘Ministers of State for’.