NO – TDs are supposed to be working at a national level and not a local level. We have councillors and local government for a reason. Unless a local issue is of national importance then TDs shouldn’t be involved.

Unfortunately, there is a culture in this countries of TDs being messenger boys and having to deal constantly with local issue. “I won’t vote for you unless you fix my pot holes or get my planning permission through”. It’s no wonder nothing gets done at national level when TDs are keeping on eye on what some head the ball up a country lane is demanding.

In my view, a TD that intervenes in a local process e.g. housing lists on behalf of a constituent is doing so for a vote. This is the same thing as offering money for a vote. It’s corrupt.

Letters should be flowing the opposite way. I see TDs every w/e holding “clinics” almost entirely for the “giz a house” brigade. Almost turns me pint sour

This leaning on local authorities may be alright where the system is at fault – as with bringing attention to a massive pothole that is affecting citizens’ quality of life – but more often it’s just blatant interference with the due process of proper decision making based on little things like justifiable need and first-come-first-served. At the very least the busybody minister/TD should be required to publish online copies of all such letters so that all can see what merits they apply to housing list queue jumping or just how qualified they really are in terms of adjudicating on sustainable planning and development.

The job of the legislature is to legislate, TDs should concentrate on the job they are getting paid to do, and stop fishing for votes from their ministerial offices.
All citizens should free and open contact to transparent decision making bodies in their local council areas.

I’ve had dealings with TDs and Minsters offices for years. You get a letter or a phone call regarding a constituent who’s basically looking to queue-skip over a couple of thousand others in the same boat. My experience of late is that they’re not entertained in the slightest. You tell them that you’re being fair and dealing with those who’ve been waiting longest first. I mean, what’s a TD going to do to my “career”? Stop me being promoted? There are no promotions! Transfer me to the arse end of nowhere? Yeah, they closed that office last year! I’ll just keep on keeping on, trying to be as quick and as fair as possible while TD continue wasting time and resourses on the Parish Pumpers.

Also, if you’re not entitled to something, no amount of representations from TDs and Ministers will get it for you. That’s a myth. If you’re entitled to it, you’ll get it (eventually… sorry.). In the meantime, can we just get on with our work, under resourced and all as we are.

So if you need a new cooker, just ask the minister for foreign affairs. Have I got that right or did I misread the article. What a lovely bunch of folk they are. I bet Hilary Clinton wouldn’t do that for a voter.

You only have to look west to mayo all the road improvements, eg longford by pass balla by pass. N17 motorway link . Bicycle routes all over westport. Also all mayo contractors involved

If they want to represent at a local level, then they should have remained in local government!

Big fat no. Their job is to look after the affairs of the state as a whole. If elected politicians spend too much time looking after individuals then how are they supposed to look after the health of the country. Not that their doing a very good job of it at the moment.

It’s one of the biggest problems in irish politics that the people elected to run the country focus on local issues rather than the national ones.

On a related note I’ve seen even more questionable letters from TDs when I was working in a bank. A young lad had a personal loan, used it to purchase a moped for travelling to work and insured it for 3rd Party Fire & Theft. Unfortunately the moped was vandalised badly and was rendered unroadworthy and the insurance didn’t cover the damage. The owner then felt because his moped was a loss to him and he had no insurance cover for the damage, that he shouldn’t have to make his loan repayments any more and it had gone into arrears. Amid the file of correspondence concerning loan was a letter from …. you guessed it! … his local TD! Stating the virtues of this young chap and his family, personally known to him of course, extolling the woes of the poor chap’s situation and requesting that something be done to wipe the slate clean so he could buy another moped. True story!

Interesting to read some of the comments here because some of the same people who are saying NO to this are also the same people who criticise TDs on other thread for not representing the views of their constituents on other matters. So which is it to be because it seems a little like trying to have your cake and eat it on behalf of some posters.

The question has to be asked as to exactly what form of representative democracy we want? Here are a couple of questions to start with.

Do we want our central legislature to be focused purely on national issues? If so then would it be better to abandon our current form of constituency based elections in favour of more centralised list systems which removes the local link between TDs and the general public. However we could end up with a legislature that is even more removed from the general public than people think our current one is. A list system also creates a dependency on a political party and adhering to a whip system (which many people complain about as undemocratic).

With regard to appointing external Ministers then we have to ask if we appoint them from outside the political system then how do we make them accountable to it and who appoints them and who can remove them. How does the legislature fit in with such a model.

Would most people be happy with the idea that TDs can not be contacted with regard to local matters? I think there is a majority of people in this country who are quite happy to know that they can just ring their local TD when they want to get something. I have a friend who works as a PA to a TD and most of her day is spent taking calls from constituents with regard to stuff like medical cards, or benefits, or getting the local council to do repairs. This culture is quite endemic within Ireland.

I don’t have answers to these questions and there are many more that would need to be asked. Its easy to say we need to change the system, the tricky questions happen when you try and work out what we should replace it with and whether the replacement is better than what we currently have.

TDs are meant to legislate on a national level. They are not to get involved with local matters such as burst water mains and culverts overflowing. That is a matter for councillors to address.

There is a systemic problem that people vote for Johnny down the road because he once fixed a pothole.

If TDs were to work on a national level and were less concerned with getting things such as primary health care centres for their constituency then we would avoid messes such as the one we are currently in.

The problem here is that everyone seems to just make it up as they go along. If a letter from a TD can bump you up a housing list, get your granny into surgery quicker, get you a job, get you moved from one prison to another, get a pothole fixed, and so on, then the system is broken. Why should a TD’s pothole letter be acted on quicker than mine?

The other issue is that TDs haven’t the balls to say no to anyone. We’ve seen that; asking for killers to be moved closer to their mammy so she can visit. It sickens me.

The third problem is those who receive these letters. Personally, they need to write back to both the TD and the constituent and tell them that a letter from a TD makes no difference and they are not doing their jobs to suit TDs.

Until all these people; the constituent, the TD and the target of the letter stop this little merry go round, it’ll just keep spinning and spinning.

Can other TDs do so? Should constituents suffer because their TD is made a Minister?

If Local Government was working properly and councillors had power, then there would be no need to lobby ministers or T.D.’s. But the so-called lawmakers shouldn’t be lobbied by anyone, especially commercial groups. But it’s allowed happen, to harvest votes and a deliberate tactic to get votes for the party!

mor eparish pump politics the likes of which kept fianna fail in power for so ling, i remember falling out with my Dad a couple of years back because he wanted me to vote for a certain ex TD got us medical cards in the 80′s when we shouldn’t have had them, only to be told by me he was a fool and it was his government who took the medical cards from us the year before but won your undying loyalty just because he got them back for you!! he has since woken up to their tactics and so should everyone else in this country!!

That’s about all they do..
If they paid more attention to what they should be doing maybe we wouldn’t have gotten into and still be in the mess we are in..
The sad fact is That this is all they are capable of.
Parish pump politicians for parish pump politics..

When Parnell was an MP Irish people still went to speak with Parnell on issues of the day.Irish public representative of the day has nothing to do with the voting system but Irish culture and societal structure.PR-STV is the fairest system of public representation of all the systems compared to British first past the post or the German list or the French 2 stage election process.local government WAS MADE WEAKER by successive Government’s to STOP POWERFUL LOCAL GOVERNMENT BODIES challenging the power of National government decisions.weak local structure allows TD to increase their power base and hence re-election chances.TD allowing a WEAK then increases their workload by having a WEAK LOCAL system and NO clearly defined local government structures in place across the country for people to deal with important issues like housing,hospitals,schools is left to chance.

Yes they should, any elected person should represent their constitutes. It’s sad people don’t see this. These days local politics is shamed and our EU masters should come first. I think people have lost the plot.

Obviously if people want to change the way politics works they could always do something about it rather than just sitting around complaining …http://damoclesbda.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/yeah-well-politicians-innit/

so we should just change are election system.half elected in 20 three seat constitutices and the other half on a list system. we don’t need any more TDs than that.we need a referendum to change.

Whats most irritating about this is our bonkers Social Housing system that makes it alright for a person to lobby a public representative to have the door bell on their Council-owned house changed!

Hopefully when we get the next FF Government we can return to some sanity and be able to hand over a few quid in an envelope or play golf with the local head honcho and get things done around the place.

I’ve plans for an apartment block in the middle of a local forest and all I’m getting from the current croud is the total runaround trying to get anything approved. It’s all just red tape.

Government is meant to empower the people, not the other way around. Last thing we ever got done around here was years ago; some road resurfacing in exchange for a byelection and a cineplex and spa hotel out at the old industrial estate in exchange for being able to knock down some listed building in main street.