A NEW POLITICAL party, Direct Democracy Ireland, held its launch in Dublin’s Buswell’s hotel today.

Direct Democracy Ireland (DDI) says it aims to allow citizens to petition for a referendum on any issue through the collection of a certain number of signatures, as well as introducing a mechanism to remove public representatives deemed not to be performing their duties to the satisfaction of the electorate or found to be corrupt.

DDI aslo says it wants to create “realistic economic choices” based on public debate and transparent policies.

The became an official party on the State’s register of political parties last month, after having been in existence for two years previously.

Party founder Raymond Whitehead said he aimed for the organisation to be seen as a ‘service’ rather than a party. Speaking at the launch, Whitehead added that he hoped that Ireland’s political system could become a direct democracy rather than a representative democracy, the Irish Times reports.

In its mission statement, DDI outlines a number of advantages that it claims its approach offers:

• Raises issues that others may want to hide
• Restores authority to the people, and makes them responsible, not the parties.
• Curbs the imbalance of power, makes politicians responsible to the people
• Gets the community involved
• Makes for better legislation
• Politicians are forced to act on petitions instead of throwing them out right away.
• Helps to gain control over Parliament and the direction of the country.
• Restores parliamentary government with representatives
• Makes politicians be accountable

Uploaded by Ben Gilroy