I’m not an expert by any means but New Zealand seems to be a country with a similar population (4,393,500) and similar government (parliamentary democracy according to Wikipedia) – they have just 120 MPs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_New_Zealand

The answer is probably equivalent to “How many TDs does it take for one of them to win a celebrity game show?”

Seems to me that only government Ministers actually have any function that is of any worth in terms of national legislation. Everyone else is either in opposition (an important function!) or just making up the numbers.
Including the junior ministers, there’s currently 30 TDs in ministerial positions, so allowing the same number for an opposition, we could quite happily get along with 60 TDs.

The European average is something like one member of parliment to every 87,000 people… That would leave us with 46 TDs! Plenty!

Get some Irish Mammys in there instead and we would never have been in this mess at all,everyone in the country would be well fed,well looked after and we would have had plenty of money saved for a rainy day!

We only need about 10 TD’s. The reason: Party TD’s are not allowed to think, do or say anything for themselves. They only repeat the party line, one TD could do that. For the representation we are getting from the Cork TD’s I sometimes wonder are we better off sending noone to the Dáil and use the money to be each person in the county a drink (and a soft drink for the children).

This is window dressing, the savings are minimal, Ireland is run for a very small no. of people, that never are held accountable and get massive tax breaks, they flitter between FG and FF. Both parties being indistinguishable economically. Both parties having quadrupled national debt in single Govt. terms. An economic disaster record unequaled by any other western state. If FG and FF aren’t removed from the political scene, then the country will just be back in the same hole in another 20 years. Anyone wonder why the investigation in to Séan Fitzpatrick is still being impeded, he is FF through and through and FG never challenge the most powerful in society even if it is for the good of the country and the economy.

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Cut it to 50 tds and we won’t be long finding out who the real legislators are.

ive a fairly radical idea of change, break the country up into large constituencies, do away with county councils, make up the local government from your new constituencies, devolve more power to them, to deal with local issues, then the main government can be vastly reduced and your parish pump boys will be left dealing with local issues while your main government will be made up of people working for the whole country…

Oh and no Political Parties… The House of Keys seems to function well without them.

Slash the Dail numbers in half, get rid of the Seanad, Slash the salaries in half, all expenses should have to have receipts or don’t pay them as is the case for everyone else. The holidays should also be slashed to what all other public service people get (and even some of those are over generous) Pensions should not be payable until they reach retirement age, they should pay for their own phones, phone bills and transport once they leave office. When in office any communication needs should be met through a communications budget which would show all calls made, any phones purchased and from who they are purchased plus any postal or other related expenditure all of which should be transparent and open to public scrutiny. Oh and we don’t need a president either, lets just rejoin the commonwealth and we have the Queen for free!

Moving towards a more localised government is what we need. Decreasing the number of TDs is really centralising the government and giving power to a smaller number of people, and I think it’s a move in the wrong direction.

The problem with cutting the number of TDs is that there will obviously lead to constituencies with less seats. In small constituencies small parties and Independent candidates have far less chance of getting elected then in 5 seater constituencies. So whilst cutting the number of TDs is good o one hand, it may result in more domination by Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fail in Leinster House.

We need to be able to petition government to force referendums on issues.

And eliminate half the TD’s at least. In fact, if you had the main cabinet ministers and about 20-30 others assigned to ED based on population to raise concerns of constituents to cabinet so they can discuss what each constituency wants and make an overall judgment on what is best policy for the country.

Of course the above could lead to the same situation we have now but then at least we’d be in charge. There needs to be an outright ban on national politicians influencing local decisions with forced resignations if they are caught interfering (or vote buying if you will).

More power over local areas should be given to local government who must be held more accountable. If you read the media since the election, several local councilors (mostly FG) have been caught doing idiotic things like running pubs after hours and not paying duty/vat which is ridiculous for any politician and they should be banned from running for office and kicked out of their parties if they aren’t going to pay their bloody taxes.

None. Bring the army in. lets clean up this country.

1 TD for each county and a further one for each population center of over 250,000. Then let the county/city councils run local government and the 30 or so TD’s deal with national policy.

The constitution states that there MUST be one TD for every 20,000-30,000 of the population. The new census has found that Laois-Offaly and Kildare South are now in breach of this constitutional requirement.

If we want more than 20 TDs gone it will require a referendum. Just to point that out.

1 TD for each county thats all that is needed – if they are working.

at a rate of one politician in national parliament to represent 50,000 constituents, that would suggest that a maximum of 90 TD’s would be enough, although judging by the quality of our current and recent politicians, even that might be too much

We’d need a referendum but I say cut it to 100. Twenty constituencies of five seats each would be far more democratic that the current system. Smaller parties would have a better chance to make their case and get elected.

This would mean some very large constituencies but that might help to break the “parish pump” mentality.

Susan why can’t there be a serious option for ‘None’. Personally I’m a grown man and by looking at the evidence of governments around the world for hundreds of years – This system does not work. Can’t we simply evolve past the idea that we need to be ‘led’ or ‘governed’? For anyone who thinks this idea ‘silly’ I suggest you read a very well written article about Phyles, its the direction the world is headed anyway.
http://www.caseyresearch.com/cwc/doug-casey-phyles
If you have time watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz2j3BhL47c
These are not radical ideas, its common sense, Brehan law was here long before the EU and Enda and it worked much better than the present system.

Fewer : take the pork barrel out of politics , and , perversely ; there will be fewer pigs !!

I know this is a side issue but can anyone tell me why we need government? I know you’ll say ‘to run the country’ But the country does run itself. People run their own businesses, staff run hospitals etc. Highly paid politicians and civil servants are unnecessary. Of course they’ll tell us all day we need them, but personally, honestly I don’t think we do, and I’m at a loss why so many here want them. If the system does not work why not do away with it?

Why is it that the sucessive governments can always find the time and money to change electorial boundaries ?

The poll does not ask what form of government we want, just whether want the number of TDs cut. Therefore in this context your vague fantasies about local government, which last time I checked is a form of government – the clue is in th name – are irrelevant. I’m not any happier with our government than you are. They are to a man and the few women a complete waste of space. However it is obvious that this proposal in the absence of any other reforms, which are not on the agenda, will only be to make things worse. I’m not happy with the health service either but would cutting the number of doctors be the solution? No. So why do people think the solution to a crap democracy is to make it less democratic?

Just think this poll is skewed in an anti-govt way as it does not classify they.”They” should be the Constituency Commission. Also in the article about Joanna Tuffy’s comments, she should read the constitution and realise that the minister is acting within the parameters as laid down by the constitution and also realise she better enjoy the back benches for the next 4 and half years.!

hopefully they will see sense and make cavan and monaghan two separate constituencys as once again monaghan have more tds, who only care about monaghan, two 2 seaters makes more sense than one 5 seater

The more TD”s the more representation. I am sick of smug populace hating D4 know-alls puffing themselves up by sayin g we need less TD’s. They never had to go to a TD for a medical card or get a door fixed bcause some bureaucrat treated them like sh#t. I have come across countless case. Do away with croneyism and clientelism associated with corrupt developers and politicians. But it is usually, sorry, always the little guy that gets screwed by these reforms while the fatcats continue to laugh their way to the banks

how dim are the people on this site baying for less democracy? if you don’t like your tds elect different ones rather than clamouring to be less represented. The only result of a TD-cut will be less small parties and independents getting elected and more tweedledum and tweedledee. You can also bet your life that FG/Lab will gerrymander the new constituencies as much as they can to try to compensate for the trouncing they’re bound to get in the next election .

one td per county does not work, we had it last time around and he became agri minister,yes polititions need to do good of the country but they have to work for their local areas too, giving more power to county councils on local issues as a law in dublin may not work in west cork, then and only then can TDS solely do work for the country