TDs play down report of possible ‘email filter’

13/02/12 4,404 Views 55 Comments

The hallowed Inbox Zero: how a TD's inbox could look if an email filtering system was introduced.

Image: Krosstok via Flickr

POLITICIANS HAVE MOVED to dismiss reports that the are considering proposals to block incoming emails from members of the public.

A report in today’s Irish Examiner said an Oireachtas committee had been given a presentation on IT facilities which had included a discussion on the possibility of imposing an email filter.

The report quoted anonymous members of the all-party the Joint Administration Committee who said TDs’ inboxes were being flooded by email, much of it “irrelevant”.

A spokesman for that committee said that while members had considered the issue, they were “anxious to ensure that nothing be done which might interfere with democracy”.

They were keen to ensure that any changes to the current system would not hamper “communication between citizens and members of either House of the Oireachtas, or with citizens’ right to make protests peacefully or comment”.

One TD on the committee said members were reluctant to consider any outright filtering system, as they did not want to be seen to restrict public access to members of the Oireachtas.

TheJournal.ie understands that members have been given a series of briefings on administrative matters in the Oireachtas, ahead of the publication of its annual report, and that a presentation on Leinster House’s ICT systems formed part of these.

One Leinster House source said the briefings given to members only dealt with the possibility of an email filter on a “hypothetical” basis, and that no members had actively sought to introduce a full

Various websites offer the possibility of sending automated email petitions to members of the Oireachtas; one online petition against the so-called ‘Irish SOPA’ legislation, which emails TDs on signatories’ behalves, has been signed by more than 80,000 people.

Mark Conroy, who runs petitions website Contact.ie, said he was “baffled” that the idea would be floated by TDs in the first place.

“If we read that the North Korean government decided that some people can contact TDs on some issues, but that others don’t have a right to contact them on other issues, we’d treat it as another example of a failed – or at least failing – government,” he said.

Read: New rules may allow independent TDs to be paid twice for same expenses

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Comments (55 Comments)

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Sharrow 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 4 63

WTF, sure they have staff to help them with correspondence, they need to cop on and understand email is correspondence just like letters.

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- mike 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 8 66
  
  Do you think you live in a democracy or something. Did you not learn you are ignored. Look at the last referendums. Did it teach you anything? You don’t matter.
- John O'Neill 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 2 65
  
  Time to get the pikes out of the hayloft.
- Sean O'Keeffe 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 6 29
  
  In a direct democracy politicans can’t ignore the electorate between elections and can be removed from office.
  http://www.causes.com/causes/552678-real-republic-for-direct-democracy/about
- Stephen Lowe 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 3 20
  
  @Sean
  Totally agree, we need to grow up fast and move towards Direct Democracy. Ireland already has a DD website. Let’s start supporting and strengthening OUR rights and beliefs.
- Brendan Kelly 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 9 7
  
  Actually an email ain’t just like a letter. An email can be banged out and sent in thirty seconds. With a letter you need to type and print it, or write it on paper, get the envelope, get the stamps, post the damn thing. It takes a lot more effort to write a letter then it does to write an email. As a general rule, any correspondence in letter form is more likely to be paid attention to because it takes more time to do it. If someone can be bothered sending a letter, they probably can’t be bothered suing either. This doesn’t just apply to politicians, but also to big multinationals, even internet based ones. I’ve worked for three. Trust me on this, you want a solution to your problem, write a letter. Much harder to dismiss a letter writer as some foaming at the mouth keyboard warrior.
- Brendan Kelly 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 2 3
  
  *can’t be bothered to send a letter.
  
  Just as another quick illustration of this point. When I worked for a certain multinational internet giant, all emails were dealt with by entry level customer support staff, normally with template responses. Letters went to the Office of the Vice President in the US. Feel free to draw your own conclusions.
- John O'Neill 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 1 2
  
  Practically every comment I post to The Joynil is deleted these days. Perhaps The Journal could sell its humourless, politically biased, politically correct,Young Fine Gael filtering system to TDs. BTW before a journalist pops on to claim I breach site usage policies, I don’t. Is it just me or is this site skewing to the right??
- Gavan Reilly 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 0 2
  
  When you say ‘skewing to the right’, do you mean on the part of its authors or its commentors?
mike 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 6 47

TDs and Government to ignore the public. These so called public representatives are are waste of space. They do not care about you or your family. Just shut up and pay the banker debt you peasants.

Reply
Ross Mulcahy 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 4 47

The Irish government is “another example of a failed – or at least failing – government”

Reply
Mark Dennehy 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 3 51

“Email Filter” seems such a fancy term for the “Delete All” menu option…

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Aydo 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 3 40

I never get replies to my emails anyway so this changes nothing for me.

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- mike 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 5 32
  
  True i e-mail all 166 and only 4 got back to me.
- Gill Jones 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 1 6
  
  Aydo I got a reply from the te-shock’s office last email I sent confirming receipt in 2112 !!
  
  Yes thats right, I jumped into my delorian went into the future to send an email, then travelled back to get the the reply! The incompetence is astounding.
Derek Higgins 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 4 27

I am amazed that there isn’t a filer already in place. TD’s really are a clueless lot

Reply
- Inda Kinny 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 1 34
  
  EXACTLY. It’s already pretty straightforward and has been for years. No doubt some dopes will be getting €50,000 to produce a report on how to filter messages for Outlook 2003.
Mark Dennehy 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 1 58

I especially liked this bit:

One TD on the committee said members were reluctant to consider any outright filtering system, as they did not want to be seen to restrict public access to members of the Oireachtas.

The problem’s not doing something, it’s been seen to do it, apparently…

Reply
- Maria Moran 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 5 14
  
  While they hide away in their ivory towers!!! It’s all in perception really isn’t it.
- Robert McDonnell 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 0 1
  
  How did you get the bold font? In an app or not?
- Mark Dennehy 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 0 0
  
  HTML tags entered manually.
Contact.ie 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 6 34

We at Contact.ie have set up a campaign emailing all TDs and Senators demanding that they don’t filter our emails. It’s here (and, yes, we appreciate the irony of this):
http://contact.ie/webform/dont-filter-our-emails

Reply
- Brian Fransisco Kealy 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 18 2
  
  Disgraceful carry on. There is just no need to go clogging inboxes to take out your unwarranted frustration.
- Gill Jones 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 2 4
  
  oops I accidentally did it twice, do ya think i’m on the blocked list now :( But how will they know when my road needs fixing.
- Brian Fransisco Kealy 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 4 0
  
  And there it goes. The most sensible thing you’ll probably ever say and it was sarcastic
- Sheila Murphy 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 0 1
  
  I used contact.ie to send my own mail to them all;
  
  I changed the subject line to : “How dare you try to Filter our Emails”
  and the body to:
  
  “The below email will be sent to you in block; However on a strictly personal note, I say how dare you? Who do you think pays you? Who do you think votes for you? Why don’t you want to hear from the people of Ireland – what are you afraid of? and more importantly WHO are you afraid of – at the moment the answer might be Merkosy but I think you’ll find that we the Irish people are the ones you should be most afraid of – we are at breaking point. – don’t forget that – we are at breaking point.”
  
  I did get a reply from Senators David Cullinane & Trevor Ó Clochartaigh – probably automated but whatever – I can’t believe the utter GALL of them. I wish I knew how to do angry little yellow face
steve white 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 2 16

the oireachtas members shouldn’t filter their email, but creators of mass emailing forms should be more targeted,sensible and do it by constituency, you contact your local TDs on national issues not every td and senator in one go, if you have reason to contact a politician outside your constituency off you go but not all at once.

Reply
- Sheila Murphy 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 3 3
  
  Understand why you’d say that Steve – but it doesn’t work – my locals NEVER respond to texts or mails etc………… however all of them CANNOT INDEFINITELY IGNORE us if we bombard them ; as we’re not currently doing it on the streets (a lot of us work so can’t) we can at least do it on the net
jimbo 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 3 4

just pure lazyness or stupidity…

Reply
David Watson 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 5 15

its unbelievable how much more governments are trying to become dictators since the recession

Reply
John Wooldridge 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 6 12

This is not a democracy, this is a dictatorship!!
Heil Merkel etc.

Reply
- John Wooldridge 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 7 3
  
  I should have said, Hail Kenny, but I was thinking about the real leader or leaders of our country, Merkel and Sarkozy.
tom_cos 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 13 21

I work in a TDs office, so here is the inside view.

Mass e-mails indicate that an issue is of a national concern. But TDs are eleted to serve people in a given area – none of the e-mails coming in ever say what area they are from so a TD from Cork could get hundreds of e-mails from people in Dublin, Louth etc. What TDs are really interested in is e-mail from people in their own area.

TDs and their 2 staff try to handle all the e-mails, but when people are sending in e-mails over whatever topic is of concern of a day, there could literally be thousands of e-mails. It is enourmously time consuming, especially when there are phone calls, legislative research and speech writing, press release writing and meetings all happening as well.

People should find their local TDs and contact them by e-mail and by phone and ask to mee them also – this is a far more effective way to have an impact and it will get a response from the TD.

Reply
- Sharrow 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 1 21
  
  All the more reason to have a federal government for national policy and leave local issues to Councillors.
- Anton_S 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 1 5
  
  I was under the impression that I was electing TDs to look after national issues, not local ones. It is therefore surely irrelevant where I’m from.
  
  Nonetheless, I *have* included my meatspace address in my recent emails to my three constituency TDs and Minister of State Sherlock on the Irish SOPA issue. I got responses two of my three TDs, none from another, and Sherlock, whose website says “My door is always open. Please feel free to contact me anytime on any issue of concern to you.” ignored three emails pointing out he himself is breaking copyright law, until he say my letter in the newspaper…
  
  “People should find their local TDs and contact them by e-mail and by phone and ask to mee them also – this is a far more effective way to have an impact and it will get a response from the TD.”
  
  It’s the 21st century. It’s far more efficient for me and for the TDs/their staff to use email to communicate on issues of national concern rather than for me to be phoning them or taking up 20 minutes of their time and my time in a room over a pub or in a caravan.
  
  1000′s of emails on the same topic, same wording? Create a filter and a rule to auto-reply with the TD’s position on the subject.
  
  Or maybe you’d rather spend your time, as a predecessor of yours of my acquaintance did – sending pointless letters to the council or DFA to see if constituent Bloggs can be moved up the housing list or if they’re entitled to X benefit. Which is *not* what a TD is for…
Rory Ardagh 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 5 15

Hi, I’ve had experience of how TDs deal with email directly.

In the first instance, they do want to get back to everybody who contacts them as best they can.

However, they have to prioritise their work effort, and the work effort of their team, just like everbody else. We pay the salaries of these people, and asking, for example, city TDs, thousands of times, to respond individually to non-constituents about issues their constituents aren’t impacted by (e.g. septic tanks) is a waste of our money.

I would recommend that when somebody tries to contact a TD, that they should only contact their own TDs, and that, in communicating, they would include their full name and address, indicating that they are a constituent of the TD, and indicating their voting registration number on the electoral roll (available on http://www.checktheregister.ie).

This would allow more effective communication. I think people on thejournal.ie would be more on the TDs side if they saw how many ‘online’ campaigns and campaign sites just broadcast, or encourage their subscribers, to mail-bomb every TD.

The UK has a system which facilitates public petitions on specific issues, and I believe each MP is alerted when one of their own constituents signs such a petition, to enable them to reach out. ( http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/ ). Instead of blocking emails, a more creating use of technology could really improve democracy.

Reply
Damien Dobs Ó Brien 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 6 16

I think this is a good analogy to how the governmentviews our opinions….. it’s all just spam to them

Reply
- Yeera Yeahboy 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 2 1
  
  A very well thought out contribution
Paddy O Donnell 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 4 9

lets get real here….td’s dont read them….they certainly dont reply to them!!

Reply
tom_cos 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 6 9

Paddy,

I can tell you straight up that they do reply – not all the time and usually not directly – but a great deal of the time they draft a response and have the staff send it.

Reply
- Jambbie 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 1 11
  
  Appreciate that you’re giving a view from the TD side, but if you work for Joan Burton then your a spoofer. I’ve countless emails to her office and the first line always says where I’m from. Only got a response in the run up to the election but since then nothing.
- Paddy O Donnell 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 1 0
  
  my experience hasnt been the case.
- mollydot 14/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 1 1
  
  I imagine it depends on the politician. In my small experience, I get a better response rate coming up to an election, but even then some don’t reply. Other times, mostly no response.
Paul Mallon 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 0 6

it’d be interesting to see what keywords they plan on filtering on.

Reply
- Sheila Murphy 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 2 2
  
  all the words………………… that’ll keep their inboxes nice & empty and help them in their delusions that we’re all on holidays after the last budget (remember Leo’s comments) or whatever other hallucination they’re currently having.
Brian Fransisco Kealy 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 12 10

This really is typical of the terrible, bitter attitude that so many people in this country have towards elected officials. They read a bit of an article and react aggressively and abusively without even understanding the full picture or making any effort to look into it.

Two people with experience of how the system works explain exactly what is going on and why such a system should be put in place and still the burn-the-bankers-brigade are out in force ready to add further clutter the inbox of hard working politicians.

It seems an ironic form of protest, slowing down the response process to protest about the slow response process.

Reply
Keith Maguire 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 2 8

Over the past number of years I have emailed a number of TD’s, both my local and cabinet ministers, about various issues that have concerned me. In most cases I have gotten an automated reply that my email has been received. I have only ever gotten two return emails from TD’s in relation to one issue. Ironically both of these emails were identical and didn’t address my particular concerns which would indicate to me that it was just a standard reply given to all people about that issue.

So I don’t understand the point in a filter when they can just go on ignoring us.

Reply
- Yeera Yeahboy 13/02/12 #
  
  Report this comment 2 0
  
  Maybe if there had been a filter, you’d have gotten a proper reply?
Sarah Clancy 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 0 10

Regarding TDs and Senators and mass e- mail campaigns, the response that they would like to limit them is in fact a sign of how outdated they are. From my own experience (I am not a member of any political party) Sinn Fein followed by the ULA reps are the only parties who have recognised that every e-mail they recieve from a voting citizen is in fact an opportunity presenting itself. Following contacting all party TDs on several issues I find that (A) Sinn Fein delegate one of their elected reps to respond for all of them on each issue and (B) that they have added me to mailing lists which seek my involvement and support for demonstrations or actions on the issue I have contacted them about. So for Sinn Fein it’s win win- they appear to see the mails as an invitation for them to interact with me directly. The responses from other parties who wish to stop or control these e-mails only demonstrates that they are not au fait with the opportunities technology presents to them. I think this is very interesting as even if you buy into the ‘knowledge economy’ or the tech sector view of the Irish state then our politicians clearly need training on life in politics with the internet as a constant companion. Can you imagine Obama’s (I’m just using his campaign as an example now not supporting his policies) election team complaining about e-mails they recieved? nope they didn’t they did their best to convert every one of those into voters…

Reply
Stephen Maher 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 2 9

They neither know nor care what we think. They regard us as a total irrelevance that only exists to rubber stamp their aspirations as they go dancing forward to their nice BIG EARLY pensions.
Welcome to 21st century neo feudal Ireland.

Reply
Adam Smith 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 2 16

It’s rife throughout the whole civil service. Last summer after trying to phone my local VEC in Tullamore many times and receiving no answer, I went to their website and found the email address of every person working in the office. I sent an email asking a couple of questions about eligibility and did not get one reply.

Dealing with the public seems to be too much to ask from these people

Reply
Andrew McCarthy 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 1 7

When every campaign is arrogantly dismissed as cranks or whatever the insult of the day is (e.g. Irish SOPA) the result is the people shouting louder by whatever means are available. If we thought they listened they wouldn’t have this problem in the first place.

Reply
Gerard Cunningham 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 0 1

Kite, backlash, backtrack…

Reply
Brian Fransisco Kealy 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 4 0

For the long term benefit of Keith, Barry and Derek;

http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/apostro.asp

Reply
Gus Lynch 13/02/12 #

Report this comment 0 6

I have a long-standing, mostly one-sided email conversation ongoing with An Taoiseach over the pay scandal that is Mr Ciaran Conlon.

I have (once again) reached the ‘acknowledged’ stage.

I lament.

Reply

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