Without more radical reform of the State, we will return to mediocrity

‘There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”

All politicians – consciously or subconsciously – understand Machiavelli's cautionary refrain on initiating and undertaking reform. Yet without change and adaptation, decline sets in, either by slow decay or by spectacular collapse.

It is for this reason that bottom-up pressure for reform is indispensable. When civil society demands change, the cost/benefit calculus for politicians of introducing “a new order of things” alters in favour of reform.

On one area of fundamental reform, bottom-up pressure is building. Last week’s MacGill Summer School underscored the widening recognition and more frequently voiced observation that our parliament is pitifully inadequate, in its functions both of lawmaking and holding to account. Without strengthening the branch of government which should be the first among equals, the quality of Irish governance will not improve.

Yet giving lawmakers powers more akin to their counterparts in other democracies and their colleagues in the European Parliament will not remedy the biggest deficiencies in the functioning of the State, for which the executive bears responsibility. Moreover, the by-now often-repeated (and perfectly correct) point that the executive branch of government dominates the legislative branch risks giving the impression that the former is not in need of reform.

Some conceptual clarification is needed here on the relationship between the two branches of government. Just as in a personal relationship, because one partner dominates the other does not necessarily mean that the domineering partner is strong, competent and able. It may be that one partner is merely less weak than the other.

So it is with Ireland’s system of government. The executive branch is strong relative to the legislature, but very weak in absolute terms, and vis-a-vis its counterparts elsewhere.

Irish executive performance has traditionally been characterised by inertia and indecision. Examples of executive inaction over the decades could fill this entire supplement, but a few stand out:
improving the teaching of Irish has failed for almost a century;

a leaky Victorian water system has been neglected and allowed to decay slowly;

until this year, personal insolvency laws were as old as the water system;

managing urbanisation by creating an effective planning system has been long-fingered for decades;

no government appears able to come up with a better anti-corruption mechanism than the absurd tribunal system.

Even creating the capacity to generate and implement reform has not happened. Public-sector reform has been glacially slow and the Civil Service is, in many respects, unfit for purpose.

The State's executive structures are like a Ford Model T car navigating a modern motorway. Crashes are inevitable. They happened in the 1950s and the 1980s. We are now living through the pain of a third major crash.

It is depressing that a relatively minor innovation designed to make the executive function more effectively – the Economic Management Council – has been criticised far more than it has been praised. Last week this column praised the innovation and attempted to rebut some of the criticisms of it.

Owing to limitations of space, it was impossible to address the charge that the council reinforces the dominance of government over the Oireachtas. As the legislature has long been completely subservient to the executive, this is not a good reason to oppose the council, but even more reason to support a stronger Oireachtas.

Profound reform
Much more profound reform of the basic institutional infrastructure of the State is needed. The most obvious would be to separate the executive and the legislature by prohibiting TDs from simultaneously holding executive office, as in most democracies, but many others are needed.

Introducing the sort of reforms that would modernise the infrastructure of government will not be easy. But whatever the risks of action, inaction will push the State back to the position it held as northwest Europe’s underperformer and laggard for most of post-independence history. The implications could be more serious still given the pace at which the world now moves.

Even thinkers who are, by nature, cautious about tinkering with institutions and tradition understand the need for adaptation. Edmund Burke, the intellectual giant of conservatism who ranks alongside Machiavelli as one the greatest political thinkers of all time, wrote: "A state without the means of some change, is without the means of its own conservation."

This State needs more radical change.