SUPPORT FOR water charges and property taxes rose while backing for selling State assets fell among those who took part in a citizens’ assembly organised by the “We the Citizens” campaign.
Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore yesterday launched the final report from the organisation, which was funded by Irish-American businessman Chuck Feeney’s charitable organisation, Atlantic Philanthropies. The project aimed to encourage people to engage with the political system.
The report found that 60 per cent of those randomly selected to become participants in a national citizens’ assembly on June 25th and 26th were in favour of the introduction of water charges initially, but that figure rose to 85 per cent after they took part in the weekend of deliberation during which they also heard from “expert witnesses”.
On property tax, 40 per cent were in favour at the beginning of the weekend but that figure rose to 56 per cent, while the study found a “massive” shift against the sale of State assets. “Where less than half (48 per cent) of the citizens’ assembly members had been in favour before the weekend, this plummeted to just 10 per cent by the end of the weekend,” the report stated.
The report recommended that the Government incorporate a citizens’ assembly model into its promised constitutional convention, a major public debate on the Constitution which is due to take place next spring. Welcoming the report, Mr Gilmore said: “The evidence produced by We the Citizens is heartening, and provides valuable lessons for how we can improve our democracy in practical and meaningful ways.”
The chairman of the campaign, Fiach Mac Conghail, who is also director of the Abbey Theatre and a Senator appointed by Taoiseach Enda Kenny, said if political reform was to be successful, citizens must have ownership of the process. “Based on the evidence of our academic research and on what we heard and recorded from citizens all over the country, We the Citizens recommends that the Government adopts a citizens’ assembly mechanism to support and enhance our representative democracy,” he said.
The group’s academic director Prof David Farrell, who holds the chair of politics at UCD and is a son of the broadcaster Prof Brian Farrell, said the initiative revealed important shifts in opinion regarding the role of TDs. “It is clear that the opportunity to discuss the role of TDs increased participants’ belief in the importance of national issues and the wish that TDs would concentrate more on their legislative and policymaking role,” he said.
Atlantic Philanthropies gave €630,000 to the project, which was launched in April and concludes this month. Prof Farrell was joined by Dr Jane Suiter, a lecturer at UCC’s department of government; Dr Eoin O’Malley, lecturer in political science at Dublin City University and Dr Elaine Byrne, an adjutant lecturer at the department of political science at Trinity College Dublin.
