The parties should address political reform in a “collegial spirit” rather than by point-scoring, the founders of the website Reformcard.com said today.
Joe Curtin of the organisation said there was “no panacea” for political reform.
“There’s no cure-all.” He said what was required was a broad reform agenda, corresponding to the areas on which the parties were scored by a group of political scientists and academics.
Each party’s general election manifesto was rated in five areas: legislative, electoral, open government, local government and the public sector.
Publishing updated scores today in the wake of new policy documents released in recent days, the parties scored as follows: Fine Gael 74 per cent; Fianna Fáil 58 per cent; Green Party 68 per cent; Labour Party 68 per cent and Sinn Féin 51 per cent.
Dr Jane Suiter, political analyst at UCC, noted Sinn Féin had almost doubled its score since ratings were published earlier this month.
This was because it had since published more proposals on electoral reform.
Dr Suiter said the party was “very strong” on issues such as emigrant voting and bringing more young people and women into politics. It also included information on Oireachtas reform in its latest policy documents.
Fianna Fáil had not produced a document on local government reform and was “particularly weak” in this area, although a document was expected shortly.
The Green Party’s score had also jumped up to 68 per cent, with strong proposals on open government, lobbyists, freedom of information and reform of party funding.
Labour remained on 68 per cent and was strong on open government and reforming the public sector, an area where the Greens and Sinn Féin were “relatively weaker”.
Fine Gael was slightly higher than previously because it had published more proposals on involving citizens in local democracy to a greater extent.
John Devitt, chief executive of the anti-corruption body Transparency Ireland, noted that not one of the reform recommendations made by his organisation in a report last year had been implemented.
But he said he believed it would be a "missed opportunity" if "headline-grabbing" reform was introduced without getting the detail right.
Speakers from each of the main parties today outlined their party’s proposals for electoral reform. They were Phil Hogan of Fine Gael, Averil Power of Fianna Fáil, Pat Rabbitte of Labour, Eoin O Broin of Sinn Fein and Eamon Ryan of the Green Party.
Reformcard.com was founded by researchers Joseph Curtin and Johnny Ryan.
They appealed today for people with a background in policy, research or data visualisation to volunteer for the project in order to monitor how the next government implements its programme, and how it tackles reform.
On their website, the founders state that the project is “neither a blueprint for reform, nor an exhaustive list of possible reforms”.
“Rather it identifies areas for reform which have been broadly agreed as necessary by an academic panel of independent political scientists, based on a number of political science and public policy, as well as electoral systems and local government literatures.”
The academic panel is: Dr Elaine Byrne, TCD; Prof David Farrell, UCD; Dr Clodagh Harris, UCC; Dr Eoin O'Malley, DCU; Prof Gary Murphy, DCU; Dr Theresa Reidy, UCC; Dr Jane Suiter, UCC and Dr Matt Wall, Vrije University Amsterdam.