Parachuting the likes of Bono into the job of minister for, say, development aid, might sound strange in Ireland, but it is what most democracies do, says Dan O'Brien.
Italy's dynamic health minister, Girolamo Sirchia, is an internationally regarded haematologist. France's dashing foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, is a diplomat by profession. His American counterpart, Colin Powell, was a career soldier before taking high office. They, like many holders of executive office all over the democratic world, have two things in common - each has a lifetime of experience of his brief, and none has ever faced voters in an election.
To some ears that will sound undemocratic. But to see why it is not, consider one of the guiding principles of democracy; that power be divided among the branches of government so it is more difficult for its wielders to abuse it. This separation, most democracies believe, is vital because regular elections alone are not enough to keep manners on those who hold power (think of our own unrehabilitate-able Charles Haughey who faced no less than five general elections in a dozen tawdry years as Fianna Fáil leader).
But separating those who make law and those who execute it has never been a priority in the Republic. As a result those two branches of government have always been essentially one, with negative consequences for both. For TDs, the lure of executive office distracts from their real duties: the scrutiny of legislation and the holding of ministers to account.
From a ministerial perspective the ill-effects are worse still. A lifetime spent struggling to win and retain elected office in the cauldron of Irish constituency politics means most elected representatives are career politicians with limited expertise in areas such as health, transport and education. As the current cabinet line-up shows, drawing the executive branch of government from such a tiny pool of career politicians often leads to less than dynamic ministers and a dearth of radicalism when it comes to making policy.
Admittedly, the result of all this over 80 years has been far from disastrous. With only a dozen countries worldwide having enjoyed longer periods of unbroken democratic rule and fewer still our social calm, the Republic, as a political entity, has been an outstanding success. Yet despite this, few would disagree that things could always be made better.
So what to do without tearing up the Constitution and writing a new one? A start could be made in the Seanad, whose members have just begun a period of self-examination. While there are many good ideas about how to reform that legislative backwater, using to the full an existing rule - whereby two senators at any given time can sit at cabinet - could do many things to invigorate the political system.
First, although bringing senators to cabinet would not in theory make a clearer distinction between the executive and the legislature, in practice it would. A non-career politician appointed to the Seanad by the Taoiseach for the express purpose of coming to cabinet would be more a creature of the executive than the legislature, not having been elected and not having a constituency to cultivate. This has happened twice before, most recently (and successfully) in the 1980s when Garret FitzGerald appointed Prof Jim Dooge to the upper house so he could make him foreign minister.
The most obvious advantage of senator-ministers is that they can spend time on policy rather than having to watch their backs in a Dáil constituency where young aspirants are always nibbling at incumbents' heels. This would be a major advantage because there are few democracies in which ministers are less involved in policy formulation than in Ireland (the old jibe of Fianna Fáil being a policy-taker, not policy-maker, holds true to a considerable extent for the other parties too).
A further advantage of clearer separation would be the lessening of the tendency for ministers with Dáil constituencies to provide goodies for constituents - be it decentralised Civil Service jobs or better roads - in order to boost their chances of re-election. Without such pressures, senator-ministers could allocate resources for the wider good without fear or favour.
A second big plus of widening the ministerial talent pool would be to bring those with specific expertise and experience to any given portfolio. Erudite academics, hard-bargaining trade unionists and dynamic businessfolk are the sort of upstanding civic-minded types who are drafted to serve their countries in most other democracies, not least because it is felt that politics is far too important to be left exclusively to professional politicians.
And if there are any doubts about the benefits of this, just think of what two such people have done for another once-sleepy institution of the State - the presidency. Without detracting from the professional politicians who filled the role before 1990, it would be hard to contest that Mary McAleese, and her predecessor, Mary Robinson, have brought something to the job that most members of the political class could not.
A final benefit would be for the Seanad itself. Congenitally defective and then hobbled after birth because de Valera never wanted it to constrain government's powers (he felt obliged to establish it only because the Vatican's 1930s third way between liberal capitalism and godless communism advocated such structures), it has always been the neglected child of Irish democratic institutions. But by making its members hold to account one or more of their number sitting at cabinet, they would have a real job to do. They would also have an incentive to shine if they thought the prize of ministerial office was on offer.
So is it conceivable that Bertie Ahern would show uncharacteristic boldness and pension off some of his cabinet under-performers to make way for more able senators? Hardly. But for the languishing opposition parties it might be the sort of proposal to catch voters' imagination. Promising a couple of McAleeses or Robinsons at the cabinet table could hardly be a vote-loser at a time when satisfaction with the same old Dáil faces is low and going lower.
Dan O'Brien is a senior editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit. He also writes the unit's reports on Ireland.