A chara, - In his article proposing electoral reform (June 13th), Garret FitzGerald argues that the real weakness in Ireland's parliamentary system is the dual mandate, whereby most TDs are simultaneously members of local councils. This is to invest a greatly exaggerated importance in Ireland's local government structure, which is one of the weakest in the western world. Even if (as proposed by the Minister for the Environment and Local Government) TDs were to be precluded from sitting on local councils, they would continue to come under constant pressure from local constituents with regard to the wide range of issues of everyday importance which remain outside the remit of these councils (such as medical services, social welfare entitlements, unemployment assistance, education and recreation facilities, economic development and community care).
In other European countries, such as Sweden, all of these services come within the ambit of local and regional authorities (and are paid for by local income taxes, subject to the maintenance of minimum national standards). This allows the national parliament to focus on issues of national importance, such as foreign policy and defence, justice and policing, macro-economic policy, and social security. It also allows for electoral systems appropriate to this clear division of functions between the local and national level.
A key defect in Garret FitzGerald's article is that it never asks the question, what is the purpose of a national parliament? This lack of clarity is apparent in his espousal of the Additional Member System for electing national parliaments, as advocated recently by Professor Michael Laver. Under this system, the national parliament is made up of a combination of members elected from local constituencies, and members elected from national party lists. This raises the question as to whether a national parliament exists to serve local interests, or whether its primary focus should be on national issues? My own view is that these two foci should be clearly separated, rather than confused in a single institution.
There are alternative arrangements which can allow a national parliament to focus on primarily national issues, while protecting local interest. One is to devolve the delivery of all public services (which is what most citizens care about most of the time) to the local/regional level, as in the Swedish model. Apart from its benefits for the electoral system, this arrangement offers additional potential advantages in terms of promoting local democracy and initiative, and greater efficiency in service delivery. The second is to elect the Seanad on a local constituency basis, and the Dail on a national list system, it then being the primary function of the Seanad to address the local impacts of legislation emerging from the Dail. This arrangement would give the Seanad a more democratic basis and a more useful function than is currently the case with that rather useless institution. - Le meas,
Proinnsias Breathnach,
NUI Maynooth,
Co. Kildare.