Madam, – Dr Garret FitzGerald’s articles are usually valuable contributions to public knowledge and debate; occasionally, however, as in his article on so-called electoral “reform” (Opinion, March 20th), he rides a hobby-horse.
His argument for a list system is weak. He starts with the perfectly correct statement that ". . . the voters will not accept any system under which the composition of the Dáil is not broadly[my italics] proportional to popular support for the parties." He then proceeds by a quantum leap to the conclusion that the electorate wants an exact arithmetical equivalence between party votes and party representation by the topping up of party seats from a supplementary list of people with no apparent democratic mandate whatever.
These people would be elected by “a different process”. What process? He does not say. This is arithmetic gone mad.
I vote in general for one party, but I am always prepared to vote for a candidate of almost any other party if I consider him or her to be of outstanding merit. Most people do the same. Years ago Bernard Shaw drew attention to this phenomenon, which he considered to be an essential part of democracy.
A list system would no doubt simplify life for all party bosses: hence its popularity at the top. It would also be perfectly sound if we were all zombies voting for robots. But we are human beings voting for other human beings. – Yours, etc,