Big Phil's latest missed opportunity

I was recently watching an old episodes of Yes, Prime Minister where the topic of local government reform came up. Hacker initially thinks that it is a great idea, Sir Humphrey obviously takes the opposite point of view. Add a militant socialist councillor and the usual confusion from Bernard and by the end of it Hacker is bamboozled into reversing his position. (Full recap here.). After today's announcement of Local Government reform by Phil Hogan, one has to wonder if a similar scene has played out over the last year or so in the Custom House.

After years of neglect, cuts in funding, cuts in services and cuts in power held by locally elected representatives, local government in Ireland was prime for transformation. Similar to how Telecom Eireann skipped about 3 generations of technology in their modernisation in the late 80s and early 90s, we could have catapulted Ireland's local government regime to the top of the class. We could have skipped various failed models tried in other countries and built a best-of-breed system fit for the 21st Century - local issues being decided by local reps and paid for by locally raised taxes.

Instead we see a continued assault on local democracy in the name of "savings". Sure we currently have too many county, borough and town councils for the activities that they are permitted to carry out. But is putting more and more of that power into the hands of unelected and unaccountable officials in the councils or the Department of Environment really a good idea? We have only recently seen the mess the officials have made of waste in Dublin with both the incinerator and the Greyhound privatization despite the countless votes against both actions by the elected representatives.

In my ideal world local government should have responsibility for the following

• Commercial and Domestic Waste - service can be part or fully privatized but the terms should be set locally
• Mains and Waste Water - collective operations with neighbouring councils for economies of scale
• Primary and Secondary Education - how many, what size, where and what ethos (or preferably secular)
• Community Policing - big ticket items like fraud, drugs, murders etc dealt with nationally but local authority should be able to "purchase" additional policing above a base line
• Zoning - drawing up the development plan for the county/city but then leaving the individual planning to the professionals under a certain threshold
• Local taxation - property, sales, hotel bed whatever. Local funds raised from local community

One good proposal is the power for each local authority to set property taxes in their area. However, we still have to see if the property taxes raised will actually flow in full to the authority in which they are raised. I am still dubious that there won't be a transfer from urban to rural to ensure the continuation of a library in Clare or a fire service in Leitrim. Secondly, no timescale for this devolution has been given - this is a matter for government according to the Minister. But isn't he part of the government? Couldn't he have included a timetable in his major announcement today?

On a practical note, when you exclude the town/borough councillors, the number of councillors will actually increase from 883 to 950. Assuming that there is some rebalancing of councillor numbers in line with population, it means that Dublin City Council is likely to increase in number from the current 52 to somewhere around 70 members, with similar increases in the other Dublin councils. From a very parochial point of view, it means the extended Dublin South East (sorry Bay South) is likely to now return 12 and so we could see the formation of two 6-seaters or three 4-seaters.

Reduced capital programme

I have written more than once about the major transport initiatives in the Dublin area, namely Metro North, Dart Interconnector and Luas BXD. With the publication the other day of the revised, and greatly slashed, capital budget it seems apt to mention them again.

It seems as though the only project that will now be completed will be the Luas extension from Stephen's Green through the city centre up to Broombridge Station. Of course, like all the big projects, it has been scheduled for the end of the time period of the project so it is the most likely to get chopped completely if there are further cuts required or other projects run over budget.

Two other projects in the North Inner City are worth mentioning. The Children's Hospital will go ahead with funding up front from the renewal of the Lottery license but the amalgamation of DIT onto the single campus in Grangegorman will not. It does seem odd that we will now have a Luas line missing its biggest source of passengers while we build a hospital without any mass transit to deliver patients, parents and visitors.

Slashing the capital budget is, in my mind, a short sighted and cowardly way to balance the books. By their very nature, capital investments are good for the country in that they provide employment while they are being delivered and then provide benefit to the community once finished. This is true of school building, hospitals, roads, railways and every other capital project. Borrowing for capital is good, and in many cases is to be encouraged.

It is far harder to hit the recurrent budget as it covers civil and public servants' wages and pensions as well as welfare payments. But it is the only real way to make long term savings that will close the gap between income and expenditure. With Croke Park freezing pay, it looks like natural wastage, retirement schemes and continued recruitment embargoes will be the order of the day.

The only other option is to increase revenue through taxation which sounds great to the Occupy brigade. Sure, tax the rich and make them pay. But the super rich will tend to up sticks and leave. The easiest target is the middle classes who are already paying at the higher rate. By reducing credits and bumping the top rate up a point or two more could be squeezed from this cohort (which includes me). And to be fair, we could probably take it. But we are also the very people who voted for FG and Labour so I'm not sure how politically astute it is to antagonize the very people who elected you.

Once I get time to trawl through some Revenue figures I'll come back to this topic. But for the moment let me finish by giving Minister Howlin's plan a 3/10 with a strong recommendation that he try a bit harder in future to make serious reform plans rather than tinkering at the edges.

Dail, heal thyself!

One of the big talking points in the last month, apart from the weather, the date of the election, Jean Byrne's outfits (that might be covered by the first topic), Santa and the IMF/EU has been the institution of the Seanad. About 18 months ago, Enda Kenny went on what was seen as a bit of a solo run when he announced that FG policy was to get rid of the second chamber. More recently the Seanad has had a rough time with the Callely shenanigans, not to mention the continued existence of Donie Cassidy's political career. Then over the festive period, Labour joined the ranks of the dissatisfied calling time on the Seanad followed up by Fianna Fáil's suggestion that a referendum to disband could be held at the same time as the General Election.

Personally, I am not in favour of the drastic step of turning Ireland into a unicameral state. I feel we would be better off reforming the Seanad into a modern, fit for purpose institution as part of a larger set of reforms of the entire political system. The Seanad, even with all its flaws, still produces more considered debate than the Dáil with all its political point scoring and restrictive standing orders ever could.

The composition of the Seanad is usually the first objection to its continued existance. The 6 university senators are seen as the representatives of an elite, the 43 senators elected by the city and county councillors are seen as wannabe or failed TDs and the less said about the 11 appointees the better. Instead I would propose a fixed term Seanad of 5 years with elections held the same time as the local and European elections. 48 senators would be elected on a nationwide poll with constituencies the same as the Europeans with 4 constituencies of 12 seats. The timing of this election would alleviate the problem of rejected TDs retiring to the Seanad for a term. You could also add rules that any candidate for the Seanad elections could not run for the Europeans to avoid the problem of some candidates having a much higher profile in the campaign and also forbid current Senators from running for the Dáil without resigning their seat first.

The remaining 12 would remain as appointees but only with the unanimous agreement of the leaders of the parties and technical groups in the Dáil. This would allow representation of minorities, immigrants and emigrants, the North and other groups like the current vocational panels are meant to. The unanimity would go a long way to avoid political appointees. This newly constituted Seanad would then have an extended remit to examine EU directives that require legislation here, be a driver for further political and social reform and act as a proper check on the power of the Government. To this end the restrictions in Article 21 on Money Bills would need to be removed.

One must also bear in mind what the abolition of the Seanad actually means in practice. Without a second chamber, due to the extremely strict whipping in the Dáil, the Government could effectively push through any legislation it wanted in any timeframe without needing to have an open debate. Through strict control on Dáil sessions, management of committees and judicious use of the guillotine, the government of the day would effectively have free reign apart from the constitutional role given to the President. It is interesting to note that a major revamping of Dáil procedures and standing orders has not accompanied any abolitionist's plan. The proposals from FG and now Labour are nothing more than a naked power grab by the lower chamber feeding on the public disgust with politics in general at the moment.

The other crazy part of this story is the proposed timetable being suggested by Fianna Fáil of holding the referendum on the same day as the General Election. The Seanad is one of the key institutions of the State and appears in many articles in the Constitution as well as numerous pieces of legislation. Considering how difficult it has been to come up with the wording for the Children's Rights amendment, not to mention how it seems impossible to get rid of the Blasphemy clause in the Constitution, it seems implausible that legislation could be prepared in the short timescale that would not end up making a mess of things, especially when the Government claim to be wholly focused on the Finance and Welfare bills.

Yes, the entire political system needs reform from accountable local government all the way up to the role of the President but we need to take a holistic approach. Piecemeal reform will get us nowhere and unilaterally dumping the Seanad as some sort of populist, opportunistic token at reform is one of the worst possible approaches to take.

Large Constituencies

The Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution recently published the findings of its review of the electoral system. Running to 220 pages, it is quite the in-depth review and analysis of electoral systems in general, PR-STV in particular and various other matters relating to how we run elections in this country. Of particular interest to me were two sections towards the end - 5.62 about the boundaries of constituencies and 5.67 recommending at least 4 TDs per constituency.

Currently the constitution only puts a lower bound on the number of TDs per constituency at 3. Therefore all that is needed to have nice large, proportional constituencies is some legislation amending the schedule that describes the various Dáil constituencies. The report suggests that boundaries should respect natural and county boundaries as much as possible and also not artificially divide towns, like has happened to Swords in the last review. Putting these two rules together and you can come up with some entertaining constituencies.

Firstly I have based these divisions on the results of the 2006 census and keeping the number of TDs at 166. Secondly I have kept counties intact as opposed to the current method of moving odd electoral districts across county boundaries so the ratios are not as consistent as they should be.

County	Population	Seats	Notes
Dublin	1,187,176	47	Split into 6 constituencies
Cork	481,2925	19	Split into 3 constituencies
Galway	231,670	9	Largest single county constituency
Kildare	186,335	7
Limerick	184,055	7
Meath	162,831	6
Tipperary	149,244	6
Donegal	147,264	6
Kerry	139,835	6
Wexford	131,749	5	Largest current existing constituency
Wicklow	126,194	5
Mayo	123,893	5
Louth	111,267	4	Merge with Monaghan
Clare	110,950	4
Waterford	107,961	4	Smallest single county constituency
Kilkenny	87,558	4	Merge with Carlow
Westmeath	79,346	3	Merge with Laois and Offaly
Offaly	70,868	3	Merge with Westmeath and Laois
Laois	67,059	3	Merge with Westmeath and Offaly
Cavan	64,003	3	Merge with Longford and Leitrim
Sligo	60,894	2	Merge with Roscommon
Roscommon	58,768	2	Merge with Sligo
Monaghan	55,816	2	Merge with Louth
Carlow	50,349	2	Merge with Kilkenny
Longford	34,391	1	Merge with Cavan and Leitrim
Leitrim	28,950	1	Merge with Cavan and Longford

The Dublin split would need some re-jigging of existing constituencies but basically you could pair up North and West(8), North East and North Central(6), Central and North West(7), South East and South Central(9), Mid West and South West(8), South and Dún Laoghaire(9).

Cork is a bit more problematic - you would want a City constituency with 7 seats and then two county constituencies East and West each with 6. The current layout is not particularly amenable to this arrangement and so substantial changes would be required.

In this scheme all constituencies return at least 4 members (Clare and Waterford both having this size along with the new Sligo/Roscommon) and range up to 9 in Galway and the Midlands (Westmeath, Offaly and Laois). Kerry turns out to be the biggest winner by being over-represented by just over 0.5 of a TD with Sligo/Roscommon loosing out on 0.68 of a TD. I can already hear the "No taxation for under-representation" chants beginning.

Dempsey's grand tour

Seems like Minister Dempsey has gotten himself into a spot of bother. You'd think after eVoting and going to Malta during the snow that he'd keep a low profile. But no, instead he clocked up either €13,000 or €100,000, depending on the source, in the government jet in a way that was completely unnecessary.

The Minister had a speaking slot at the MacGill summer school in Donegal mid afternoon. So he took the government jet up to Derry and then had his Garda driver take him the rest of the way to Glenties. After speaking he hightailed it back to Derry and flew to London. The following morning he had a top secret meeting in London and then came home again on the jet.

This jaunt raises some interesting questions about his routing

• Since the Garda driver had to go from Dublin to Derry anyway, why didn't the Minister just take the car directly from Dublin/Navan to Glenties?
• If he had to fly, why not take Aer Arann to Donegal? There is an early afternoon flight most days of the week and I'm sure that there would have been no shortage of FF volunteers to drive him down to Glenties.
• Why not travel back to Dublin and get the last commercial flight to Heathrow or Gatwick instead of flying from Derry to London?
• Why was the meeting the next morning arranged so early? If it had been delay by about 90 minutes he could have taken the early morning flight to Heathrow and made it?

It's not like the Minister's speech in Glenties said anything new. Dempsey has gone on record many times about his love of electoral list systems. Also was his participation in MacGill part of official government business or in a personal capacity? It's not like he is a member of the committee that has been looking into electoral reform or the minister with responsibility for the matter. Why wasn't Sean Ardagh the government representative?

This entire escapade just heaps more fuel on the FF funeral pyre. The sooner these chancers are out of office the better at this stage.

Probability of women TDs

Part of the reform agenda of the last year or so has been the promotion of women in politics and lengthy debates about the introduction of quotas of female TDs or at least quotas of female candidates for election. Those in favour of the status quo usually state that there is nothing wrong with the current system as it elects the best candidates. But does it really?

The Law of Large Numbers describes the result of repeated performance of an experiment. It is the thing that suggests if you flip a coin 100 times about 50 of them should turn up heads. If your sample size is too small, say 10, then the law doesn't hold and results of 2/8 or 3/7 should be expected on a fairly regular basis. Using the binomial distribution you can actually calculate these probabilities. In the 10 flip case a 3/7 split comes up about 12% (120/1024) of the time. This can be figured out on paper using Pascal's Triangle and some basic arithmetic. For larger experiments use of a computer program such as R or using WolframAlpha is recommended.

So back to the Dáil. We start with the assumption that men and women are equally likely to be the best candidate. If the system is fair then each seat should have an equal change of being filled by a female as a male. With 166 seats to be filled, there should be on average 83 of each. However, the sums show that this exact solution will occur only about 6% of the time. So what is the distribution of the rest of the results? Well a 80/86 split is about 5.5%, a 75/91 split is 3%. At a 95% confidence level the result should be between 70 and 96 deputies of each gender. This means that if the result is outside this range there is only a 5% chance of it being due to random factors.

As you reduce the number of female deputies the odds become even longer. 60 or fewer females should only occur 0.02% of the time. 50 or fewer and you are at 1.6x10^-7 or about 1 in six million elections. So where does our measly 23 female TDs come in on the scale? Crunching the numbers reveals a figure of 1.1x10^-22 which is so far beyond random chance that it isn't funny. So the figures indicate a rejection of the hypotheses and we must conclude that either the system is unfair between the sexes or that women are not up to the task of being politicians. Somehow I'm putting my money on the former.

Reform, What could we do tomorrow?

I'm stealing the title of this post from Johnny Fallon's blog, which everyone should read. In his post today, he put together a list of 17 items that could change in the morning that would improve politics in this country without requiring legislation. I'm going to comment on a few of them and hopefully add some more.

From Johnny's list

1. Return the Dáil to centre of debate and News.
   The relentless press conferences by government ministers announcing (or re-announcing for the 3rd time) various projects without questioning from opposition spokespersons is bad for politics. Bringing these events back to the Dáil is good for democracy. Sure, have a press conference afterwards, but make the initial announcement in the chamber.
2. Full review of Dáil Standing Orders
   This is one of my pet projects. Standing Orders currently make a mockery of parliament by restricting the number and type of questions that can be put to the executive. The rules about technical groupings for speaking rights is also a farce that silences legitimately elected TDs from participating fully.
3. Oireachtas Committees to meet in public
   I was at the meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution that met in Trinity College earlier in the year. Even though it was a somewhat staged event with prepared presentations from students and pro-forma responses from the members it was a step in the right direction. The Committees are now where most of the review of legislation and policy happens and they should be more open to the public.
4. Monthly Town Hall style meetings for Ministers
   YAWN It would just turn into a stage managed event only watched by political anoraks. We just got rid of Questions and Answers from RTE, don't bring it back in an online version.
5. Tie voting into the PPS system
   Fully agree as I posted last October.
6. State of the nation address
   I still shudder when I see re-runs of the "living away beyond our means" speech that Charlie Haughey made. So I don't want to see this. We already have the budget which is a proxy state of the nation address anyway.

Some other changes I would throw out there include

1. Default to yes in FOI requests
   While FOI has been butchered by legislation there is still a lot of information that should be in the public domain but is hidden away behind layers of bureaucracy. FOI requests are often rejected for spurious reasons or the key information is redacted to protect the innocent. By default any information asked for should be given. In fact it should go one step further and all Govt departmental memos should be published unless containing commercially sensitive, security/defence information or the like.
2. Full accounting for political accounts
   This ties into Johnny's point on donations, but I would go further and say every politician's political account should be open to full scrutiny. This should also be extended to central parties, constituency organisations and even branches. Most people won't care, but scrutiny by opposing forces will keep each side honest.
3. Engage with young people
   That almost sounds patronizing, but if you consider the massive influence that the grey vote has compared to the under 25s contrasted to the massive impact that current policies are having on young people while leaving pensioners relatively unscathed, there is a massive disconnect between politics and young people. And by this I don't mean create a Facebook page and post some cool links on Twitter. Find out what they want and come up with better ways for them to contribute to society.
   

I'm sure there are loads more but that will do for starters. Any other ideas?