Should a Minister have to be Qualified for the job?

onimpulse

As far as I can see we've a major problem with total incompetance in our Government. We have people with no real experience or qualifications runing the country and we expect them to be able to get us out of this mess?

The main problem is the current minister for Finance. I'm not doubting his intelligence or ability as a barrister - by all accounts he's a good one. But he's not an economist or an accountant so why is he Minister for Finance and not Minister for Justice?

The Finance Minister has traditionally been the "no. 2", it has always been the stepping stone to Taoiseach. This department is far to important for this to continue. We need someone in there who is capable & qualified - who actually knows what they are doing! Not someone who is simply currently in favour in the party and is being lined up for the "big job"!

The fact is to get a job in the private sector you need the qualifications with the experience - but we don't expect the same of our government? It's madness really - madness that got us into this mess... and won't get us out of it.

ArmaniJeanss

onimpulse wrote: »

The fact is to get a job in the private sector you need the qualifications with the experience - but we don't expect the same of our government? It's madness really - madness that got us into this mess... and won't get us out of it.

So what if none of the 87+ TDs on the government side is a qualified accountant/economist/military expert/ doctor etc whatever is needed for a particular department?

Liam Byrne

They SHOULD need to be (and then they might actually justify their inflated, self-obsessed salaries)

But they don't need to be, because they can spend our money on advisors and reports and consultants and studies and all that crap.

The Boomtown Rats are still right.....

Scofflaw

They don't have to be, in theory, because that's not how government works - in theory.

Ministers are a mechanism for democratic oversight. They're not supposed to be experts, they're supposed to be whipping boys / leaders / scapegoats. They're supposed to inspire and lead the expert civil servants in their department, push those civil servants towards the targets and policies set by the government, ensure that the civil servants are not defrauding or otherwise abusing the public, ensure that the interests of the public come before the interests of the civil servants, and take responsibility if things go wrong.

None of that requires that the Minister be an expert. It only requires that the Minister is a good people manager, a good organiser, and a good leader, with an understanding of what the public's interests are. In theory, the electoral process favours those things.

Obviously, any of us who have been expert employees or contractors know that a manager who hasn't a clue what's involved in your work is frequently a liability - but one of the main reasons we like managers who do have a background in our field of expertise is because they will tend to think like us, and side with us. That is, when you think about it, not something you want from a Minister.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Liam Byrne

Scofflaw wrote: »

None of that requires that the Minister be an expert. It only requires that the Minister is a good people manager, a good organiser, and a good leader, with an understanding of what the public's interests are.

You left out "ethical", "fair", "accountable" and "fiscally responsible".

Scofflaw wrote: »

In theory, the electoral process favours those things.

In practice, every one of those gets sacrificed and is blatantly obviously not required by Fianna Fail.

Scofflaw

Liam Byrne wrote: »

You left out "ethical", "fair", "accountable" and "fiscally responsible".

I did indeed. If we achieved some of the things on my list, we might aim towards those.

Liam Byrne wrote: »

In practice, every one of those gets sacrificed and is blatantly obviously not required by Fianna Fail.

True enough. That comes back to other faults in the Irish system, though - clientilism, party faith, hereditary Dáil seats, etc etc.

cordially,
Scofflaw

burgess1

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

So what if none of the 87+ TDs on the government side is a qualified accountant/economist/military expert/ doctor etc whatever is needed for a particular department?

Does any rule say that a minister HAS to be a TD?

r0nanf

burgess1 wrote: »

Does any rule say that a minister HAS to be a TD?

Garrett Fitzgerald brought in Jim Dooge (senator) to be minister for foreign affairs, as the party had such a small minority in government that he needed every TD there for votes.

All ministers are TDs appointed by the Taoiseach generally, but there can be a maximum of two senators among them.

I agree though, I think legislation should be passed that allows the very best in our society (non TDs) to be appointed as ministers - i.e. someone like Colm Harmon or somebody to run Finance. Or anybody who isn't Mary Harney to run Health. They could also be performance benchmarked (a la the private sector) much easier then.

Alcatel

As the old Churchillian saying goes, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other types we've ever tried." In a democracy anyone can get elected, and often just anyone does. It's good in one way, bad in another, in that the minister - the ultimate decision maker, above and beyond any well-paid or otherwise adviser - often has no idea about anything in his brief. For example, the fact that Cowan didn't know enough to notice that our huge tax intake was fuelled by once-off payments.

In the "Good Old Days" (TM) many ministers were experts, they were former this and that before they ran a particular department - but that was in the days before career politicians, who literally go to college with the intention of becoming politicians. Their job is politics, and they've rarely had any high-level practical experience in any other field. Or else if they do, when they eventually get there they're given another job based on political cronyism.

That being said, during the "Good Old Days" (TM) these ministers were the well to do, the people who could afford to be politicians (as the pay was crap... Going back to Britain and our old system, on which our present system is based, here); and not wholly representative of the people.

A real trade off. The idea behind the House of Lords in the UK is to appoint people with relevant experience to particular fields. It's also their second most undemocratic institution after the Monarchy.

Fact is, there's no democratic way to state that a Minister for X or Y needs to have experience in that field.

Does any rule say that a minister HAS to be a TD?

The Taoiseach and Minister for Finance do need to be TD's. Any other minister does not.

r0nanf

+1 for the "Good Old Days TM" !

However,

Alcatel wrote: »

The Taoiseach and Minister for Finance do need to be TD's. Any other minister does not.

That's not true I'm afraid:

Bunreacht na hEireann, Article 28 wrote:

7. 1° The Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the member of the Government who is in charge of the Department of Finance must be members of Dáil Éireann.
2° The other members of the Government must be members of Dáil Éireann or Seanad Éireann, but not more than two may be members of Seanad Éireann.

getz

Scofflaw wrote: »

I did indeed. If we achieved some of the things on my list, we might aim towards those.



True enough. That comes back to other faults in the Irish system, though - clientilism, party faith, hereditary Dáil seats, etc etc.

cordially,
Scofflaw

lets face it its not just ireland that has this problem-its a fact of life in politics the the person who talks the best -ends up as a leader in goverment . to have a qualified person doing the job would meen you would have to have a non party goverment that would also meen the end of democracy

r0nanf

getz wrote: »

to have a qualified person doing the job would meen you would have to have a non party goverment that would also meen the end of democracy

Not necessarily - I don't support this idea but others on this forum have put forward the idea of directly elected ministers. Each party has a candidate for each ministerial position, directly elected by populace during GE. That hypothesis however depends on utopian cordiality between the parties to work together once in government. And lets face it, that would never happen.

guinnessdrinker

I don't think it would make a massive difference if a Minister was qualified for the job or not. He is given briefs and other information from his advisers. What I do think is important for a Minister to have though is conviction and the ability to make decisions. Imo a lot of recent and past cabinet members were not good at/didn't like making decisions, Bertie Ahern springs to mind.

Sleipnir

guinnessdrinker wrote: »

I don't think it would make a massive difference if a Minister was qualified for the job or not. He is given briefs and other information from his advisers. What I do think is important for a Minister to have though is conviction and the ability to make decisions. Imo a lot of recent and past cabinet members were not good at/didn't like making decisions, Bertie Ahern springs to mind.

Yeah, given that in the whole department of finance with a staff of (I think)around 90 people including a total of two qualified economists, he might as well be asking me for advice.

Dob74

What do you mean as qualified?

Bill Gates, Michael Dell don't have degrees and they manage just fine.
McCreevy was an accountant and he is the main architect of the property bubble, section 23 etc...

Darsad

As long as we have parish pump politics we will elect and get the government we deserve ! Just look at the top three Cowen , Coughlan , lenihan all inherited their daddys seats and are removed and isolated from the day to day sufferings of people on the ground.lenihan proved he has no back bone in tackling the public sector instead opting to tax us out of existance and not out of recession ( all stick no carrot )

bmaxi

If you listen to the media on any given day you will hear "economists" giving totally polarised views on how to handle the economy. They can't all be right so, what if we got an economist as Minister for Finance who was "wrong"? We'd still be up s*it creek, but this time with an expert at the helm :eek:

Dannyboy83

In my opinion, yes. But it won't happen.

Politics is one of the few things in this country that has escaped reform over the last few decades.
Almost everything has changed in this country, a lot of stuff beyond recognition, however politics has remained the same.
In fact, it even has the same people.

No, there will be no reform.

eoinbn

Dob74 wrote: »

What do you mean as qualified?

Bill Gates, Michael Dell don't have degrees and they manage just fine.
McCreevy was an accountant and he is the main architect of the property bubble, section 23 etc...

They got where they are because of the way the private sector works. If they weren't good at their job then their company would of failed like countless others. However our current minister for finance is there because he was born into a well known FF family.

Woger

No politician should be qualified or experienced, our political system is the most sophisticated in the world (vote for who our parents voted for, vote for someone because their father was a nice man). Why else do we know how to lecture other countries?