How many TD's have a university degree ?

RATM

Doing a Political Science dissertation at the mo', part of my hypotheses is that Irish TD's have become less and less representational of the electorate they serve over the last number of years. So I need to find out how many of the current crop of TD's have a university education.
For the 2002-07 lot it was around half according to Gallagher:
here
but I'm hoping to lay my hands on the 2007-present figure. I could of course go through their profiles but 166 of them will take a fair while.

Can anyone remember a newspaper article or similar that reported the statistic I'm after ?

dlofnep

A university level degree is not mandatory to be a TD. So long as the person can represent the people and do a good job, then surely that's the most important thing? University doesn't teach you about the BS that goes on in modern day politics.. Only experience will.

Darragh29

They all have a PhD specialising in ineptitude and uselessness as far as I can see.

Darragh29

RATM wrote: »

Doing a Political Science dissertation at the mo',

I can't understand the phase "Political Science". As someone with an engineering degree, the words politics and science should never appear in the same sentence to my mind... How can the field of politics have a science to it??? It's almost the exact opposite of science or the kind of structured logic that you find in the field of science???

nobodythere

I'd be more interested to know how many ministers have a degree that has anything to do with their position.

ChocolateSauce

I wouldn't want the TDs to actually be representative of the population. They're supposed to represent us professionally, not be like us. The majority of people are not qualified to run a country. I will always feel better with someone better than me at the helm.

What do you get when you stick an "average Joe" in the big seat? Sarah. Palin.

Firetrap

I wouldn't like to see a degree being a pre-requisite. Some of the lecturers I had in university were lucky that they had jobs there. I don't think they would have survived in the real world.

RATM

No-one knows then ?

old boy

he who took santy out of christmas has had to hire an economist to help him out, even terry wogan has something he has not a qualification in banking.

Rebelheart

In fairness, to find out the answer a quick glance at all 166 TDs would take about 2 hours. Here's the site: http://oireachtas.ie/members-hist/default.asp?housetype=0&HouseNum=30&disp=mem

You'l probably have to go to external party websites for the answer. Should you not get all your answers, a quick generic email to all remaining TD offices should give you the answer.


Just watch Bertie Ahern and his claim to have a degree from UCD....

TJJP

I did some work on this a few years back, irrelevant data now though. If I remember rightly it was about 65% with a degree (large majority from UCD).

Overall educational attainment is therefore likely above the national average of 53% or there abouts.

Suggest you get a copy of ‘Nealon's Guide to the 30th Dail and 23rd Seanad’. This will list educational qualifications.

Fluffybums

If 65% have degrees mainly from UCD - doesn't say much for the standard of education at UCD:D

Rebelheart

Excuse me, UCD is the centre of the universe.

nesf

Darragh29 wrote: »

I can't understand the phase "Political Science". As someone with an engineering degree, the words politics and science should never appear in the same sentence to my mind... How can the field of politics have a science to it??? It's almost the exact opposite of science or the kind of structured logic that you find in the field of science???

It's easy to do some scientific work on the subject to be honest. Start examining identical twins separated at birth and see if there's a strong correlation between certain political or moral views between them where they were raised in families with different ones. Otherwise you can do a lot by examining voter behaviour and the extent to which rhetoric is more powerful (or less) than tangible things like more jobs, higher standing of living etc.

It's not engineering simply because (unfortunately) it's a lot harder to study heterogeneous agents that are aware that it's being studied than to study inanimate homogeneous objects, but that doesn't mean there can't be decent work done, you just need to be more sceptical about generalisation from the results of studies and experiments.

Nodin

nesf wrote: »

It's easy to do some scientific work on the subject to be honest. Start examining identical twins separated at birth and see if there's a strong correlation between certain political or moral views between them where they were raised in families with different ones. Otherwise you can do a lot by examining voter behaviour and the extent to which rhetoric is more powerful (or less) than tangible things like more jobs, higher standing of living etc.

It's not engineering simply because (unfortunately) it's a lot harder to study heterogeneous agents that are aware that it's being studied than to study inanimate homogeneous objects, but that doesn't mean there can't be decent work done, you just need to be more sceptical about generalisation from the results of studies and experiments.

I had a great idea for a smart remark till you and yer edukated post wiped it out of my brain....

Akrasia

dlofnep wrote: »

A university level degree is not mandatory to be a TD. So long as the person can represent the people and do a good job, then surely that's the most important thing? University doesn't teach you about the BS that goes on in modern day politics.. Only experience will.

i'd much rather elect someone who doesn't know or participate in the bs that surrounds politics.

pow wow

Seems to be more bs and less politics these days.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Alcatel

I'm not so sure that that's the criteria on which you ought to be holding people accountable. A degree does not equate success - I don't have a leaving cert, yet I run my own company and employ many people who have degrees and one or two with an MA. A lot of successful folks don't have a degree.

What I'd rather see, ala another thread we saw on here re: qualified ministers, would be TD's with relevant work experience, degree or no degree.

eigrod

To me, the political arena is much like the prison arena....once you're in there, you find it is like a university in itself.

Many a young 'raw' politicians got elected as a TD or Councillors, and the first thing they learned about from their colleagues was the planning laws, how to get around them, who to contact to get around them and how much to look for to get around them.

This keeps your constituents happy, the builders in your constituency happy, the landowners in your constituency happy and best of all, your bank account (or more likely, your spouse's bank a/c) in a healthy state.

And i'm not joking.