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Three Changes to Irish Political, Legal or Economic Institutions

  • 28-09-2010 8:41pm
    #1
    southsiderosie
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,565 ✭✭✭


    Well, since it looks like the ECB/IMF will be coming in soon to clean house, perhaps it is time to look forward...not backward. Or upward, not forward?

    Anyway, if you were made Chieftain of Ireland for a day, what three changes would you make to Irish political, legal, or economic institutions?

    I would do the following:

    1) Sunshine Laws - Establish strong public information, or "sunshine" laws, which would require meetings of three or more elected officials discussing the public business to be required to a) publicly announce said meeting, and b) publish the meeting notes and list of attendees (everyone, not just officials). In addition, public requests for government information must be responded to within ten working days (like a FOIA request in the US). Obviously allowances would have to be made for national security, but that's it. Public officials found guilty of violating the Sunshine Laws would be banned from public office for life, and ministers of departments where information requests were regularly ignored or stonewalled would be forced to resign. Hopefully this would make late night dinners where the government makes multi-billion dollar commitments to private entities a thing of the past.

    2) Perjury laws - Establish strong perjury laws that no elected official would be immune from. Perjury would not only include lying under oath in a trial, but lying to tribunals, internal oireachtas investigations, or any other matter involving statements given by public officials on matters of impropriety, public business, or both. Anyone convicted of perjury would be banned from holding public office, ever (in addition to any civil penalties, of course).

    3) Redistricting - Reduce the number of seats in the Dail, and make at least 51% of the seats national at-large districts. Any vacancies due to death or retirement would have to be filled within 60 days. The goal would be to drag the attention of the Dail away from pothole issues towards matters of national importance. Some rejiggering of local government responsibility would probably have to accompany this (and it would probably work better with a list system).

    That is my attempt at twirling towards freedom. What changes would you make?


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