Do The People Actually Watch Dail Eireann Tv?

Nozebleed

It's an absolute piss take. its a disgrace. there has to be a complete overhaul of the political system in this country.

Zynks

I am watching it right now. Brian Cowen is behaving like a brat on the discussion about the bu elections, and the speaker (can't spell it) is gagging any attempt by the opposition to speak. It really feels like the end is approaching.

Nozebleed

i find it incredibly frustrating to watch. its a pointless excercise.

Biggins

Yes, constantly when possible.
And between now and in the coming weeks, things are going to get a lot more heated.
Watching it this morning too.

Corsendonk

I never knew it existed! Where can you see it?

Biggins

Corsendonk wrote: »

I never knew it existed! Where can you see it?

http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/livewebcast/DailFlash512KB.htm

http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/livewebcast/Web-Live.htm

mikemac

Dáil Beo is on TG4 for an hour in the mornings.
I didn't know about those links above.

I've watched Prime Ministers Question Times in Westminister a lot. Now that was entertaining and they were top public speakers.
Doubt many here like William Hague but there isn't a speaker in Dáil to match him.

Why can't the Dáil be passionate and lively?
Nearly always empty, nobody makes passionate speeches and they just read from a statement. Not much leadership on show, just grey people in suits

Biggins

Zynks wrote: »

I am watching it right now. Brian Cowen is behaving like a brat on the discussion about the bu elections, and the speaker (can't spell it) is gagging any attempt by the opposition to speak. It really feels like the end is approaching.

Well the speaker is a FF man through and through, so thats only to be expected!
Not the first time he might have clearly taken sides to stifle speech within the Dail in favour of his party mates/close friends.

Rebelheart

The more I see the more three words, spoken from the dock by 32-year-old Edward O Meagher Condon in November 1867 before being sentenced to death by the usual crowd:

'God Save Ireland!'

We need systemic change. The vast majority of people appear to be happy with a change of government. Fintan O'Toole wrote a very good article, 'Enough of the gombeen politics: it's time for a republican revolution', proposing 30 systemic changes in last Saturday's Irish Times.

Here's a summary of them:


1 Establish a genuine system of local democracy. Introduce a property tax to fund it.

2 Transfer the useful functions of quangos to local councils.

3 Bring in legally binding national standards for planning and development and give the National Spatial Strategy statutory status.

4 Implement the Kenny report of 1974, allowing councils to purchase development land for its existing value plus 25 per cent.

5 Establish “deliberative democracy” experiments in every substantial community.

6 Severely limit the ability of governments to use the guillotine mechanism to pass legislation that has not been debated in parliament.

7 End the fiction that Ministers are responsible for everything that happens in their departments. Make them responsible for decisions they take and for information they ought to know. Make senior civil servants responsible for the decisions they take.

8 Restore the right of the Oireachtas to inquire into all activities involving the use of public money.

9 Make all appointments to state and public boards open to public competition and subject to Oireachtas scrutiny.

10 Reduce the size of the Dáil to 100 members.

11 Either make the Seanad representative of civil society, social partners and the new local councils within a short time frame or abolish it.

12 Change the Dáil electoral system to the additional-member system.

13 Introduce a gender quota of at least 30 per cent, to be enforced by reducing public payments to political parties by the degree to which they fail to introduce gender balance.

14 Hand primary schools over to local and democratic ownership and control.

15 Replace GDP as the primary measure of progress with a well-being index.

16 Radically curtail tax incentives for private pensions and stop putting money into the National Pension Reserve Fund. Use the money to increase the state pension for everyone to 40 per cent of pre-retirement income.

17 Switch spending from both social-welfare rent supplements and tax breaks for landlords to the provision of decent social housing.

18 Introduce a national system of social health insurance, abolishing the two-tier health system and radically reducing the size of the Health Service Executive.

19 Switch more health spending towards community and preventive services. Implement the primary-care strategy.

20 Charge university fees to those who can afford them. Increase grants for those who are currently excluded.

21 Expand adult and continuing education. Consider the idea of individual “education funds” attaching equally to each citizen.

22 Identify children at risk of failure from an early age and intervene immediately with personal and family supports.

23 Make the pay of those at the top a fixed percentage of that of those at the bottom.

24 Bring taxes up to average European levels. Reduce tax breaks to average EU levels, saving more than €5 billion.

25 Limit to three the number of directorships of public companies that any one individual can hold at the same time.

26 Give coherent legislative protection to bona-fide whistleblowers.

27 Restore the Freedom of Information Act to its former status.

28 Create a register of lobbyists and publish records of all meetings between lobbyists, ministers and public officials.

29 Review company law to end impunity for white-collar crime.

30 Ban all significant private donations to political parties and force all registered parties to publish full annual accounts.

Corsendonk

feelingstressed wrote: »

Why can't the Dáil be passionate and lively?
Nearly always empty, nobody makes passionate speeches and they just read from a statement. Not much leadership on show, just grey people in suits

Not to forget if you watch Oireachtas report you can always spot one or two in the Dail or Seanad flicking through the emails on the blackberry. Even the chairman in the Seanad was doing it yesterday during Dermot Ahern speech to them.

Rebelheart

feelingstressed wrote: »

Dáil Beo is on TG4 for an hour in the mornings.
I didn't know about those links above.

I've watched Prime Ministers Question Times in Westminister a lot. Now that was entertaining and they were top public speakers.
Doubt many here like William Hague but there isn't a speaker in Dáil to match him.

Why can't the Dáil be passionate and lively?
Nearly always empty, nobody makes passionate speeches and they just read from a statement. Not much leadership on show, just grey people in suits

If we changed our electoral system the Dáil would be a radically different place. How many people have been re-elected based on their work in our legislature? Not a single one? Localism and clientalism is the God of each and every legislator. PR-STV has to be changed before the Dáil can become a serious place where considered legislation is passed by professional full-time legislators. And where we elect these people entirely on their record as legislators. I'd personally be in favour of restrictions to prevent familial traditions/dynasties being created in this new legislature. And perhaps term limits so that the legislators don't evolve into a democratically distant elite.

PS: As for Hague, I'd be more concerned about the quality of the legislation than the oratory skills of the person promoting it or the aesthetics of watching their passion on the box. Gilmore, Rabbitte and O Higgins are three of the most articulate and passionate speakers in Irish politics. But can they 'walk the walk'?