145 TDs [Not soon enough!]

Fiskar

Have to say if ever there was a time for a lower TD count it is now. With all those retiring or not running so many new faces to vote for who would never have got a look in.

Personally given the candidate choices here in Meath West I wish there were only two seats, they are so bad. Hopefully next time there will only be two seats.

Reilly616

Where did you get the figure of 120?

Fiskar

Got ahead of myself there

FG talking about a miserly 20 TDs and 35% less politicians overall, must include the seannad.

Still 120 sounds a more apt figure

http://www.finegael2011.com/pdf/NewPolitics.pdf

mike65

100 would do.

Reilly616

Odd that they're just looking at getting rid of 20. They'd need a referendum for that, so they might as well go further with it.

Corsendonk

Reilly616 wrote: »

Odd that they're just looking at getting rid of 20. They'd need a referendum for that, so they might as well go further with it.

I don't think many voters know that they need a referendum to change the dail seats. I do think we need a better quality of candidate or otherwise with an even smaller pool to pick ministers from you could end up with worse than we had in the past in ministerial roles.

Reilly616

Corsendonk wrote: »

I don't think many voters know that they need a referendum to change the dail seats.

They could reduce it by 17 without one. The Constitution just says there has to be one TD for between every 20,000 and 30,000 members of the population. So, it could be set anywhere between 149 and 223 without a referendum.

thetonynator

Reilly616 wrote: »

They could reduce it by 17 without one. The Constitution just says there has to be one TD for between every 20,000 and 30,000 members of the population. So, it could be set anywhere between 149 and 223 without a referendum.

Constitution is a bit of a mistake then, if we'd had a decent economy for the last 50 years we could conceivably have up to 10 million in the country . .thats a lot of dail seats!

Reilly616

thetonynator wrote: »

Constitution is a bit of a mistake then, if we'd had a decent economy for the last 50 years we could conceivably have up to 10 million in the country . .thats a lot of dail seats!

When it was written there was a population of fewer than 3,000,000. A population of 10 million would not have been an imminent worry... I don't see how it could b considered a mistake.

thetonynator

Reilly616 wrote: »

When it was written there was a population of fewer than 3,000,000. A population of 10 million would not have been an imminent worry... I don't see how it could b considered a mistake.

Would it not have been easier set it a a set number of TD's, put that in the constitution and leave it at that? Although clearly their economic handling for the following years wasn't exactly conducive to population growth . . .

Eliot Rosewater

Wolfram Alpha says the current minimum is 153 and the maximum 229.

Apparently there's an informal cubed root rule, in which the number of parliamentarians should equal the cubed root of the population. In that case Ireland is perfect at 166 (assuming you ignore the Senead).

You can use Wolfram Alpha to compare previous years. For instance, in 1970 Ireland should have had 143 parliamentarians according to the cubed root rule.

benagain

2 td,s per county is more than enough i think

Reilly616

thetonynator wrote: »

Would it not have been easier set it a a set number of TD's, put that in the constitution and leave it at that?

Well, no, since they wanted the size of the Dáil to be proportional to the size of the population...

Reilly616

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

Wolfram Alpha says the current minimum is 153 and the maximum 229.

Apparently there's an informal cubed root rule, in which the number of parliamentarians should equal the cubed root of the population. In that case Ireland is perfect at 166 (assuming you ignore the Senead).

You can use Wolfram Alpha to compare previous years. For instance, in 1970 Ireland should have had 143 parliamentarians according to the cubed root rule.

Article 16.2.2 of the Constitution says: "The number of members shall from time to time be set by law, but the total number of members of Dáil Éireann shall not be fixed at one member for each thirty thousand of the population, or at more than on member for each twenty thousand of the population."

Flukey

If this is serious, it should be done weeks after the General Election. If a referendum is passed, then there should be an immediate General Election. Then there would be a new government under a new system, which is what the parties are all saying we need. Then we can start tackling the country's problems. Political reform is always 5 years away. If any party is serious about political reform, then it has to be put through immediately, and then immediately followed by a second general election under the new system. Otherwise political reform is just another empty promise... as it always is.

BOHtox

benagain wrote: »

2 td,s per county is more than enough i think

Why should Leitrim, population 28,000, have two tds while Dublin, population 1.1 million, also only has two tds?

Talk about illogical

paul71

The is an opertunity to solve two problems in one fell swoop here, the first is that really dont need 166 TDs, personally I feel 100 is enough for a country of our size. The second lies in constituancy reform. I really think we can eleminate the parish pump and Jackie Healys of this world by increasing the size of the constituancies radically.

What I mean by this would having the EU constituancies reflected in the Dail, no way Lowry or Healy Rea could be elected in Munster. Local politics should be left to the county councils and the real national issues in the Dail.

mike65

(slightly off topic - I just had an idea. Any sitting TD who wants to run again must have an attendence record of at least 75% of Dail days).

BOHtox

mike65 wrote: »

(slightly off topic - I just had an idea. Any sitting TD who wants to run again must have an attendence record of at least 75% of Dail days).

They're usually in Leinster House just not in the chamber. They'd be working on stuff that concerns them more than what's on the chamber.

Matt Le Tissue

I've often wondered about the number of TDs we have, but never really had a problem with the number per se, more with the amount they are paid (expense and pensions inc.)I quite like the fact that smaller parties do get representation in the national parliament.
My suggestion would be to have the combined wages etc of 100 Tds divided among 166.

Victor

benagain wrote: »

2 td,s per county is more than enough i think

Rather naive?

As said, Leitrim and Longford have populations of 25,000-30,000, Dublin has over a million.

Its 57km maximum across Longford: http://maps.google.ie/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=tang,+longford&daddr=Unknown+road&hl=en&geocode=FV7mMAMdNhaJ_ymLFbI0LstdSDFykbu6p8cAJg%3BFckWNwMdPVSL_w&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=1&sz=14&sll=53.939214,-7.640305&sspn=0.014551,0.068665&ie=UTF8&ll=53.745462,-7.651978&spn=0.467787,1.150818&z=9

Its 200km across Cork: http://maps.google.ie/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Carrigane&daddr=ballaghboy,cork&hl=en&geocode=FRLvHQMdDMeC_w%3BFT6AEwMdNRll_ykrk-44z4JPSDGCcbe6p8cAJg&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=0&sz=16&sll=52.293887,-8.207753&sspn=0.00378,0.017166&ie=UTF8&ll=51.978113,-7.426758&spn=1.949003,4.603271&z=7

Fr0g

mike65 wrote: »

(slightly off topic - I just had an idea. Any sitting TD who wants to run again must have an attendence record of at least 75% of Dail days).

They can get around these rules very easily. Frank Fahey if I recall correctly had fallen below the required number of attendances at the local Co. Council so he had his absent days marked down as sick days. But I take your point (that being, i presume that attendance in general is extremely poor).