What is the purpose of the opposition bench

niallers1

What do they get paid to do and what did they do in oppostion for 14 years when Fianna Fail were ruining the country?

zig

I think its important to have an opposition so pressure can be kept on the government, and so they have people to answer to every day in the dail. If there was no opposition they'd have no one arguing with their decisions.

Also it takes away some of the power of the government, suppose there was a few radical decisions/bills being put through the dail by just a small few people in government, and perhaps 1/3 of the government party were hugely against this, if there was no opposition this bill would still pass. But the opposition could help prevent something like that happening.
As for your second question, they did nothing. They werent really behaving like an opposition thats the problem.

GSF

niallers1 wrote: »

What do they get paid to do and what did they do in oppostion for 14 years when Fianna Fail were ruining the country?

The Liyba set up with no opposition isn't working well either!