idea for a new party

PolaroidPizza

the new party message is basically - elect us and we donate our salary to charity and never sit in the Dail.

the reason - TDs actually have very little influence in how our country is run. The majority of decisions are actually made by banks, unions and senior civil servants.
the state of the economy has much more to do with the global energy prices and credit availability than anything that happens in Leinster house.

I'm not proposing this party would solve anything, only highlight to the general public an expensive over-representation by people who don't necessarily have any influence on how the country function.

I'd be curious what other peoples views are?

FortySeven

PolaroidPizza wrote: »

the new party message is basically - elect us and we donate our salary to charity and never sit in the Dail.

the reason - TDs actually have very little influence in how our country is run. The majority of decisions are actually made by banks, unions and senior civil servants.
the state of the economy has much more to do with the global energy prices and credit availability than anything that happens in Leinster house.

I'm not proposing this party would solve anything, only highlight to the general public an expensive over-representation by people who don't necessarily have any influence on how the country function.

I'd be curious what other peoples views are?

While the party is busy doing nothing those same monoliths and behemoths would tear society to a million pieces, financially and eventually (although rapidly) physically.

A terrible idea surely.

Zenga

PolaroidPizza wrote: »

the new party message is basically - elect us and we donate our salary to charity and never sit in the Dail.

the reason - TDs actually have very little influence in how our country is run. The majority of decisions are actually made by banks, unions and senior civil servants.
the state of the economy has much more to do with the global energy prices and credit availability than anything that happens in Leinster house.

I'm not proposing this party would solve anything, only highlight to the general public an expensive over-representation by people who don't necessarily have any influence on how the country function.

I'd be curious what other peoples views are?

Firstly there is already another party claiming they donate most of their salary to charity (cough their own party cough) whilst also refusing to sit in a house of parliment....

Secondly Youre right in that the economy goes up and down through a number of variables - The majority of which are outside of the governments control (BTW they always have been!) How would not taking their seats help this situation?

Lastly - Of course a lot of decisions are made by Banks (Central Bank), Unions & Civil Servants - This is the way that its meant to be. The commercial banks will make decisions that are in the best interest of them and their shareholders, the central bank should take decisions in the best interest of the banking system, the unions make decisions for the betterment of their members whilst the Civil Servants are often appointed to take decisions out of politics and run the "day to day" eg Gardai, HSE, Court System etc. If you are proposing for this to end then I think the entire country would grind to a halt, we would have less democracy than we do now and we would be economically bankrupt.

PolaroidPizza

Zenga wrote: »

Firstly there is already another party claiming they donate most of their salary to charity (cough their own party cough) whilst also refusing to sit in a house of parliment....

Secondly Youre right in that the economy goes up and down through a number of variables - The majority of which are outside of the governments control (BTW they always have been!) How would not taking their seats help this situation?

Lastly - Of course a lot of decisions are made by Banks (Central Bank), Unions & Civil Servants - This is the way that its meant to be. The commercial banks will make decisions that are in the best interest of them and their shareholders, the central bank should take decisions in the best interest of the banking system, the unions make decisions for the betterment of their members whilst the Civil Servants are often appointed to take decisions out of politics and run the "day to day" eg Gardai, HSE, Court System etc. If you are proposing for this to end then I think the entire country would grind to a halt, we would have less democracy than we do now and we would be economically bankrupt.

Yoy u missed my point entirely. We are over represented. Wr are a small country and politicians are expensive

BoJack Horseman

PolaroidPizza wrote: »

Yoy u missed my point entirely. We are over represented. Wr are a small country and politicians are expensive

There are 650 fewer politicians than there was 5 years ago.... which is good...

We just need a slight addendum to the constitution... deleting any aspect to the no of TDs.
That sh*t should be determined by plain old statute.

Charles Babbage

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

We just need a slight addendum to the constitution... deleting any aspect to the no of TDs.
That sh*t should be determined by plain old statute.

Since Statutes are determined by TDs this could easily create an incentive to add more rather than less.

It is proper for the Constitution to regulate such matters.

BoJack Horseman

Charles Babbage wrote: »

It is proper for the Constitution to regulate such matters.

Why?

Its not like that in the UK....

Why wait for the non-existent & never likely referendum when statute offers much more flexibility & is obviously much cheaper.

The Irish constitution is an overly long, dogmatic hodge-podge..... stupidly concerning itself unnecessarily with matters like TD numbers & womens uteri.
The less in it, the better.

EnPassant

PolaroidPizza wrote: »

Yoy u missed my point entirely. We are over represented. Wr are a small country and politicians are expensive

People voted to keep the Seanad.

We have a similar number of TDs to the Scandinavian countries, proportionally.

PolaroidPizza

Sweden pays their representatives significantly less than we do (~ 87K here vs ~ 65K there), despite a higher GDP in Sweden. Without going digging, I would imagine our expenses bill is significantly more too.

And proportionality doesn't really come into play...the US has 66 times our population but if they were to take our proportions they would have 11,000 representatives.

New Zealand has pretty much exactly out population and has 46 less parliamentarians. Not too sure why we need so many, considering we don't even have Oireachteas enquiries.

BoJack Horseman

PolaroidPizza wrote: »

Sweden pays their representatives significantly less than we do (~ 87K here vs ~ 65K there), despite a higher GDP in Sweden. Without going digging, I would imagine our expenses bill is significantly more too.

And proportionality doesn't really come into play...the US has 66 times our population but if they were to take our proportions they would have 11,000 representatives.

New Zealand has pretty much exactly out population and has 46 less parliamentarians. Not too sure why we need so many, considering we don't even have Oireachteas enquiries.

its the equivelent of €81k for a swedish MP plus just shy of €12k per month as a housing allowance to live in Stockholm for those from constituencies outside the capital.

NZ also manages to survive with only having one chamber in its parliament... it has no upper house.
It was a very odd one that the electorate decided to keep the useless Senate.

Coillte_Bhoy

PolaroidPizza wrote: »

Sweden pays their representatives significantly less than we do (~ 87K here vs ~ 65K there), despite a higher GDP in Sweden. Without going digging, I would imagine our expenses bill is significantly more too.

And proportionality doesn't really come into play...the US has 66 times our population but if they were to take our proportions they would have 11,000 representatives.

New Zealand has pretty much exactly out population and has 46 less parliamentarians. Not too sure why we need so many, considering we don't even have Oireachteas enquiries.

There are over half a million politicians in the USA, so if we took their proportions we would have 7,500. Back to the drawing board