A few questions relating to politics

junii

Ive just finished watching "the week in politics"

Presenter said the dail are on holidays until end of september. Who does the work for the next month and a half? What if something important cropped up? eg. stat rape issue.
Are there holidays really that long?

I have a good idea what a general election is and constituencys but can somebody clarify these for me please?
Also, how does a party come into power? Is it automatically if fine gael gets 30 seats and fianna fail 31, fianna fail are in power and what is the point in forming a coalition?

Cheers.

zuma

Ah 3months of holidays...bliss!

I dont think any other Parliament in the world gets such long Summer holidays....certainly not the UK Parliament!

seamus

junii wrote:

Presenter said the dail are on holidays until end of september. Who does the work for the next month and a half? What if something important cropped up? eg. stat rape issue.
Are there holidays really that long?

The holidays are really that long, it's a disgrace. Anything important comes up, and the Dail can be recalled.

I have a good idea what a general election is and constituencys but can somebody clarify these for me please?

A general election, quite simply is when the membership of the Dail is put to a vote of the people - nobody keeps their seat, and everyone over the age of 18 can vote.

A constituency is an "administrative" section of the country - because there are a certain amount of seats to be filled in the Dail, a voter cannot vote for just anybody - what if all three million voters voted for Bertie Ahern (for example)? Who would run the country? So the country is divided into sections called constituencies. Any person can run in a single consituency only, to try and get elected to the Dail. Political parties distribute their members between the consitutencies, to try and get as many of their members elected to the Dail as possible. In theory, someone who runs in a constituency is supposed to represent that constituency in the Dail - ensuring that all sections of the country get a look in.

Also, how does a party come into power? Is it automatically if fine gael gets 30 seats and fianna fail 31, fianna fail are in power and what is the point in forming a coalition?

Generally, the party who has the most seats in the Dail gains control of the Dail - though it's not as simple as that. There needs to be a particular majority in order to be "in power". Parties form a coalition in order to make up the number of members necessary to gain control of the Dail. One person is then elected Taoiseach by the Dail (usually the leader of the largest party in the coalition).

Jackie laughlin

The "holiday" issue is dragged up by cynics who would discredit parliamentary democracy. All discussion of democracy should be constructive because the alternative is awful.

The Dail closes but could be recalled to discuss an emergency. Government continues. TDs continue to work other than actually in the Dail.

Frankly, most of the cynics know this.

DadaKopf

Junji,

While TDs go on holidays, and committees where most of the work is done, I think the cabinet meets, but the crowd who really keeps things going is the civil service.

But also, TDs use this time to put more energy into their constituencies and other jobs (like scoping out property in Berlin! HUR HUR HUR.).

The Dáil and Seanad are there so that elected people can make decisions. The civil service continues to implement those decisions, during this period - unless called to do so - no policy decisions are made or legislation passed.

Hobbes

The holidays are sometimes used to pass questionable bills without the TDs being able to question them.

For example the bill that allows Irish people to detained without rights and extridited to the US on a request by the US. That went into law around the time of the holidays last year AFAIR.

illegalheadbuts irrelevant post deleted.

On topic replies only.

New_Departure06

junii wrote:

Ive just finished watching "the week in politics"

Presenter said the dail are on holidays until end of september. Who does the work for the next month and a half? What if something important cropped up? eg. stat rape issue.
Are there holidays really that long?

I have a good idea what a general election is and constituencys but can somebody clarify these for me please?
Also, how does a party come into power? Is it automatically if fine gael gets 30 seats and fianna fail 31, fianna fail are in power and what is the point in forming a coalition?

Cheers.

We have a Proportional-Representation electoral system where the % of the vote is supposed to roughly equal the % of the seats gained. Because of this every government since 1987 has been a Coalition rather than single-party. Fine Gael will not win enough seats to govern alone. It is inevitable they will at least need the support of the Labour party and likely that they will also need the Green Party. In our electoral system, we have multi-seat constituencies, and people vote by numbering the candidates they like in order of preference. When parties have a voting pact, they ask their voters to give lower preferences to their prospective Coalition partners. Hence, I suspect Frank Flannery's predictions for results for FG are partly based on transfers from Labour voters.

Each constituency has something called a quota i.e. a minimum preference vote you need to win a seat. Some candidates will be elected on the first count for winning this via first preferences. Then their 2nd preferences are distributed and so on until more people are elected. Eventually if other seats are still not filled, the hopeless candidates get eliminated and their lower preferences distributed in order to get others to the quotas. It is conceivable that not all candidates who get elected will reach the quota in which case those who in the final analysis have the nect most votes get in (when lower preferences allotted to them are included).

Jackie laughlin

Ignore cynicism.

The civil service and the members of the Oireachtas (i.e. the Dail and Seanad) have different functions.

All Bills must be passed by the Oireachtas. Clearly this cannot happen when the Oireachtas is not is session.