Minority government for a dummy

GaryTLynch

We're hearing a lot of talk about the possible formation of a minority government lately. Granted, I'm not the most politically astute mind and in my defense, I have tried to read up about what exactly a minority government consists of. The problems I'm running into are that the more I try to get my head around it, the more questions I have. Please, fellow Boardsies, can you tell me:
1. How many seats must be filled to form a minority government in Dail Eireann? (Is it even a question of filling a certain number of seats?)
2. Since the opposition would outnumber the government in such a setting, wouldn't it be extremely difficult to pass legislation?
3. In order to function, wouldn't a minority government need the support of other groupings within the Dail? Therefore creating an agreement of sorts? If so, wouldn't forming a coalition with said groupings make more sense?
Again, please forgive my ignorance, I'm thinking out loud. But I'm genuinely intrigued as to how this would work in Ireland. Many thanks.

Hijpo

I would like to see this minority government in place if those points hold up. Imagine being able to pass legislation in a democratic way where its on common ground with regard unbiased agreement that its the right way forward? Instead of mob rule where one large party is told how to vote and kept in line by a party whip.

Would a minority government be a fairer way to do democracy?

doc11

Hijpo wrote: »

I would like to see this minority government in place if those points hold up. Imagine being able to pass legislation in a democratic way where its on common ground with regard unbiased agreement that its the right way forward? Instead of mob rule where one large party is told how to vote and kept in line by a party whip.

Would a minority government be a fairer way to do democracy?

"mob rule", the largest party is democratically elected is it not

I'd describe a situation were you need the support of "tax the rich" and opposition who will shout down everything as "mob rule".

A minority government isn't more democratic, the responsibility of government is concentrated on fewer TD's with a larger opposition to promise the sun,moon and the stars.The big benefit of minority government is reaching peak opposition is that gullible voters will be spread around meaning you need have a more creditable policy then voting no in opposition to government bills as a USP to build an alternative. I can see the social democrats being forgotten about in opposition and SF (sitting on their hands) being pushed back by FF and labour. Empty rhetoric means little if a 100 td's can shout it.

Hijpo

doc11 wrote: »

"mob rule", the largest party is democratically elected is it not

I'd describe a situation were you need the support of "tax the rich" and opposition who will shout down everything as "mob rule".

A minority government isn't more democratic, the responsibility of government is concentrated on fewer TD's with a larger opposition to promise the sun,moon and the stars.The big benefit of minority government is reaching peak opposition is that gullible voters will be spread around meaning you need have a more creditable policy then voting no in opposition to government bills as a USP to build an alternative. I can see the social democrats being forgotten about in opposition and SF (sitting on their hands) being pushed back by FF and labour. Empty rhetoric means little if a 100 td's can shout it.

Yes mob rule because its a band of scammers just tagging along to make up the votes and being told how to vote.

How much do you think the mob made of "tax the rich" and opposition TD's rule over?

Koptain Liverpool

Hijpo wrote: »

Would a minority government be a fairer way to do democracy?

I don't know if it would necessarily be fairer but it would definitely have to be more effective given the fact that it's policies would need to satisfy a very large selectorate.

Koptain Liverpool

GaryTLynch wrote: »

If so, wouldn't forming a coalition with said groupings make more sense?

A coalition is a much more formal arrangement in which all parties involved are intrinsically linked to the policies implemented. This is not always an attractive proposition as Labour found out.

Fr Tod Umptious

Koptain Liverpool wrote: »

I don't know if it would necessarily be fairer but it would definitely have to be more effective given the fact that it's policies would need to satisfy a very large selectorate.

You mean that they would have to be populist enough to satisfy a very large selectorate.

No room for tough, unpopular yet necessary decisions because someone is not going to be happy.

Koptain Liverpool

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

You mean that they would have to be populist enough to satisfy a very large selectorate.

No room for tough, unpopular yet necessary decisions because someone is not going to be happy.

I mean that for policies to be approved they will need the support of a broader range than a majority government.

One theory is that this will result in properly debated and well thought out policies being implemented.

Of course the reality is likely to be closer to what you suggest....

An Ciarraioch

GaryTLynch wrote: »

We're hearing a lot of talk about the possible formation of a minority government lately. Granted, I'm not the most politically astute mind and in my defense, I have tried to read up about what exactly a minority government consists of. The problems I'm running into are that the more I try to get my head around it, the more questions I have. Please, fellow Boardsies, can you tell me:
1. How many seats must be filled to form a minority government in Dail Eireann? (Is it even a question of filling a certain number of seats?)
2. Since the opposition would outnumber the government in such a setting, wouldn't it be extremely difficult to pass legislation?
3. In order to function, wouldn't a minority government need the support of other groupings within the Dail? Therefore creating an agreement of sorts? If so, wouldn't forming a coalition with said groupings make more sense?
Again, please forgive my ignorance, I'm thinking out loud. But I'm genuinely intrigued as to how this would work in Ireland. Many thanks.

1. The figure varies according to who abstains - if FF alone abstain, FG need 58 TDs.

2. The ideal is government by consensus, with most legislation debated in all-party Dáil committees.

3. Differing parties have differing reasons for staying in opposition - SF and AAA-PBP ideologically opposed, FF party membership, Lab and Greens rebuilding, SD waiting until party established in every constituency.

Hijpo

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

You mean that they would have to be populist enough to satisfy a very large selectorate.

No room for tough, unpopular yet necessary decisions because someone is not going to be happy.

Unpopular would be found to be necessary if the situation warranted the legislation and was debated thoroughly. What we have now is legislation thats understood by few but the majority votes in favour or be kicked out of the boys club.

edanto

doc11 wrote: »

I'd describe a situation were you need the support of "tax the rich" and opposition who will shout down everything as "mob rule".

Would you say the quote I have selected above accurately represents how your party feels about politics?

johnnyskeleton

edanto wrote: »

Would you say the quote I have selected above accurately represents how your party feels about politics?

Mod note:

The topic is how a minority government would operate.

Annasopra

GaryTLynch wrote: »

We're hearing a lot of talk about the possible formation of a minority government lately. Granted, I'm not the most politically astute mind and in my defense, I have tried to read up about what exactly a minority government consists of. The problems I'm running into are that the more I try to get my head around it, the more questions I have. Please, fellow Boardsies, can you tell me:
1. How many seats must be filled to form a minority government in Dail Eireann? (Is it even a question of filling a certain number of seats?)
2. Since the opposition would outnumber the government in such a setting, wouldn't it be extremely difficult to pass legislation?
3. In order to function, wouldn't a minority government need the support of other groupings within the Dail? Therefore creating an agreement of sorts? If so, wouldn't forming a coalition with said groupings make more sense?
Again, please forgive my ignorance, I'm thinking out loud. But I'm genuinely intrigued as to how this would work in Ireland. Many thanks.

1 A minority government basically has under the 79 seat majority for a majority government
2 Yes so you seek support from the opposition to vote with you or abstain
3 Yes thats why a minority FG and Indo government would need FF to vote with it or abstain in order for them to get most votes through the Dail

Riskymove

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

2 Yes so you seek support from the opposition to vote with you or abstain

Traditionally all opposition would generally vote against Government (and vice versa) regardless of what the topic was. This was due to the Whip system.

given the likely set up this would be different now as independents and small parties seek to give the impression they are supporting policies which, while led by Government have been agreed to in principle with parts of the opposition

edanto

I quite like the idea that a minority government would have to publicly outline the reason that they are putting forward certain legislation/amendments and gain support for that from the other parties.

It really pulls the rug out from under the cartel-like operation of the whip system over the last 50 years, and refusal (generally) to engage in any meaningful debate about legislation.

The Finance committee put forward over 300 amendments and all opposition amendments were ignored. That's embarrassing for a system of government that likes to call itself democratic.

glacial_pace71

When it comes to passing legislation a Government generally gets no more than 30 Bills enacted each year. Of those some are necessary to give effect to budgetary matters (e.g. Finance Bill, Social Welfare Bill etc) or the Appropriation Bill (to give effect to the Estimates, i.e. 'voted' expenditure).

Have a look at any year as an example:

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2015/act

How many Bills does a Government generate? Well, it varies a lot. For example, when Minister for Justice the self-professed workaholic Michael McDowell papered the walls with White Papers, Green Papers, reports from expert working groups etc, but only a handful of these got to the stage of being included in the Government's Legislative Programme.

Generally, you have an 'A', 'B' and 'C' list. Much can get through the various pre-legislative phases (e.g. Green Paper, White Paper, Regulatory Impact Analysis etc) but they're still stuck on the 'C' list until the Government approves the Heads of Bill.

After that you're stuck with the parliamentary counsel (formerly known as the parliamentary draughtsmen) needing to turn the Heads of Bill into proper legislation. This is the 'B' list. Occasionally, however, some inter-coalition tantrums, compromises etc can see legislation reach this stage to keep one or other party quiet but there's no real Government appetite for it to progress beyond that stage, e.g. sometimes there'll be imaginary bells and whistles demanded - all delaying tactics on the lines of 'shure that's not what we meant at all at all' - or sometimes the Chief Whip can only do what's sensible and not waste time and effort engaging with Ministerial advisers etc and getting something onto the 'A' list for it to die.

The 'A' list used to be for legislation that had been drafted into Bills, published and brought before either House of the Oireachtas (i.e. Dáil or Seanad: the latter can be used for Bills that aren't classified as "money Bills", i.e. charges to the exchequer). However, the FG-Lab Govt discontinued the practice of publishing a Legislative Programme at the start of each Parliamentary Session. Instead a compendium of sorts was published once or twice a year, i.e. to camouflage certain difficulties with contentious Bills, but also to avoid unnecessary repetition. Here's the last one, note the 'A', 'B' and 'C' lists:

http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/eng/Taoiseach_and_Government/Government_Legislation_Programme/Autumn_2015_Legislative_Programme.doc

Apologies for the lengthy post, but, if you look at any Goverment Legislation Programme you'll find at least 10 Bills enacted into law each year that would not have been significantly different had there been greater Opposition input. I'd therefore imagine that the Government will have to get used to taking Opposition amendments at Committee Stage and Report Stage of any Bill's passage through either House. Similarly, Opposition deputies will have to get used to discontinuing the practice of tabling Amendments to promise sun, moon, stars and a free pony to everyone, because there's now a danger that the Government might be defeated and the nonsensical Opposition Amendments could succeed. On the other hand, Governments can't just click their fingers, summon backbench lobby fodder(that'd been in their offices doing constituency work and not even participating in the debates) and have them sleepwalk through and vote down useful Opposition amendments.

At the end of the day though the Acts passed can't address every detail, and only really establish the broad legal principle: most legislation provides clauses for Ministerial orders, rules, regulations and by-laws to address the everyday detail (e.g. the monetary value of certain fines etc). Have a look at the number of items of secondary legislation promulgated each year, it's usually not less than 600 items:

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2015/si

In some cases the Acts have included specific provisions for parliamentary oversight, e.g. that a Statutory Instrument can be overturned by the Dáil or Seanad within 21 days of it being signed by a Minister. This is where it'll get interesting, e.g. there's a huge body of legislation for which the Dáil or Seanad could now potentially clip a Minister's wings. There's the prospect of much greater Ministerial accountability to the Dáil. (On the other hand there's the danger that the unelected Seanad could seek to delay or frustrate legitimate Ministerial business just for the sake of some grandstanding).

In short a minority government might function effectively if it can ensure cross-party engagement in the legislative programme, but in reality the political culture is such that the prospect of a minority government lasting more than a year is quite remote.

Brussels Sprout

Probably a good time to mention the current Danish minority government.

Bizarrely, it is comprised entirely of the party who came third in last year's election.

oscarBravo

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

Probably a good time to mention the current Danish minority government.

Bizarrely, it is comprised entirely of the party who came third in last year's election.

It's amazing what can happen in a country whose politicians understand that they were all elected to actually run the damn country.

Zubeneschamali

edanto wrote: »

It really pulls the rug out from under the cartel-like operation of the whip system over the last 50 years

We had a minority government 82 and in 87-89. The 1997 FF-PD government needed 4 independents to back it.

Zubeneschamali

Various people have pointed to the general failure of opposition amendments and bills under the whip system - but under that system, many of these are point-scoring nonsense which no-one wants to make it into legislation. Even the authors know that what they are proposing is not practical or sensible, they just want to get the government parties and TDs to vote against puppies and free apple pie or whatever it is, to use at the next election.

oscarBravo

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

We had a minority government 82...

...which lasted nine months before independents pulled the plug.

and in 87-89.

Two years, at which point Haughey tried to pull a stroke and move from a minority to a majority (which didn't exactly go to plan).

The 1997 FF-PD government needed 4 independents to back it.

And boy, was that ever an exercise in pork-barrel politics.

We don't have a proud tradition of stable minority governments.

hatrickpatrick

Hijpo wrote: »

Would a minority government be a fairer way to do democracy?

100%.

An entirely independent Dail from the cabinet (a la the US congress) would be ideal, but a minority government is a nice half way house and is certainly a major step up from the cabinet being 100% guaranteed to pass every proposal it makes.

I have a huge amount of optimism that this Dail is going to be far more accountable and democratic than the last one, despite the unfortunate fact that the two biggest groups within it are both up to their necks in cronyism. In an ideal situation, even FF and FG combined would still need some independent support to pass legislation - this would, I think, ensure a proper stop-gap against cronyist proposals such as the creation of another IW-esque retirement home for political insiders, but it's certainly an improvement.

The idea that the cabinet will now have to work to convince the Dail that its policies are both in the national interest and what the majority of the people actually want shouldn't seem so alien to Irish politics, but I'm delighted that it has finally taken hold nonetheless.

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Various people have pointed to the general failure of opposition amendments and bills under the whip system - but under that system, many of these are point-scoring nonsense which no-one wants to make it into legislation. Even the authors know that what they are proposing is not practical or sensible, they just want to get the government parties and TDs to vote against puppies and free apple pie or whatever it is, to use at the next election.

In that case, the lack of a majority kills two fairly awful political birds with one stone. Now people will have to propose amendments knowing that they have every possibility of actually passing, so there'll be less grandstanding bullsh!t and hopefully far more participation from TDs in Dail debates.

Again, the make-up of the current Dail isn't something I would consider ideal, but compared to the last five years, the sun is shining on it

Zubeneschamali

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I have a huge amount of optimism that this Dail is going to be far more accountable and democratic than the last one

I have a huge amount of confidence that this D il is going to get absolutely nothing of any consequence done.

But since you admire the US system of guaranteed total deadlock, where only if both houses, the President, the Supreme Court and the full Moon align can a new law be passed, this is perhaps what you want.

hatrickpatrick

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

I have a huge amount of confidence that this D il is going to get absolutely nothing of any consequence done.

Well, I sincerely hope you're wrong about that.

But since you admire the US system of guaranteed total deadlock, where only if both houses, the President, the Supreme Court and the full Moon align can a new law be passed, this is perhaps what you want.

I said I admired, very specifically, the fact that the US Congress was independent of the cabinet - in other words, when a secretary (minister) proposes something, or even if a congressperson proposes something, it's not a case (like in Ireland) of saying "it comes from the majority party so it's already passed" or conversely" it comes from the minority party so it can't pass". Each member of congress votes according to their own beliefs rather than according to instruction, so it's far more representative than what we've had for five years.

However, just to take your worst case scenario for a second - I'd certainly argue that getting nothing done is preferable to getting bad things done. This has been a key element of the debate between Sanders and Clinton for the democratic nomination - Clinton says she's better at getting things done, but the reason for this is because a lot of her policies are extremely hawkish and therefore the Republicans have no problem passing them.

I'm not entirely sure how that's supposed to be dressed up as a positive thing for progressives, but there it is.

With regard to the Dail, you say it'll get nothing done, I optimistically disagree. Let's compare notes whenever the next election rolls around, which I sincerely hope won't be for another five years rather than within days or weeks as those who believe a government is all-or-nothing have been trumpeting for the last few weeks

Zubeneschamali

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Let's compare notes whenever the next election rolls around, which I sincerely hope won't be for another five years rather than within days or weeks as those who believe a government is all-or-nothing have been trumpeting for the last few weeks

You are the first person I've heard who thought this could last beyond 3 budgets, including the entire pundit class on TV and radio. Most are less optimistic than that.

Even if the Independents roped into this don't buckle under pressure (and history says they will), FF will only back this long enough to dodge the blame for the next election - they know they can gain seats next time IF they are not obviously to blame. So if they back Kenny, they'll stick with him for at least a year. I think the 2nd budget will be where they trump up some nonsense and pretend it's a red-line issue of principle, and we have an election for Christmas 2017.

hatrickpatrick

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

You are the first person I've heard who thought this could last beyond 3 budgets, including the entire pundit class on TV and radio. Most are less optimistic than that.

I have a reputation for over-optimism when it comes to politics, this I will admit

However, I strongly believe that nearly all of those who assume that it won't last, are basing this on the paradigm that failure to pass major legislation automatically has to result in a general election.

With further elections at the moment likely to yield similarly inconclusive results, I'm hoping that the TDs actually work within the system as it's designed - if a bill gets rejected, debate it, amend it, work on it until it garners more support. That is how a parliament is supposed to work - we're just not used to it in Ireland. Yet.

Even if the Independents roped into this don't buckle under pressure (and history says they will), FF will only back this long enough to dodge the blame for the next election - they know they can gain seats next time IF they are not obviously to blame. So if they back Kenny, they'll stick with him for at least a year. I think the 2nd budget will be where they trump up some nonsense and pretend it's a red-line issue of principle, and we have an election for Christmas 2017.

That is most certainly a possibility. However, just to clarify, are you suggesting that an election would result from the failure to pass the 2017 budget, or from Kenny losing a motion of no confidence?

Personally I don't see why either scenario needs to result in an election. The budget, like any other piece of legislation, could be amended or re-negotiated. If a Taoiseach loses a motion of no confidence, there's no reason there can't be discussions between the members of the Dail, as there have been over the last few weeks, as to who should replace him or her.

By tradition and precedence, either of these would indeed be likely to result in an election. But they don't have to, and this cycle so far has been all about setting new precedents.

In fact, this may not even be a new precedent - I was too young to have a keen interest in politics, but didn't the FG/Lab coalition of the early mid-90s result from the collapse of a government, BUT the re-negotiation of a new one between existing TDs rather than an early election?

EDIT: It was indeed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_27th_Dáil

oscarBravo

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

However, I strongly believe that nearly all of those who assume that it won't last, are basing this on the paradigm that failure to pass major legislation automatically has to result in a general election.

That paradigm isn't a figment of people's imagination.

Of course failure to pass legislation doesn't require an election (unless it's a money bill) - but do you seriously think that if FF thought they were in with a shot of a majority, they wouldn't promptly yank the rug out from under the government on the flimsiest of pretexts?