No Government, only Dail

kieranhr

I've read plenty of discussion in the media lately of coalition, partnership and minority government options, but everyone seems to be ignoring the option of having no government at all, and letting the Dail get on with the business of legislature.

A Taoiseach obviously needs to be elected, and realistically this will have to be Enda again, but this time around he would be more of a figurehead. Then he has to nominate a cabinet, but said cabinet won't be stuffed full of FG'ers, or else it won't get past a Dail vote.

From there, every TD and every party votes according to their own mandate and beliefs, as opposed to for or against the government. If a majority of the Dail votes for the motion, the legislation is passed. If the majority votes against FG, it needn't necessarily trigger a motion of no confidence. The Dail just gets on with the next order of business.

It would undoubtedly take a level of maturity we haven't seen from our politicians thus far, because at any time, the Dail *could* call a vote of no confidence and eject the Taoiseach. But then what? Another general election, millions of euro wasted, another seven weeks lost, and more than likely everyone back where they started. The Dail may make that mistake once, but they'll get no thanks for it from the electorate, and they'll think better the next time. Like I said, it will take maturity, but we will end up with a far better democracy.

PolaroidPizza

the problem is ff, fg and most of the independents are all pretty much the same. after 1 week of your proposed system, it would become all too obvious they're exactly the same and then we would be in a 'back to the future paradox' situation. who knows what might happen then.

kieranhr

There's no doubt that this Dail has a distinct Centre-Right flavour to it, and any functioning government that forms from it is going to reflect that. That's what the electorate voted for.

KingBrian2

Everyone keeps saying FF and FG are the same. No they are not. FG have positions that FF find repellent. This notion that both are identical is just not true. Take water charges, abolishing the Seanad and less spending FF oppose all these policies whereas FG and the Independents are uncomfortable on abortion, oppose increased taxation.

PolaroidPizza

from newstalk during the week
'whats the main difference between FF and FG'?

John Bruton - well FF traditionally eat their dinner early in the day
Eamonn O'Cuiv - Nonsense, FF are much bigger supporters of the GAA then FG.

yep, a whole lot of difference there.
and go away with your policy nonsense, if FF were in power, they would have the exact same policies, and FG would have pretended to oppose.

KingBrian2

PolaroidPizza wrote: »

from newstalk during the week
'whats the main difference between FF and FG'?

John Bruton - well FF traditionally eat their dinner early in the day
Eamonn O'Cuiv - Nonsense, FF are much bigger supporters of the GAA then FG.

yep, a whole lot of difference there.
and go away with your policy nonsense, if FF were in power, they would have the exact same policies, and FG would have pretended to oppose.

FF opposed the water charges and abolishing the Seanad is this not true. MM came out and supported the demonstrators along with a number of other political parties so don't know what your talking about. FF never wanted water charges and less public money being used across the country. It is a fallacy to suggest otherwise.

PolaroidPizza

KingBrian2 wrote: »

FF opposed the water charges and abolishing the Seanad is this not true. MM came out and supported the demonstrators along with a number of other political parties so don't know what your talking about. FF never wanted water charges and less public money being used across the country. It is a fallacy to suggest otherwise.

and fg in few years will say they didn't support water charges, they were forced to do it.

exact same approach to dealing with banks, unions, planning, health, welfare, and most importantly tax. issues like seanad don't register with most.

pepsi and cocacola.

kieranhr

FF and FG are certainly very close together on the centre-right. They are going to have to get used to the new political reality that Irish politics is no longer a binary system, swinging from FF to FG and back again.

Scofflaw

KingBrian2 wrote: »

FF opposed the water charges and abolishing the Seanad is this not true. MM came out and supported the demonstrators along with a number of other political parties so don't know what your talking about. FF never wanted water charges and less public money being used across the country. It is a fallacy to suggest otherwise.

Hm.

Fianna Fáil drafted legislation for the introduction of water charges two weeks before the Government was forced into a Troika bailout, which included a provision for establishing a State-owned water company.

Hm again.

But current Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin reacted to the revelation by insisting the last ­Government did not introduce ­water charges during its time in office

Ah, the "technically true" defence. The "we may have drafted legislation for it but we didn't actually introduce it in the government where we got kicked out early" defence.

Was this the same FF that wrote water charges into the troika programme? Why yes!

Today we had cynical play-acting from FF in the Dail in relation to the Water Rates Bill. Is FF not the political party which agreed with the Troika in 2010 to introduce water rates in Ireland? Below are the relevant paragraphs from the Memorandum of Understanding with the Troika signed by Brian Lenihan.

From FFs Memorandum of Understanding with Troika-2010

Water services reform
36.

The Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) will carry out consultations to determine the framework for household water charges with a view to start charging by the end of the EU-IMF programme period. The CER will also conduct consultations in due course to determine the pricing methodology for the non-domestic sector.
37.

The Government will publish the General Scheme of a Water Services Bill with the aim of defining the regulatory framework for the water sector under a national public utility setting and providing for the establishment of Irish Water in its final form. There will be prior engagement with the European Commission as appropriate, in developing the legislative arrangements.

But they still didn't actually introduce it because shortly after agreeing the programme FF was kicked out of government for having to agree a programme - but, as MM says, they still didn't "introduce" it - that was left to the people who inherited the programme implementation.

Whatever one may feel about water charges, MM's opposition to them is cynical and hypocritical populism.

Still, it seems to work for him - a reminder that you can fool some of the people all of the time.

cordially,
Scofflaw

KingBrian2

Scofflaw you will concede that introducing charges is good for the country as we all know their is a school of thought that says no to water charges completely.

K-9

FF will say they'd have implemented it better!

For all the talk of little difference between FF and FG, there's not much between SF, Labour and SD either. FF under Martin will position themselves as guardians of welfare and public services, try and not repeat the mistakes Labour made. Labour will say they got a lot implemented last time, the problem was the electorate didn't believe them.

Scofflaw

KingBrian2 wrote: »

Scofflaw you will concede that introducing charges is good for the country as we all know their is a school of thought that says no to water charges completely.

Sure. I don't have a problem with water charges as such. I'm only pointing out that for MM and FF to oppose them is hypocritical, cynical, and populist.

cordially,
Scofflaw

kieranhr

While you guys have been busy hijacking the thread, the Irish Times has started writing about the No Government model, and has decided it will be henceforth be referred to as Power-Sharing.

http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/opinion-there-is-a-better-way-to-form-a-government-than-50-days-of-chaos-1.2619525

Esel

kieranhr wrote: »

While you guys have been busy hijacking the thread, the Irish Times has started writing about the No Government model, and has decided it will be henceforth be referred to as Power-Sharing.

http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/opinion-there-is-a-better-way-to-form-a-government-than-50-days-of-chaos-1.2619525

I thought binary was the basis of all things 'good' this millennium?

Now, I think mu.

I could live with the Swiss model (unless/until I learn that it works as badly as our current one). Also the list system (same caveat)

Mondo Borda - maybe. Need to do more research.

Tomk1

We have an President let him chairperson the dail.
forget party politics
each elected TD has a role to play being paid todo, to work for the country rather than themselves.

kieranhr

There is still room for party politics and the FF/FG whip system in a power-sharing government, but the large parties become less relevant as the independents and smaller groupings get more influence in the Dail. I imagine that's why FF/FG are desperately trying to make a minority government work at the moment.

The irony is that those same independents/SDs/AAA-PBPs/IAs/GPs could have very easily forced a power-sharing arrangement which would have benefitted them hugely. All they had to do was vote for Enda as Taoiseach. Straight away, Enda has to propose a cabinet, and the only one that'll get through a Dail vote IS a power-sharing cabinet, involving representatives from all Dail groups.

KingBrian2

Tomk1 wrote: »

We have an President let him chairperson the dail.
forget party politics
each elected TD has a role to play being paid todo, to work for the country rather than themselves.

I fail to see how the President chairing the Dáil would make Irish democracy more efficient. All you need is a good chairperson. The position should be meritocratic.

zl1whqvjs75cdy

Tomk1 wrote: »

We have an President let him chairperson the dail.
forget party politics
each elected TD has a role to play being paid todo, to work for the country rather than themselves.

Grossly unconstitutional so that's a no go.

Jim2007

Esel wrote: »

I could live with the Swiss model (unless/until I learn that it works as badly as our current one). Also the list system (same caveat)

Well as someone who regularly votes in Swiss elections I can say it is no better and in some cases even worse! It does not really matter how you vote in parliamentary elections because the outcome is always the same a coalition in which the 7 minsters keep getting reappointed until they decide to retire.
And the great thing about initiatives is that if you don't like the outcome you can always have another one! And our word in international agreements is only as good as our last vote. Point in fact is our bilateral agreements with the EU, which have a domino clause, break one and you break them all, about a year ago or so a right wing party got a proposal to break the FMOP treaty passed - no one expected it would pass and as a result turn out was slow. So what now? Well another vote would be an option put it takes time. Another option and most likely I think, is for the government to simply ignore the vote and leave it to the right wing party to call a second vote to force the government apply the result of the first vote.... they are not likely to win a second vote, so that is where it will die.