Fine Gael 'top on political reform'

A team of academics has ranked Fine Gael the number one party for plans to reform politics.

Enda Kenny’s front bench scored 73% for ideas on modernising the Oireachtas, elections, the public sector, councils and making government more open.

Similar to the picture painted by the opinion polls, the test by Reformcard.com showed Labour in second place followed by Fianna Fáil but on the bottom rungs the Greens shaded it in front of Sinn Féin.

Dr Jane Suiter, of University College Cork, said the lead parties still shied away from focusing on local government, in particular funding, and ministerial business.

“Fine Gael scored consistently and coherently in each of the categories which ultimately gave it the edge,” she said.

“One notable finding is the low scores on local government reform.

“Why the parties shied away here is open to debate, but the prospect of flagging additional taxation for local government is not one which the parties would want to highlight in the midst of an election campaign.

“It is also noteworthy that neither Labour nor Fine Gael proposed serious measures to tackle cabinet dominance in Ireland.”

The overall review scored Fine Gael 73; Labour 68; Fianna Fáil 58; Green Party 53; and Sinn Féin 26.

Prof Gary Murphy, from Dublin City University, said local government reform was crucial to improving the state.

“There’s not any point abolishing the Seanad unless we do significant reform of the Dáil, for instance electing the Ceann Comhairle – Fianna Fáil’s view of a secret ballot we think is a good one. It works in Britain,” he said.

Prof Murphy said executive dominance was the main issue in the Dáil.

“Calls for a national government in my view are in many ways missing the point because what you want from government is that you have a strong opposition who can keep a watch on what that government does,” he said.

Prof Murphy described Sinn Féin’s low as spectacular and blamed it on the party’s failure to engage with the main issues around political reform.

Academics working with Reformcard.com said they will also score the new Programme for Government after the election and also progress on its implementation.

The report gave a breakdown of individual marks for parties in several key areas.

Fine Gael’s reforms were unsurprising, the academics said, because of the length of time the party has been developing them. They said changes to open government, which scored 17.8 out of 20, were particularly coherent and well thought through and that Fine Gael was the only party to seriously consider opening all government data.

It warned its Oireachtas changes, scoring 15.4, did not seriously address the issue of executive dominance and plans for local government were lowest of the five at 9.7.

Labour was strong on open government by expanding Freedom of Information (FOI), a whistleblowers’ charter and lobbying, scoring 15.8 out of 20.

Labour's public sector marks were also high at 16.9 but again the academics warned that Dáil reform is weak, scoring just 13, as the party focused on longer sitting hours rather than efficiency, more power for TDs and limiting cabinet strength.

Fianna Fáil scored high on Oireachtas reform thanks to its ideas on ministers resigning Dáil seats and non-political appointments to cabinet.

But the experts said the party lacked detailed policy in open government with FOI given a cursory mention and under-developed polices to protect whistleblowers and regulate lobbyists.

The academics scored the Greens low because the party did not live up to its reputation as reformers. It got relatively highly marks for ideas on local government, 14.1 out of 20, and open government, 16.7.

They rounded on the party claiming it lacked coherent policy proposals on reforming the public sector and had little detail on the Dáil.

Sinn Féin were strong on improving participation in politics but the academics said the party does not appear to have engaged to the same extent with political reform.

The academics warned that cutting TDs is not the answer to political reforms.