Changes to Ireland's electoral system to be discussed

Potential changes to Ireland's electoral system will be discussed this weekend at a meeting of the Constitutional Convention.

Members will debate whether to keep the single transferable vote or adopt a list system, whereby parties put forward a number of candidates based on their share of the vote.

Other discussions will focus on whether to change the number of TDs and the size of constituencies, or allow non-TDs to become ministers.

The proceedings, which will be broadcast live on www.constitution.ie from 9:30am this morning, will go towards a full Dáil debate and possibly an eventual referendum.

Chairman of the Convention on the Constitution Tom Arnold said that today's discussions could be the first step in a fundamental shift away from the traditional voting system.

"The essential question is whether we should retain our current electoral single transferable vote system or whether we should move to another system which would be more akin to the system they have in Germany," he said.