Let people fill the credibility gap by giving them a direct Dáil role

WAY back in 1774 it was Edmund Burke who described what it means to represent people in a democracy. Of course, old Mr Burke had never heard of Ivor Callely.

Nor, I imagine, had he ever dreamt that a mature democracy would tolerate and encourage eejits.

If he had, he might have been a bit more circumspect in his famous speech to the electors of Bristol.

"It ought," he said, "to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention."

So far, so good. Ivor and his like wouldn't have any trouble with sentiments like these.

Alas for Ivor, that wasn't all that Edmund had to say on the subject.

"But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgement, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving, you if he sacrifices it to your opinion."

Would you put phrases like mature judgement and enlightened conscience into the same sentence as, say, Ray Burke or Padraig Flynn?

And even though Ivor Callely acting the eejit isn't in the same league as some of the people who have debased Irish politics in recent years, the spectacle of yet another minister making a fool of himself is good for no-one.

What is it about politics, you have to wonder, that makes people behave like that? Ivor Callely has a big job to do, and instead of doing it he spends all his time alienating the people who work for him.

Civil servants admire politicians who get stuck into their jobs, and they tend to stand by them. Professional loyalty, as opposed to political loyalty, is a common enough feature of the relationship between civil servants and the politicians they serve.

But it has to be earned. Civil servants routinely divide their politicians into three types the doers, the time-servers, and the waste of space.

They'll work hard for the doers, they'll tolerate the time-servers (because they know another politician will be along eventually), but the waste of space will always, one way or the other, be exposed.

Exposure in Irish politics may not, of course, result in punishment either at the hands of the boss or at the hands of the electorate. And one of the ironies is that doers can sometimes get into trouble, too.

The safest place to be in politics, sometimes, is in the time-serving slot. Many a minister, senior or junior, has come a cropper by trying to do too much, and has been left ruefully to contemplate the monuments they left behind when it's too late.

Politicians hate posthumous vindication. At the other end of the scale though is the politician who has been given a job to do and thinks it's an excuse for having his photograph taken. Ivor Callely, who has hunted cheap publicity all through his political career, must be regretting the fact that there is no-one to stand up for him now.

It's cruel, isn't it? Politics makes harsh demands, and those who are found wanting inevitably get found out. Cruel it may be, but in a democracy it's also the way it should be.

Politics is, and must remain, the most accountable of all professions. There is no other job where the occupants face a judgement on their performance every few years, sometimes with devastating personal consequences. That's what makes politics our property because we have the right to throw them out.

So why is it, since it's ours, that fewer and fewer of us feel any sense of ownership of our politics?

There are many answers to that question, of course, not the least of them being the scandalous behaviour of some (a relatively few) individuals, and the making and breaking of rash promises by some political parties.

One of the consequences of the bad behaviour of a few has been that all politicians are tarred with the same brush. How often do you hear it? "All politicians are the bloody same."

They aren't, you know. There are huge differences in allegiance, in political ideology, in values. But the one thing they increasingly all have in common is that the profession to which they belong is no longer trusted and valued by the people they represent.

It's a tragedy in all sorts of ways. The need for accountability in Government and in public administration has never been greater, and at the same time the effectiveness of our houses of parliament in securing that accountability is in serious decline. The need and the ability to investigate issues of major public concern, many of them arising from maladministration, mismanagement or neglect, has been tarnished by endless delays and huge legal fees.

It's time to rewrite the rules completely. We need a parliament that can truly represent us and hold the establishment to account.

We've all been listening to guff in recent times about members of Sinn Féin having some God-given right to be represented in the Dáil.

Why them? Why not children or old people? Why not those with a disability, or those who live on the margins in other ways?

One of the reasons we've all moved away from an interest in representative politics is because we've all got more of an interest in participative politics.

Residents' associations routinely get better attendances than party political meetings.

Why shouldn't the Dáil become a place where people are invited not just to be represented, but also to participate? The European Parliament has an accessible petitions system whereby people from all over Europe can ensure that an issue of direct and immediate concern to them is raised on the floor of the parliament.

Why doesn't Dáil Eireann allow our citizens to participate in a similar way? And if enhancing the representative role of the House is one essential ingredient, developing its investigative role is the other. For reasons I don't have time to go into here, it might need a constitutional referendum, but you only have to look at the costs and delays associated with some of the tribunals to realise that accountability in our system of public administration is dying on its feet. Who visibly represents the people's interests at any of them, and isn't that parliament's job anyway? An inquisitive, powerful parliament, operating in the full light of day, is the best guarantee we can get of high standards in government.

A weak and ineffectual parliament, hamstrung by antiquated rules and procedures, is on the other hand an essential ingredient for eventual corruption. Does anyone else share the uneasy feeling that that's exactly where we're heading?