A few small changes to our political system could make all the difference

MARCH will see a general election. It won’t make tuppence worth of a difference as the government will get in anyway.

It’s difficult to believe that the well entrenched culture of self-interest, sleaze and cronyism will change one iota with the colour of the rosettes or that a new broom won’t be tainted with the same sordid moral perversion attached to its bristles.

There seems to be a belief among politicians that when we elect members then he\she become sort of demigods who then are free to institute their own codes of behaviour, their own brand of morality and their own remuneration.

Short of revolution there isn’t much that we, the little people, can do to break the cycle of administrative pocket-lining, but one or two small changes may make a difference. Base election quotas on the electorate and not on those who actually vote and ensure that no candidate is “deemed” elected. Apathy and indifference are as valid a political stance as being a card-carrying member of a cumann.

The technology is in place to have secret ballots in the Dáil; using it would free TDs to vote with their conscience and not sheepishly obeying the party whips.

Also, we should scrap quangos, scrap expense accounts, scrap automatic pensions and link salaries to our economic reality.

They’re small steps, but who knows?

Patrick Dolan

Kinsale

Co Cork