Now is the opportunity to finally demand more from our politicians

THE death of the 30th Dáil can allow rebirth of Irish democracy. An unnoticed aspect of Bertie Ahern’s tenure was the irrelevance of policy platforms within parties.

When your party’s core value is to be in government, it requires pragmatism to prevail over all principles. Post-election Dáil arithmetic dictated whether FF coalesced with the PDs on the right, Labour on the left or the Greens to save the universe. Building a consensus with social partners relegated the party politics in policy terms to the dustbin. We now know pure expediency was a road to ruin.

This election restores opportunity for each party to comprehensively set out precisely what it says on their tin. The media can be obsessed with their own part in setting the campaign agenda. Commissioning and publishing opinion polls generates new news for media organs. Last year’s British election seemed to be an endless commentary on polls of polls. Here, formats for TV debates have grabbed the headlines. These marginal events are the dross of politics. The main job of the media is to ensure the electorate obtains a transparent accurate synopsis of the points of difference between the parties in government.