Political reform will be difficult to achieve

IRISH politicians are looking into their souls and beating their breasts as they face a cathartic election.

It’s reminiscent of the period in Europe following the French and Dutch rejection of the EU Constitution.

The underlying suspicion in both cases is that the problem is the electorate.

Here, the answer proffered is to change the way we elect representatives. In the EU, it revolved around having a constitution to make it easier for the electorate to identify with.

The electorate is seen as the object of the changes but there is no binding responsibility on the elected representatives to represent them or the electorate to what they want. Changes revolve around processes rather than sharing responsibility with the electorate.

In Europe, they agreed to send legislation to national parliaments at the same time as to the governments.

However, while the Oireachtas committee now can discuss the agenda with the minister before they go to the relevant EU meeting, overarching policies tend to be agreed by the leaders of a few member states.

National reforms revolve around weaning TDs off their clinics where they treat the ailments of their clients such as potholes, health cards and pensions, and devote themselves instead to affairs of the state.

But if government does not agree to include backbenchers in running the state, they remain election fodder unless they agree to turn their clinics into areas for public policy debates.

A conference for students in University College Cork at the weekend about the EU and democracy turned up some interesting issues, especially during discussions on Irish identity and values.

Students were asked to identify values that might serve to give us our identity within the EU and which would guide Irish policies.

For the late teen and early 20s group, it proved difficult. Most agreed our culture and defined this as the Irish language, GAA and Catholicism.

Much of what we are was a reaction to colonial occupation, choices made to distinguish us from the British.

We were not like the rest of Europe with parties of the left and right. We were unique in our language, our attachment to family and community, some believed.

A French student affirmed attachment to family and community was not a uniquely Irish value. Nobody made the point that the language is fairly mainstream, being one of the Indo-European languages.

Neutrality was also an identifier and grew from our relationship to Britain.

Our main defining value was that we had “a healthy disrespect for everything,” something that perhaps gave us our gombeen culture, said one student. We were noted for it particularly when among students from other countries like Germany, he added.

Some agreed it might not be the most useful value when defending yourself in the EU but it shows that engaging the electorate will require more than a few changes in the electoral process, judging from the confusion caused by this generation trying to define itself and its values.