Fergus Finlay: We need better politics to thrive instead of adding on more TDs 

'I know the numbers are currently fixed by the Constitution, and we’ll need a referendum to change that. But the current rules are utterly absurd in a modern democracy with a rapidly growing population.'

I’m sorry to swim against the ride of conventional wisdom, but enough already. We don’t need more TDs. We need better politics. Our parliament is over-stuffed, over-male, over-middle class.

Isn’t it time, in this sophisticated and mature democracy of ours, that we were asked how we want to be democratically represented? What kind of parliament we want, what sort of service we feel entitled to expect from our TDs? What should the balance be between the local and the national? How do the really big issues like climate change rise above politics? And surely we could start, as a people wedded to parliamentary democracy, by deciding for ourselves how big our parliament needs to be in order to be both representative and effective?