Political Power and Accountability in Ireland
It is difficult to see how one can legitimately affect how people’s preferences are formed, except by perhaps educating them to the fact that their preferences are not formed independently and that they could think about what they think they want. But for the other issues regarding power and accountability in Irish politics, whereby decisions are arguably made for groups that hold politicians to account in a non-democratic fashion, more open government and greater scrutiny of the governmental process would be useful. The Freedom of Information Act has helped, but the culture of the governmental system is one of secrecy that needs to change.
Investigations into policy errors need to be more effective, less lengthy, less costly and less opaque. There is little reason why public inquiries cannot be televised. The relationship between government and opposition needs to be made more symmetrical. This could be achieved by providing a civil service department for the opposition. This would be a more effective use of resources than paying for extra parliamentary aides. If there were a flow of civil servants between departments, it would mean opposition might get better access to information within the system. The use of money to hold politicians to account could be ended by banning all political donations regardless of size or source. Some public funding should be allowed, but we could prevent the need for excessive public funding of parties by simultaneously banning those expensive aspects of elections which add little to the democratic process. All advertising and posters could be banned, which would significantly reduce the cost of elections for parties. It would mean that politicians would have to concentrate on the free media, on getting their point across on current affairs programmes for instance. These and other measures might ensure that accountability of politicians is to the electorate, and that the electorate is better informed than it currently is.
Dr. Eoin O’Malley is a lecturer in political science in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University. His main research interests are policy making in Irish government. He is editing a book, Governing Ireland, due to be published by the IPA later this year.
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