Madam, - I agree with Jason Fitzharris (August 7th): we have far too many TDs. As I said in a letter to your newspaper two years ago, the UK has approximately 650 MPs representing a population of 60 million. If we had the same proportion of members of parliament to population, we would have just 43 TDs.
Germany, with a population of 83 million, has about 600 members in the Bundestag. If we had the same TD-to-population ratio, we would have fewer than 30 TDs. I haven't got the figures for the rest of the EU, but I would be willing to bet that we are near the top of the league for TDs per capita.
Moving swiftly from quantity to quality, I used to know a man who was public relations adviser to a senior politician in the current Government, and who was personally acquainted with many Irish politicians. When I told him I had the impression from the media that many Irish politicians were corrupt, he disagreed, saying that most of them were men and women of integrity, but that the vast majority of them were mediocre. Mediocre: that was the word he used.
I used to go to secondary school with one of the current contingent in the Dáil. He was in the B grade. I'm not saying that intelligence is a prerequisite for a career in politics, but surely it helps. Mind you, I would imagine that a lack of intelligence might be an essential attribute of a cute hoor.
Too many politicians, and too many of questionable quality. If the number of TDs were halved, would we notice any difference in the way the country is run? I very much doubt it. - Yours, etc,
JOE PATTON, Chapelizod Court, Dublin 20.