Madam, – There is no point in having a unicameral parliament of some 150 members, as Enda Kenny suggests, if TDs continue to spend much of their time doing what they do today, namely acting as glorified post offices passing letters from constituents on to various government departments. Every TD is helped in this work by several constituency assistants paid for by the State.
The representations which TDs add to requests from individual constituents are improper if they seek favours to which their “clients” are not entitled, and unnecessary otherwise. The TDs’ purpose in intervening is, of course, to improve their chances of being re-elected. It is undemocratic of the State to subsidise the unfair advantage that this gives to sitting members.
Instead of paying for so many constituency assistants, the Government should set up an inexpensive network of public facilitators, say one per constituency at executive officer level. (They could be attached to the Ombudsman’s office, or the Citizens Information service.) Trained to identify the department competent for any request or complaint from a member of the public, they would forward every letter to the right destination, without added recommendation, to be dealt with on its merits.
With such a system in place, parliamentarians could be forbidden to make representations on behalf of individual constituents, and obliged to concentrate on their real duties of legislating and keeping the government under scrutiny. The Constitution lays down that members of the Dáil represent constituencies, not individual voters or private citizens. – Yours, etc,