Madam, - Jim Duffy (Opinion, July 28th) argues that 166 TDs is not too many. However, Mr Duffy forgot to add in the 60 senators, giving us 226 legislators for a population of 4.2 million.
By way of comparison New Zealand and Israel both have a unicameral parliament of 120 legislators with populations of 4 million and 7 million respectively. They appear to be able to manage their affairs adequately despite having nearly half the number of legislators. Perhaps the saying about "too many cooks" is apt.
Mr Duffy argues that we need a large parliament to have an adequate pool of people from which to choose ministers. But who says that ministers must be appointed from the parliament? Some countries, such as Denmark, France, Sweden, and Finland, allow ministers to be appointed from outside parliament. The option of picking anyone in the country means that prime ministers are not restricted by the size of the parliament, or by the quality of legislators voted in by the electorate.
Mr Duffy argues that we need 32 ministers because it takes a 15-hour day to run a department. But it has been reported recently that some junior ministers have no delegated responsibilities, so obviously they are surplus to requirements.
Secondly, our ministers are also legislators so they are doing two jobs. Some countries, such as Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden, require ministers to resign from parliament so that they can devote their full energies to their ministerial responsibilities. Because our ministers are also legislators, and thanks to the highly parochial nature of Irish politics, they must attend to constituency matters as well, which reduces the time they can devote to their ministerial responsibilities.
Perhaps if we changed our electoral system to the list system, it would reduce the effect of the parish pump and allow our ministers and legislators to focus better on more important national issues. We could go a little further and do what the Netherlands and Israel have done, and have a single national constituency, reducing parochialism even further.
Because Ireland centralises so much power in the cabinet, our ministers are busy dealing with matters that in other countries are handled by local and regional governments. It is very strange to have highly centralised government in a country where politics is so local.
Perhaps devolving responsibility for local matters to local governments would give our ministers and legislators time to concentrate more effectively on important national issues.
The Dáil sits for only 90 days a year compared with over 130 days in the United Kingdom. And just because the Dáil is sitting, that doesn't mean that every TD is there. There are some TDs who rarely appear in the Dáil, and when they do they rarely speak and participate in debates.
You have to wonder why these people ran for election in the first place if they have no interest in sitting in the Dáil. And since the Dáil doesn't appear to be hampered by their non-attendance and non-participation, one must ask: what is the value of having them?
If we allowed external appointments, devolved local matters to local governments, changed the electoral system and had more Dáil sitting days, then there is no reason why the Dáil couldn't be reduced to a more modest number of, say, 100 TDs. - Yours, etc,
JASON FITZHARRIS, Swords, Co Dublin.