The word on the street is that the Green Party is looking to get out of this coalition with 'all deliberate speed'. The only problem is picking an issue that will resonate with the public and prevent the kind of meltdown in a general election that we saw in June's local elections.
With all humility, perhaps the Irish Taxpayer could suggest a topic that is worthy of collapsing a coalition if ignored: electoral reform.
The upcoming review of the Programme for Government between Fianna Fail, the remnants of the PDs and the Green Party, offers a golden opportunity to create far-reaching reform in our dismally inadequate political institutions, especially the way 'we' choose candidates for election.
As most people are aware, the vast majority of candidates in Irish elections are chosen behind closed doors by a tiny, self-interested cabal of party officials. These, inevitably, are the kind of small-town, small-minded cliques who seize control of local party cumainns as a means of controlling the decisions of county councils (especially lucrative planning decisions) and operate completely in their own interest. The only criteria they use in selecting candidates are whether they will obey the wishes of those who put them up for election and whether they are related to previously "safe" party members, officials, or office-holders. Needless to say, talented, independent 'outsiders' need not apply.
The truly appalling levels of corruption and mediocrity such a set-up perpetuates in Irish politics are too obvious to rehearse here. Nevertheless, the consequences are now too serious to ignore, with a scale of economic collapse that was thought to be unthinkable, caused largely by the gross incompetence and complacency of TDs and councillors who failed spectacularly to hold banks, regulators, the Government, and its numberless quangos, to account.
However, there is hope. As part of the Programme for Government negotiations the Green Party looks set to demand a form of 'primary' election as one of the concessions for staying in government. This would be very similar to the American system which achieves such prominence at the time of presidential elections; New Hampshire being the most familiar.
If Fianna Fail agree (unlikely, considering they used panels of salaried party employees to choose their last set of candidates) then Irish voters could at last be free to choose the candidates as well as those who are finally elected.
Such a move would allow the brightest and the best a chance to appeal directly to party members and take control out of the hands of the local party grandees, who use candidates as tools to achieve their own ends.
Maybe the recent support for primaries in the UK might help to swing the pendulum away from the control freaks who have caused havoc in the Irish economy and help a genuine democracy to flower in this much-abused country. And if you don't agree we are lacking in democracy, ask yourself why it is that only 2,000 Green Party members have the freedom to bring down Fianna Fail, NAMA, and the best-laid plans of the banks? Why not you as well?
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