Irish Elections: Geography, Facts and Analyses

Adrian Kavanagh, 20th May 2019

As we approach the upcoming local, European and referendum elections on May 24th and as this is “Elections Week” for the Geographical Society of Ireland’s Year of Geography series, I have decided to mark both these events by (again) revisiting my earlier post on what I would consider my political reform priorities to be.

In my opinion, Ireland’s record on political reform very much amounts to a case of “something done but a lot more to be do”, which is rather disappointing given that there was a significant opportunity space in play to bring in political reform measures in the wake of the Economic Recession in the late 2000s. The perception, to a large degree, is that much of the reform effort across the 2010s has been driven by the belief that the Irish people had a very negative opinion of politics and that the main thing they really wanted to see changed in Irish politics was a significant overall reduction in politician numbers. However, the experience of the past few years has shown that while people may like the idea of fewer politicians in theory, they are less enthusiastic when faced with the practicalities of this. This was seen in the rejection of the Seanad Referendum in October 2013 and negative reactions to the abolition of Town/Borough Councils and the reduction in County Councillor numbers in rural areas ahead of the 2014 Local Elections.

Ultimately my sense is that more democracy – assuming that cost/benefit concerns are addressed and that real power invested at all levels, local as well as national – is better than less democracy.

My approach in terms of what I stress in terms of a political reform agenda is to be as pragmatic as popular and avoid populist and knee-jerk approaches to these issues. Reflecting the 5 C’s that act as barriers against female participation in electoral politics, I should we can talk about a different cohort of 5 C’s – the 5 C’s, or principles, that should shape all political reform processes.