Joint Committee on the Constitution of the Houses of the Oireachtas hosted by Trinity for the First Time

Feb 04, 2010

The Department of Political Science co-hosted a public consultation on electoral reform with the Joint Committee on the Constitution in Trinity’s Public Theatre on Tuesday evening, February 2nd last.  This was the first time in Trinity’s history that a fully constituted Joint Committee of the Houses of the Oireachtas sat in Trinity and only the second time in the history of the Oireachtas that a formal Committee has sat outside the Oireachtas. The formal record of the proceedings is now part of the official record of the Houses of the Oireachtas. The Provost, Dr. John Hegarty welcomed the Committee to Trinity and noted that the Trinity graduate and great Irish parliamentarian Henry Grattan, “would be particularly pleased to find that his student successors today are fully engaged in the affairs of the State”.

Joint Committee on the Constitution in Trinity’s Public Theatre

In this active learning experience for the Junior Sophister Irish Politics class, eleven students made a formal submission to the Committee, chaired by Deputy Seán Ardagh, on their suggestions for electoral reform. Declan Harmon proposed that regional constituencies should be elected by a list system, coupled with traditional constituency seats while David Kehoe suggested that it was not the electoral system that was in need of reform but Irish political culture. Barra Roantree pointed to the absence of policy debate in politics and made the case for reducing the voting age to 16.

Julianne Cox and Eliska Drapalova focused on the inequality of women’s representation in parliament and advocated gender quotas.  Talya Housman and Kimberley Moran recommended absentee voting rights for expatriates. The limited availability of candidate policy details and the use of the random sampling method of transferring votes were outlined by Ciara Begley.

Barry Cahill pointed to the disproportionate advantage of the manner in which candidate's names appear on ballot papers. A submission made on behalf of Daniel Philbin Bowman and Colm Quinn, currently on Erasmus in Sweden, identified key distinctions between the Irish and Swedish political models. This included the lack of women in parliament and the amount of time parliamentarians spend on local issues.

The Members of the Committee then responded to the submissions made by the students in what was a frank discussion.

Dr. John Bowman, honorary Trinity Fellow, subsequently chaired a panel discussion on electoral reform. Speaking underneath the ornate chandelier from the Irish House of Commons, Dr. Bowman suggested that Grattan’s Parliament, now the Bank of Ireland on College Green, should be restored to the Irish people. Noel Dempsey, TD, Minister for Transport, Professor Ken Benoit, Head of the Department of Political Science, Senator Ivana Bacik, Trinity Fellow, Seán Ardagh, Chair of the Joint Committee on the Constitution, Jim O’Keeffe, Vice Chair of the Joint Committee on the Constitution and The Hon. Mr. Justice Frank Clarke participated in what was a lively debate.

Gemma Hussey, former Minister for Education, Joanna Tuffy TD, Prof David Farrell and a number of students also contributed to panel discussion.
 
The Department of Political Science in Trinity College has been foremost in its contribution to this important Oireachtas Committee. Prof. Michael Gallagher, Prof. Michael Marsh and Prof. Kenneth Benoit have all formally presented their views to the Oireachtas Committee over the last few months. In addition, two of our PhD students, Matthew Wall and Séin Ó Muineacháin, are serving as assistants to the committee.

The organisations of the evening, Dr. Elaine Byrne and Séin Ó Muineacháin and the Junior Sophister Irish Politics class are deeply indebted to members of College and the many support staff, and the Joint Committee on the Constitution and their support staff, for their assistance in making this event happen.