A short history of Irish democracy
Posted at 5:01 pm by Owen Rooney
Won't someone please think of the children?
In the past few days, Libertas have started putting up a new poster, eschewing their pastel blues and ballot boxes from the last campaign in favour of apocalyptic skies, crying children and the death of democracy. While I'm going to assume all of you are knowledgeable enough about the Lisbon Treaty to know that it won't signal the end of Irish democracy, what I'd actually like to take issue with is the startling lack of knowledge of the history of democracy in Ireland that Libertas are displaying. Democracy in Ireland didn't, as the poster suggest, suddenly appear on the scene in 1916. In fact, we didn't even have an elected parliament in 1916, and the roots of Irish democracy go back much further.
The first recorded meeting of the earliest Irish Parliament was on 18 June 1264 in Castledermot, County Kildare, and the Parliament of Ireland was then officially established in 1297. Admittedly the franchise for elections was extremely limited in these early days, but this was the case for any democratic system that developed during the middle ages. Although the parliament had a large degree of independence from the English Parliament and British Monarch originally, the act known as Poynings' Law severely restricted the powers of the Parliament of Ireland in 1494, giving the King and English Parliament effectively complete control over it.
The trend towards English consolidation of power in Ireland was temporarily reversed when, in 1782, Irish politicians led by Henry Grattan managed to have Poynings' Law and many other restrictions on the Irish Parliament reversed, after which it went through a period known as 'Grattan's Parliament'. The parliament at this stage had more autonomy than at any time before, and extended the vote to the Catholic majority in 1792. The Act of Union in 1800, however, abolished the Irish Parliament after this brief period of legislative freedom, and for more than a century the only Parliament with power over Ireland was to be the one in Westminster.
Despite campaigns by men such as Daniel O'Connell throughout the 19th century, it was not until 1919 that a parliament sat in Ireland again. Following the 1918 Westminster elections, the 73 MPs elected for Sinn Fein unilaterally founded the first Dáil Eireann, and ratified a declaration of independence on its first sitting on 21 January 1919. Although the Dáil wasn't officially recognised, and in fact declared illegal by the British government, it managed to negotiate the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the establishment of the Irish Free State.
The Irish Free State was established in 1922, with a Dáil and Seanad elected by proportional representation, and an 'Executive Council' chosen by the Dáil. The Constitution of the Irish Free State also provided a range of measures for direct democracy, such as constitutional amendment by referendum and a citizens' initiative, although these were never actually used. It was on 1 July 1937 that the first ever referendum was held in Ireland, where the voters approved the Constitution of Ireland, as proposed by the government of Eamon de Valera. The modern constitution, which severed the relationship to Britain and the Commonwealth, kept the Dail and Seanad in largely similar form, introduced a directly elected President, and could only be amended by means of referendum, which has since happened 21 times.
So, while looking for a date for the 'birth' of Irish democracy, Libertas could have chosen 1264, 1297, 1782, 1919, 1922 or 1937, all important years in the progression towards our current democratic society. In comparison to these dates, 1916, while an important step towards Irish independence, wasn't actually a turning point in Irish democracy, with democracy in various forms having existed in Ireland since more than 650 years beforehand, and the subsequent return to national democracy occurring 3 years later. If Libertas wish to claim themselves defenders of Irish democratic traditions, it might help if they took the time to learn what those traditions were in the first place.
The return of Declan Ganley
Posted at 7:42 pm by Paul CunnaneIt seems that Declan Ganley has decided to campaign for a "no" vote in the second Lisbon referendum, having previously said that he would not do so if he failed to win a seat in the European Parliament elections.
It seems "no" doesn't always mean "no". Or has Declan discovered that people sometimes change their minds when circumstances change?
Why we’re voting again
Posted at 3:18 pm by Owen RooneyOne of the principal arguments I've come across from No campaigners is, in absence of any objection to the Treaty itself, that having a second referendum is undemocratic, and that the people who voted No last time should be respected. The difficulty with this argument is that respecting and listening to the No voters is exactly what has led us to have this second referendum.
After the last referendum, it was quite clear that a renegotiation of certain aspects of the treaty was on the cards. The two biggest No campaign groups, Sinn Fein and Libertas, had both campaigned on the basis of going back to the EU and renegotiating on their contentious issues. Furthermore, no less than 76% of No voters believed that the No vote would be used to "renegotiate exceptions within the treaty", which gave the Government a clear mandate to seek this new deal before putting the treaty back to the people.
Which is exactly what the Government did. The biggest issues for No voters in the referendum were 'Loss of Commissioner' (which 71% of No voters said was somewhat/very important to their vote), 'Neutrality' (82%), 'Workers Rights' (82%), 'Abortion' (66%) and 'Corporation Tax' (72%), which were unsurprisingly the points which the main No groups campaigned on in the run-up to the referendum. These top issues are the very ones which the Government received guarantees on from the 26 other member states, guarantees which state in the most unequivocal terms that these matters will be decided at national, not EU, level.
While I can certainly accept that a No voter might not be happy with these guarantees, might feel that they don't address his or her specific concerns, it would be disingenuous to suggest that the Government doesn't have the right, after listening to the voters and attempting to address their worries, to put this new deal back to the people for a second vote, and allow the people a chance to say whether their concerns have been met or not.