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How the Irish Government Was Constituted and Operates
Two events of a hundred years ago set the stage for how Ireland
would be organized and governed for the remainder of the 20th
century and into the 21st century. Neither event was Irish made:
both were planned and implemented across the Irish sea in England.
The first of these events, the Government of Ireland Act 1920,
concocted during the Irish War of Independence, partitioned Ireland
into two
self-governing entities,
namely Northern Ireland consisting of the six north-eastern counties
and Southern Ireland consisting of the remaining twenty-six
counties. Both entities would
remain integral parts of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
A Lord Lieutenant of Ireland would represent the crown and exercise
all executive authority in both entities.
The second event was the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921
that ended the Irish
War of Independence and set in motion the establishment of a
32-county
Irish Free State as
a self-governing nation of
the British
Commonwealth.
The
Government of Ireland Act 1920 was the basis for the Treaty and the
backstop if it failed. The killer caveat
embedded in the Treaty was that the six-county Northern Ireland
entity incorporated into the newly established thirty-two county
Irish Free State could opt out if its Unionists leaders so wished.
Within twenty-four hours, the Unionists leaders exercised that
option.
After the evisceration of the thirty-two county Irish Free State,
now reduced to twenty- six counties, Treaty proponents were left
with no option but to gloss over what they knew would happen. They
accepted the reimposed partition of Ireland and agreed that the
twenty-six-county Irish Free State would exist as a
self-governing nation of the British
Commonwealth
despite the loss of six if its counties.
The breakaway six-county entity was reconstituted as Northern
Ireland and reverted back as a constituent part of the United
Kingdom as spelled out in the Government of Ireland Act 1920.
Subsequent events including the Civil War and the Boundary
Commission did not alter in any way the partition of Ireland, nor
the system of government put in place by the British government.
What the Civil War did was produce the two right wing political
parties, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail that have dominated political
life in Ireland ever since. The other party presently at-play is
Sinn Fein who, since first established in 1905, has undergone a
series of metamorphoses in search of relevance. Their stock in
trade is to exploit the weaknesses and missteps of the parties in
power, hoping that that will suffice as a political agenda and give
them a shot at the top spot.
The political system devised by the British government for the Irish
Free State was a parliamentary system in line with the English
system that included a House of Commons, a House of Lords and a
reigning monarch to whom both houses bore allegiance.
In the Irish Free State model, the newly established Senate
was the void filler for the House of Lords and the Dail
was by definition the Irish House of Commons. Nothing
else changed in the make-up of the government in regard to
organization or function. The English monarch remained the Head
of State. Passports issued by the Irish Free State referred to
the holder as “one
of His Majesty's subjects of the Irish Free State".
In 1937, the Irish Free State took advantage of changes in British
law to adopt a new constitution and change its name to Eire
(Ireland). Two years later, in 1939, the passport was changed to
refer to the holder as “Citizen of Ireland."
In 1948, the Irish government passed the Republic of Ireland Act
to end the remaining statutory role of the British
monarch
in the state. In describing itself as a Republic, all ties with the
British Commonwealth were revoked in accordance with British law.
However, the name of the state did not change, as the name Eire
(Ireland) was codified in the 1937 constitution.
In the Irish system of government, the legislative
body is
the supreme
authority
over all other government institutions, including judicial bodies.
The inherent danger in such a system is that any political party or
a coalition of like-minded parties with a clear majority could
change the law or, for that matter, the constitution to advance
their agenda.
Successive Irish governments did just that by enacting special
powers to control the judiciary in order to setup special non-jury
courts, suspend the rules of evidence and for good measure
legitimize ‘internment without trial’ --- all in the guise of state
security. That was how the Irish state operated since it was
established in 1922. Absolute control over people’s lives was the
driving force. That was done in an unholy alliance with the Catholic
Hierarchy. Together, they ruled the roost with the proverbial sword
and crozier.
Even today, despite admonishments by the European Court of Human
Rights and the United Nations, the Irish government doggedly refuses
to abolish non-jury courts and other contrived non-democratic
security-related measures. Perhaps they believe that as long as
England can get away with their Diplock non-jury courts and
internment without trial in Northern Ireland why not then in the
Republic of Ireland. It’s no secret that the Irish government
operates in lockstep with the British in all security-related
matters.
Some of the most horrendous violations of human rights and common
decency perpetrated within the State in the last century were
carried out by religious orders under the noses of government
overseers. The insidious institutionalization of young unmarried
pregnant women, troubled and orphaned children, and mentally ill
individuals in abusive church-operated facilities, has shone a
critical eye on the character of the Irish state and by extension,
the Irish people. The government did not care to investigate what
was happening within facilities that should have been safe havens
for society’s most vulnerable.
Of all the inhuman acts perpetrated within the facilities, the
cruelest and most heart breaking was the gradual separation of
new-born from their mother after birth. When the babies were deemed
‘ready’ they were handed over to wealthy American adopters in return
for substantial donations. Mothers or family members willing to
take a baby home were denied that right. To further debase the
situation, the bodies of babies who died from disease or neglect
were disposed of in unmarked mass graves or septic pits.
While all this was happening under the noses of government
officials, children were also being raped and sodomized by members
of the clergy in orphanages, reform facilities, schools and parishes
throughout Ireland. It would be incredulous to believe that
government officials were not aware of any of that.
Such horrendous abuses were not unique to the Republic of Ireland.
The same obscene acts of brutality and inhumanity were also afoot
in Northern Ireland. After all, both were using the same playbook --
courtesy of the British government.
On the economic front, national parliamentarians, who through
osmosis or being enamored with their
surroundings, acquired a Dublin-based mind-set that manifests in the
belief that everything of value belonged in Dublin or its environs.
Of course, they would argue otherwise. However, for people living
in Donegal and other remote areas of Ireland, it certainly seems
that way. To access state-of-the-art healthcare facilities, a
journey to Dublin is necessary. The same goes for the better paying
jobs, concerts, cultural, sporting and other major events --- as all
major businesses, hospitals, sports and cultural venues are located
in or close to Dublin.
As a consequence, the influx of people to Dublin city and its
environs has resulted in a lack of adequate housing, intolerable
traffic congestion, increased crime and homelessness. With
foresight, adequate planning and a comprehensive approach to
economic development, the crowding-out effect such as has happened
in Dublin could have been avoided.
That could have been done by strategically locating economic
centers, state-of-the-art hospitals and healthcare facilities, and
major cultural and sports facilities, in other cities and towns away
from Dublin with access to public transportation and motorways. In
addition to the myopic planning fiasco, the situation was further
exacerbated by the perversive
quid pro quo
relationships that corrupted the building
permitting process. Unless an applicant for a permit understood that
the process was transactional, the chances of obtaining one was
close to zero.
This article is intended to pose the question: Is this the type of
flawed system the Irish people want going forward in a reunited
Ireland. Hopefully, the answer is ‘No’.
What would serve the people better would be the federal based system
as described in detail on this website.
The federal solution proposed would incorporates a 32-county Federal
Republic comprised of
three distinct regions namely, 1) the
Ulster Region
encompassing the nine counties of Ulster, 2) the Munster/Connacht
Region encompassing the eleven counties of Munster and Connacht, and
3) the Leinster Region encompassing the twelve counties of
Leinster.
The
union of Connacht and Munster into a single region would
lend economic equity and political balance to what would be
lacking in a standalone Connacht and to a lesser extent, in
a standalone Munster.
Powers
reserved for regional governments would be those best exercised at
the regional level where the outcome would directly affect the
people of the region. By the same token, powers reserved for the
national government would be those that blanket the nation as a
whole to protect its people, security, independence and territorial
integrity as well as effectively represent the nation on the world
stage. Shared
powers would be handled by inter-government regulatory agencies and
shared oversight responsibilities by inter-government commissions.
The proposed federation would be underpinned by a new constitution.
The constitution would be the nation’s supreme authority that all
government entities and the people at large would bear allegiance
to.
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