“A famous study of machine politics in County Donegal found politicians’ ‘claims of effective patronage’ on behalf of the voter to be ‘imaginary patronage’ because ‘the parties’ real control over the distributive institution is quite limited’. ”
“A famous study of machine politics in County Donegal found politicians’ ‘claims of effective patronage’ on behalf of the voter to be ‘imaginary patronage’ because ‘the parties’ real control over the distributive institution is quite limited’. ”
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Enough is enough
How to Build a New Republic, by Fintan O’ Toole
Extract (pg 43-44)
“Much of this representation of constituents is entirely meaningless.
Most of this representation of constituents by TDs falls into one of three categories of uselessness. It is either (a) improper, (b) misdirected or (c) unnecessary.
In the first category are things TDs should not be doing at all-trying to influence the justice system in favour of child rapists is a good example.
In the second are things that are properly the function of local government.
Anecdotally, most TDs suggest that a great deal of what they are asked to deal with by constituents, and indeed a great deal of what they are asked about on the door steps even during general election, is the domain of the local council- roads, street lights, public parks, housing allocations and so on.
This is why, after legislation prohibited TDs from being county or city councilors, so many ensured that a close ally or family member “inherited” their council seat.(This applies even at the top level of national politics: both Barry Cowen, brother of Brian Cowen and Henry Kenny, brother of Enda Kenny are prominent county councilors.) In 2008, nine councilors were not merely members of a TD’s family but were actually employed by the TD (at public expense) as parliamentary assistants or secretaries. One TD, Jackie Healy Rae, explained the huge advantage of having his son Michael as a member of both his own staff and of Kerry county council;
“Glory to God, that keeps him on closer touch more of the time with the people of the constituency, and not alone is he able to pass on the Dail problems to me, he’s also in a position to help these people with county council problems”
The third category of useless representations is that in which either TDs can do nothing or in which there are entirely adequate independent mechanisms for dealing with problems. The statuary citizens’ information board provides “free, impartial and confidential information” on access to public services from 106 citizens’ information centres and 162 outreach centres in every part of the country. The office of the Ombusdman deals with complaints of maladministration by public services and government departments. There is very little evidence that TDs can actually do very much that these agencies can’t.
Indeed as long ago as the late 1960s, a famous study of machine politics in County Donegal found politicians’ ‘claims of effective patronage’ on behalf of the voter to be ‘imaginary patronage’ because ‘the parties’ real control over the distributive institution is quite limited’.
The TD’s claim to be the power broker is generally based on ‘illusion and manipulation’.
Yet this ‘imaginary patronage’ is essentially what TDs do.
Being in parliament is a sideline to the main activity of pretending to be delivering benefits to constituents.”
I remember hearing a story not long ago. Someone (let’s call him “Alan”) complained to the local county councillor (“Brian”) that the road outside their house was in an awful state. Potholes in potholes, barely an ounce of tarmac left to drive on. A few weeks later, the council came around and fixed the road, and a few weeks after that “Brian” showed up to make sure “Alan” knew what he’d done, and to let him know if he could do any more. Such a great public servant was he.
A few months after this “Alan” met a man from the county council (“Chris”). In fact, the very man in charge of maintaining the roads. And so “Alan” asked “Chris” why he had to get “Brian” to talk to him to sort out the road. “Brian? The county councillor? Sure he had nothing to do with it. The roads are done on a schedule. If your road was done after speaking to him it was a coincidence, but he never spoke to me about it.”
Close family member of mine was a TD. Obviously worked for him, but I have also worked in the past on the other side delivering services where we would have representations made by TDs.
People will deny this to the hilt, there seems to be some deeply set need in Irish people to believe that they have access to someone who can get them something the system didn’t want to give. In my experience it’s mostly true with a handful of exceptions.
Greater than 90% of the time when you look for some personal service from a TD the following happens on their side:
1) TD (on phone or face to face) gives a brief assessment of what you’ll be entitled to. Promises to get back to you.
2) TD sends your case to their Parliamentary Assistant
3) Parliamentary Assistant gets Secretarial Assistant to send a letter to whatever dept is relevant
4) Parliamentary Assistant follows up if no reply in the expected time.
5) When the reply is received – probably a form letter or else a letter saying you’ve been processed – the TD will give you a call. This is where being a good salesman comes in. If the request has been successful they’ll take credit. If it hasn’t then they either offer to keep fighting for you (if they think it’s borderline) or do the whole “we did our best” thing while offering a listening ear.
On the Dept side the following happens:
1) Representation comes in from a TD asking for (passport, social welfare payment, more Gardaí, etc).
2) It is sent to the relevant area of the dept
3) A standard reply is drafted setting out the entitlement and telling you how to apply for it. If you already applied and were at the top of the pile they might process you a day early, but more likely they just sit on the response for a day or two. The key thing here is that in big processing depts nobody is messing with the system just because a TD writes in. TDs write in every day.
4) Reply goes back to the TD.
That’s the overwhelming majority of cases. There are edge cases where a TD can be a useful advocate, like a lawyer in some ways. A friend who understood the system would be just as useful, it’s not that they are a TD but rather that they can apply pressure to the right places. Indeed some TDs are not great at this and can do more harm than good to your case.