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    Climate Change Policy – Report Card

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    Result: D- Little real engagement on climate. Promised little but delivered even less: ‘dog ate my climate policy’ not a valid excuse. Avoided a ‘fail’ by scraping in Climate Act) The Fine Gael/Labour coalition government did manage to pull off one headline act that had eluded the previous FF/Green administration, and that was they managed to get climate legislation, of sorts, on to the statute books for the first time ever. In its 2016 Annual Report on the Programme for Government, this fact is trumpeted as burnishing the ecological credentials of an administration that has, over the last five years, shown a strong aversion to what husky-hugging UK prime minister David Cameron once memorably called “that green crap”. The reason is hardly a mystery. Both IBEC and the IFA are among the lead industry players who have lobbied tirelessly to ensure any climate actions that should emanate from the Cabinet table would be so diluted as to be worthless. And, with Fine Gael in particular basing its entire political pitch on growth-at-all-costs, nothing that looked like slowing that gallop was ever going to be entertained. IBEC and the IFA have lobbied tirelessly to ensure any climate actions tabled would be diluted “The recently enacted Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 builds on existing efforts to decarbonise the economy and places the Government’s adaptation efforts on a legal statutory footing”, according to the Annual Report. And those “existing efforts” would be what exactly? ‘The Act provides for a National Mitigation Plan which will specify how we will achieve our objectives as well as a National Climate Change Adaptation Framework which will provide a strategic policy focus”, it goes on to say. This Mitigation Plan has been safely kicked into that distant place known only as “later in 2016” – somewhere safely beyond the shores of this election. Back in February 2011, Fine Gael and Labour jointly published their Programme for Government. Its section dealing with climate change ran to all of 95 words, including the promise to deliver a Climate Change Bill, which “will provide certainty surrounding government policy and provide a clear pathway for emissions reductions, in line with negotiated EU 2020 targets”. The section also promised legislation to give the relevant ministers temporary powers over the State’s response to what it calls “natural disasters”. This was at least prescient, given the unnatural number of weather-related disasters that have occurred in the term of the outgoing government, up to and including the severe winter flooding that – yet again – recently plunged much of the Shannon region into chaos. The last, brief, section in this 2011 document promised to “further improve energy efficiency for new buildings, with a view to moving towards zero carbon homes in the longer term. All new commercial buildings will be required to significantly reduce their carbon footprint”. By ‘further improve’, this presumably meant, at the very least, maintaining the progress of the outgoing FF/Green administration regarding energy efficiency in the building sector. How has this one measurable commitment worked out? One of the widely accepted successes of the previous government was its home-retrofit programme. In 2011, some 67,500 homes underwent an energy overhaul under the scheme. By last year, under FG/Labour, this had plummeted, to just 21,600 energy retrofits. Indeed, efforts by the atrocious outgoing Environment minister Labour’s Alan Kelly to stymie local authorities from pushing towards ‘passive house’ standards speaks volumes for the “green crap” mentality that has pervaded the Cabinet since 2011. To be fair, the writing was on the wall from the outset. Take a section in the 2011 Programme for Government under the heading ‘Peat’. First off, the incoming administration magisterially granted “an exemption for domestic turf cutting on 75 National Heritage Area sites subject to the introduction of agreed national code of environmental practices”. What, you might wonder, is the value of a bog being designated as a National Heritage Area when the government signs off on this free-for-all before even taking office? Soothingly, they went on to promise to “establish an independent mediation to resolve outstanding issues associated with turf cutting on blanket bogs”. It would be unfair to single out the private contractors and their political accomplices for sole mention in this regard. Three woefully inefficient peat-burning plants in the midlands only remain open thanks to the Public Service Obligation (PSO) levy on electricity bills siphoning some €120 million a year into these plants – that’s around €2.5 million a week in subsidies to produce the dirtiest, poorest grade and most ecologically damaging form of energy possible. In 2014, this State-supported madness exceeded the total PSO support for the production of clean electricity using renewable energy. The Climate Mitigation Plan has been safely kicked into that distant place known only as “later in 2016” Meanwhile, the government has extended the life of these monuments to parochialism and incompetence by another 15 years, which is nicely timed to coincide with 2030, by which time Bord Na Mona will have completed its decades-long assault on some of Europe’s richest ecological regions, as well as what used to be our most efficient carbon sinks. Quite where this fits with the government’s new climate legislations that “builds on existing efforts to decarbonise the economy”, it’s difficult to even begin to fathom. To understand the true objectives of the 2011 Programme for Government, it’s necessary to look elsewhere. For instance, under the section headed ‘Growing the agri-food sector’, the seeds of the agri-steamroller later known as Food Harvest 2020 are clearly set out: “Further expansion and innovation in our dairy and meat sectors will be a key priority under a reformed CAP and we will work with industry to achieve more intensive levels of production”. Note the blunt language above. Such sly euphemisms as “sustainable intensification” hadn’t yet entered the lexicon of spin – this was a straightforward declaration of expansion and intensification. Later in the same section, it mentions that Bord Bia will be given a number of marketing

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    Education – Report Card

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    Result: B- Significant achievements eclipsed somewhat by failures in high-profile areas The Programme for Government 2011-2016 set out a range of quite challenging targets in Education. In essence it sought to re-shape provision in a number of key areas while at the same time ensuring continuity with the core strengths of the system. This was always going to be a difficult balance and, as was to be expected, the record is a mixed one. At the most basic level – that of investment in education – the record is quite good. Promises made to maintain funding for the core system, to prioritise building and to keep key metrics such as staffing, pupil teacher ratios and other key areas such as ICT infrastructure were for the most part kept. Another exception to this has been the Higher Education sector which has seen budgets reduced across all areas and a failure to meaningfully address the thorny issue of student contributions. This latter point has been particularly contentious. While the Programme for Government and its annual reviews are silent on fees the failure to address the issue of who pays for Higher Education has been marked. Current students face a controversial ‘Registration’ fee which stands at €3,000 (around half the cost to the state of providing a college place), after being increased by €250 in successive Budgets despite pre- election commitments to freeze it at 2011 levels. The recent ‘Cassells Report’ proposes loan repayments for college tuition, which would be paid back over 15 years at €25/week, once a student is earning a certain level of income. Irrespective of the final balance between student contributions and State funding arrived at there is an urgent need to find a resourcing model that works for a sector that is under increasing pressure. At a broader systems level, the Programme recognised the need for significant change. The ‘PISA shock’ resulting from our precipitous decline in the 2009 tracking surveys in key areas such as literacy and numeracy was an ideal opportunity to radically to reform how we teach these core competencies. As a result the significantly improved performance in the PISA 2012 would seem to suggest that the national strategy for literacy and numeracy has had a significant impact. School accountability structures were also quietly revolutionised, and a robust data-gathering process at school and national levels developed, something that will have a long-term impact far beyond the life of this government. Teacher education also underwent a radical reform in this period. Course content was changed, programme lengths were increased and the number of providers reduced through processes such as the DCU ‘Incorporation’ programme. There were a number of areas of policy overreach that have resulted in significant setbacks. Two of these – reform of the junior cycle and reform of school patronage structures – have followed a remarkably similar trajectory. Both witnessed confident assertions by Ministers about the need for policy reform followed by processes that saw the ‘great and the good’ support change. Significant resistance was met in both cases and despite pressure applied a combination of strong local knowledge and skillful national campaigns have resulted in the original proposals being significantly watered down. At the time of writing, junior cycle reform is stuck in a limbo, supported by one Teacher Union and rejected by a second. Reform of school patronage has been glacially slow but there are signs of alternative approaches emerging that will perhaps address issues of ethos and culture from an equality and procedural perspective. Issues also remain concerning the casualisation of education careers across all levels of the system and the significant hollowing out of middle-management structures in schools. This latter point has resulted in increased pressure on school principals and a perception of initiative overload. At the other end of the scale differential pay scales for new teachers is a cause of real resentment and pressure on Unions to demonstrate relevance has increased. In a general sense the Programme for Education Government was quite successful in Education, meeting most of its targets and putting in place structures that have the potential to have a significant medium-term impact. This is no mean feat given the popular attitude to education in Ireland – while many might complain in the abstract, most are happy enough with their particular encounters with the system. This combination makes it difficult for any set of policy proposals to address both the abstract desire for change and the innate conservatism of end-users. This policy programme probably did as well as could be expected given the straitened economic circumstances. Report Card – Education

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    UN scrutinises Children’s rights

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    For the first time in a decade, the Irish government defended its record on children’s rights before the United Nations in Geneva, on 14th January 2016. Poverty and homelessness, the rights of children in direct provision, the rights of Traveller and Roma Children and education issues were dominant themes, raised from different perspectives. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child also asked about the incorporation of children’s rights into Irish law, the duty to hear children in legal proceedings, complaints and monitoring mechanisms, and the child’s right to identity in the context of surrogacy. Child protection was an important focal point throughout the discussions and the UN Committee members asked a range of questions about the extent of services and supports available to protect children from harm and to support families. Children’s rights in healthcare – obesity, smoking, alcohol and mental health – were queried. The rights of children with disabilities and in alternative care, in detention and in the immigration system were all scrutinised. The hearing was part of the process of monitoring implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty binding on Ireland since 1992. The government delegation was led by Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Dr James Reilly, TD. It was a measure of the political importance of the process that the Minister was accompanied by a large delegation of civil servants and officials from all major government departments. The hearing is an important opportunity to put pressure on Government in a public, international forum. For many of the non-governmental organisations present like the Children’s Rights Alliance, – and for the Ombudsman for Children – this is the culmination of a decade of advocacy. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission participates in all UN treaty-monitoring hearings. The Convention on the Rights of the Child is a particularly wide-ranging treaty, making both its implementation and its monitoring challenging. Mainstream issues of education and health sit alongside the concerns of children who are especially vulnerable or whose rights are breached by their particular circumstances. Guidelines ensure that all matters of importance are covered in the six-hour dialogue with the Government delegation. The hearing is a probing, constructive dialogue, rather than an adversarial process. The Government delegation is obliged to provide information in almost immediate response to detailed questioning from the Committee members. Answers demonstrated that the Government delegation was well prepared and few questions threw them off guard. Responses were generally succinct and direct although the Committee regularly interrupted if answers were too long-winded or off-point, creating genuine accountability. Civil society representatives were able to clarify any issues with the responses given by Government. They were able to point out that the status of the School Admissions Bill 2015, presented by Government, was at best uncertain, for example. When the Committee asked about the legislative amendments required to address the issue of school discrimination to protect school ethos, the Government’s commitment to change the Equal Status Act was welcomed, if with some surprise. The Committee’s rapporteurs were clearly well informed and able to convey with authority their understanding of the Irish context. Their probing questions sought clarity about the true state of child poverty, questioned why children in direct provision could complain to the Committee on the Rights of the Child but not to the Ombudsman for Children and wondered why many of the Government’s policies in this area remained on the shelf, and why law reform takes so long. A contrasting style emerged between some civil servants and the Minister, who on occasion brought humility and humanity to issues like child poverty and homelessness. Overall, with the many advances made on constitutional reform, the cabinet-level Ministry, family-law reform and the removal of children from adult prison, the Government can be satisfied that it avoided the worst criticism. At the same time, there is little doubt that the impact of austerity on children and the particular suffering of very vulnerable children will loom large when the Committee completes its analysis of Ireland’s children’s rights record. For those who work with and for children, the Committee’s Concluding Observations will provide a blueprint for children’s rights advocacy and activism in the years to come. Given the impact that such Concluding Observations have had on Ireland’s children’s rights record to date, this is clearly where children’s rights advocacy can make a difference. Ursula Kilkelly Ursula Kilkelly is Professor of Law in the School of Law, University College Cork.

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    Revive Sex Offences Bill

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    The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill 2015 had passed through the Seanad and was before the Dáil. However, unfortunately the Bill will not be passed through the Dáil before the 2016 General Election. It is now vital to ensure that it is restored to the Dáil at the same stage it had reached very early in the term of the incoming government. The Bill represented groundbreaking reform of sexual-offences law. The Bill contains welcome changes to criminal-evidence rules in sex-offence cases, for example by setting out precise criteria restricting disclosure of victims’ counselling records to the defence, a practice which currently causes great distress for victims. Other important changes protect child witnesses from being cross-examined in person by defendants in sex offence trials; and prevent judges and barristers from wearing wigs and gowns when a child witness is giving evidence in such trials. The sections that have received most attention are those dealing with prostitution law. These sections would criminalise the purchaser of sexual services (the client), while decriminalising the seller (the person engaged in prostitution). This change is based on a law introduced in Sweden in 1999. It would radically reform our deeply awed prostitution law, under which both prostitutes and clients are criminalised. By criminalising buyers of sex, it will pave the way for an approach to regulating prostitution that recognises the lived reality of those in prostitution, and that genuinely seeks to tackle sexual exploitation of women. Current Irish law focuses on prohibiting the visible manifestation of prostitution through criminalising offences of ‘loitering’ and ‘soliciting’. While these offences are gender-neutral, most prosecutions in practice are brought against women, who will typically be convicted of ‘soliciting’ and ordered to pay a ne (which many will go back to prostitution to pay). This model clearly has not succeeded in reducing the numbers of those engaged in prostitution; or in addressing the real exploitation experienced by many of these women. The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality recently conducted a review of prostitution law in recognition of the problems with our current law. We received 800 written submissions, 80% of which favoured the Swedish approach. These submissions were drawn from a broad cross-section of civil society, including trade unions, frontline medical workers, service providers and those working with migrant women. We heard evidence from Sweden that their law has been effective in reducing prostitution levels, and has had a positive normative effect on social attitudes to sexuality. The Committee also held a series of public hearings, with input from those both for and against the Swedish approach, and from those directly engaged in prostitution. We heard that women enter prostitution in Ireland at a young age, many under 18. Many people are trafficked into prostitution and the vast majority are subject to control by a third party, or pimped. The report of the Committee, published in 2013, concluded that prostitution is widely available across Ireland. It is highly organised, highly profitable, highly exploitative and largely controlled by organised crime interests. That is the actual reality of prostitution. Current Irish law has failed to tackle this. We unanimously recommended a radical change with the adoption of the Swedish approach to criminalise only the client, the purchaser of sex. This Swedish law is based on a view of prostitution as inherently exploitative, amounting to gender-based exploitation. Laws based on this approach have already been introduced in other countries, including Canada, Norway, Iceland and most recently Northern Ireland. The changes we recommended were supported by a wide range of organisations, including the Immigrant Council of Ireland, the National Women’s Council and the Turn Off the Red Light campaign. Ultimately, they were adopted by the Government and included in the 2015 Bill. The Bill was debated at length in the Seanad over December and January. The campaign for this Bill must now continue into the next Dáil. Its offer of important changes to sex-offences law generally, its provisions to decriminalise those engaged in selling sex and to criminalise those purchasing sex, and its promise to tackle sexual exploitation, particularly of children and those engaged in prostitution must be defended and realised without delay. Ivana Bacik

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    Rape Disgrace

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    We’re living in a “rape culture”, even though the term seems to annoy some people. So let’s just say we’re living in a culture in which rape is routinely trivialised, where victims are frequently blamed for its occurrence and their testimony is denied and ridiculed, and where the onus is placed on them to prevent rape from happening. Just under a third of female respondents to a recent survey among Trinity College Dublin students said they had experienced unwanted physical contact while at Trinity. A quarter of female students had been sexually assaulted, or had a “non-consensual sexual experience”. The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC) has recorded a shocking increase of 36% in the number of victims of rape and sexual assault to the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit in the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin in 2015. Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop, CEO of DRCC, said: “The 36% increase in the number of victims accompanied to the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit in Dublin, for 2015 in comparison with 2014, is very concerning. We have yet to analyse these figures as to why there has been such an increase”. Surprisingly, 24% of callers were male and there has been a steady year-on-year increase in males using the Helpline since 2008 when the gure was 14%. There was an increase of 30% in first-time callers to the National 24-Hour Helpline in 2014 (the latest year for which statistics are available), compared with 2013 figures. Calls relating to adult rape showed an increase of 14% compared with 2013 figures. There was an increase of 71% in crisis appointments for recent rape and sexual assault delivered by therapists in 2014, compared with 2013 figures. Our statistics on sexual crime are shocking. It is now thirteen years since publication of the Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland Report (SAVI) detailing the prevalence of sexual violence in relation to age and gender for over 3,000 adults, it remains a very distressing document. So with a general election looming what’s to be done? Ratification of the Istanbul Convention would generate change. The convention deals with prevention, requiring us to put in place measures to challenge the gender stereotypes, roles and attitudes that promote this culture of violence against women. It obliges us to ensure that the Garda respond immediately to calls for assistance and that all victims have access to special protection measures during investigation and judicial proceedings. The convention crucially deals with protection, ensuring that the needs and safety of survivors are placed at the heart of all measures. It demands the setting up of specialised support services that provide medical assistance as well as psychological and legal counselling to survivors and their children. The convention also stipulates the number of refuges that are needed to adequately respond to women, that of one refuge place per 10,000 of population – we’re well behind this target right now. The Istanbul Convention provides the framework for structural and personal reforms and provides a mechanism to hold the Government to account. We need stronger legislation. Domestic violence should be a crime of itself, accompanied by appropriate sanctions that match the seriousness of the act. Within the proposed sexual-offences legislation, a definition of consent should be included. Consent should be freely given – an enthusiastic, clearly communicated and ongoing Yes. Right now one in ten victims of sexual crime in Ireland reports that crime. Of that one in ten, only 7% lead to a conviction. We urgently need sanctions that are effective, consistent, proportionate and dissuasive. The appallingly high attrition rates within our criminal justice system and send out a message to women that if they report a crime justice will be done. We must provide a supportive environment for women to continue through the system and seek justice. Setting up the new Garda unit – The Human Protective Services Bureau – was a great move but it requires increased personnel and financial resources to target domestic and sexual violence. Specialist units in each Garda Division should now be established to address domestic and sexual violence ,and ongoing training is required at all levels to develop an expertise within the force that both supports the victim and pursues perpetrators to arrest and conviction. We will only seriously address this issue when we shift the focus from women, from asking what did she do, why was she there at that time, why did she stay, and place the focus on men who perpetrate these crimes. We must break the malicious disbelief, victim-blaming and perpetrator-excusal that surrounds rape. We must restore funding to the organisations that help victims. We must shatter this culture of rape. Lorraine Courtney

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    Maybe Equality

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    The Government would be happy to go to the polls wrapped in the mantle of a ‘Yes Equality’ Government. The Government delivered on the marriage equality referendum. We had the referendum to beat all referendums and same sex couples can now get married, their relationships affirmed as equal. This was a remarkable achievement. Eamon Gilmore called it “the civil rights issue of this generation”. However, is it enough for Fine Gael and Labour to don the mantle of a ‘Yes Equality’ Government in search of a vote? Aodhán O’Riordáin, Minister of State at the Department of Justice and Equality, tried to keep the feeling warm. A month after the referendum he declared the report of the working group on direct provision for asylum-seekers, set up by his Department, as another “Yes Equality moment”. This sorely diminished the mantle and, indeed, any correlative right to don the mantle. The recommendations of this report were far from any ideal for equality and human rights. The report essentially permitted continuation of this inhumane direct provision system for receiving and accommodating asylum-seekers. Only those asylum-seekers serving five years or more in the system were to be released. The mantle has since been further sullied as even the limited recommendations have not been implemented. Direct Provision is not the only serious human rights violation that this Government has countenanced. RTE’s Prime Time exposed the gross abuse of people with disabilities living in Áras Attracta. Political disapproval owed yet action was absent. The Government ignored the 2011 Congregated Settings Report that recommended that “people with disabilities living in congregated settings move to community settings within seven years”. It ignored the costed submission of the HSE, made in 2015, seeking some €250m to implement the report. Whenever it came to money, this Government evinced little interest in donning the ‘Yes Equality’ mantle. The treatment of the Traveller community reflected a rejection of equality and human rights by the Government. There was an extraordinary disinvestment in the Traveller community. The education budget specifically allocated to Travellers was reduced by 87% and the accommodation budget by 85%. This happened despite significant educational inequality for Travellers and the scandalous, often dangerous, living conditions they continue to endure. The tragedy of ten lives lost in the fire on the temporary Traveller halting site in Carrick-mines was not unpredictable. Even tragedy, however, failed to secure any reinvestment in the Traveller community. People with disability fared badly. Their prospects for independent living receded. The Mobility Allowance and the Motorised Transport Grant for people with disabilities were cut. The Minister for Health and Children axed these schemes in 2013 because criteria governing the schemes were found to be in breach of the Equal Status Act in a case heard by the Equality Tribunal in 2008. The Minister did not have to axe the scheme. He promised the issues would be resolved quickly but some people with disabilities remain on the schemes found to be discriminatory and no new scheme has been provided for the many others now precluded from access to these vital supports. The schemes were central to participation in society and to ensuring people do not become trapped in their own homes. Lone parents didn’t fine it was a ‘Yes Equality’ Government. Changes to the One Parent Family Payment caused stress and hardship for many families, that are much more likely to experience poverty and social exclusion than others. 63% of them experienced enforced deprivation in 2013. The Government effectively ended access to the One Parent Family Payment in 2015 for lone parents whose youngest child is seven or over. The financial losses for working lone parents are so significant that they are likely to give up part-time employment. Trans people, on the other hand, did get some of the ‘Yes Equality’ treatment. Legislation secured legal recognition for them in the gender with which they identified. This was on foot of legal action taken by Lydia Foy to assert her rights. The legislation, despite its failure to respond adequately to young Trans people, compares well with the most progressive approaches to the rights of Trans people at a European level. The legislation to ensure 30% of all candidates of each party in national elections are women is progressive. There was a touch of the ‘Yes Equality’ about this. It did not cost money but it is clear that it is causing some significant pain in male bastions. The same commitment did not extend to private-sector boardrooms, despite proposals from the European Commission for a 40% quota of the under-represented gender on corporate boards. And that ‘Yes Equality’ feeling drained away with the failure so far to address women’s reproductive rights by repealing the iniquitous Eight Amendment to the Constitution that has put women’s lives and health at risk. This Government did inject some of the resources cut by the previous Government from the budgets of the Equality Authority and the Irish Human Rights Commission back into the equality and human rights infrastructure. Nothing, however, is ever straightforward when it comes to this Government and equality and human rights. The additional resources were only made available to a new, merged body, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. It seems this potential ‘Yes Equality’ moment was actually more about sweeping equality under the human rights rug. Equality and human rights re ect two very different traditions. Equality is focused on achieving outcomes of equality for the different groups that make up society. Human rights are about minimum standards to be enjoyed by all individuals in society. In merging the two traditions there is much talk of the logic of equality being a human right. When equality is limited to being a human right it is confined to formal equality. Formal equality is only about equal treatment and non-discrimination. Not about outcomes. A merger of the Equality Authority and the Irish Human Rights Commission, based on such an understanding of the relationship between human rights and equality, diminishes any capacity for or drive towards the more substantive forms of equality that so many groups in our society aspire to and

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    Accountability and Transparency – Report Card

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    Result: C B+ on transparency; D on accountability. Not quite the democratic revolution we’d been promised. Political reform was high on the agenda of all political parties in 2011. In the heat of the worst economic crisis in the history of the state it was apparent to all that failings in our political structures were at least partially to blame. In the opening line of its 2011 Programme for Government the new coalition government wrote boldly of a “democratic revolution”. A series of political reforms was promised, particularly in the two most pressing areas: accountability and transparency: accountability in the sense of giving the Dáil in particular more of a hold over future governments; transparency in terms of opening government up to closer scrutiny. The scorecard on these two streams of reforms is pretty mixed overall. The good news is that many of the objectives (and a few additional ones) were met on the transparency agenda. The three main planks of an ‘open government’ agenda – freedom of information reinstatement; whistleblowers legislation, and a register of lobbyists – were all implemented, and there were more widespread initiatives to spread an open government agenda across government and the public service. Much praise for all of this goes directly to Brendan Howlin who showed, more than any other minister in this government, true reforming zeal. There were also initiatives emanating from the Department of the Environment, most notably those aimed at opening up party finance to closer scrutiny: however, as the annual reports of the Standards in Public Office Commission reveal a lot more work still needs to be done in this quarter. The lack of any serious intent to establish an Electoral Commission was a major implementation failure. The government’s record on accountability reforms was nothing short of dismal. A series of pretty irrelevant changes was introduced (cutting pay, reducing the number of TDs, Friday sittings, and so on), but reforms that would actually make a difference to the balance of power between the Dáil and the government were few. About the only reform of any significance was the introduction of a pre-legislative stage, giving committees greater potential to introduce amendments to bills. What clearly made the difference in this instance was the lack of a minister whose portfolio included Dáil reform. In 2011 we had the weakest parliament in Europe. Five years later – and despite the government having the largest parliamentary majority in the history of the state and cross-party consensus in favour of true Dáil reform – we are left with what is still the weakest parliament in Europe. Overall, the record is not good. The perennial Irish problem of prevarication continues apace. Distracted politicians (who all too easily take their eye off the ball of longer term objectives) combined with the dead hand of civil service mandarins (whose life mission is to preserve the status quo) have won the day again. While the government may have scored well (B+) on transparency, it receives a pretty dismal D on accountability, dragging down its average rating on political reform to a C – not quite the democratic revolution we’d been promised. Report Card – Accountability Report Card – Transparency Extras not in the 2011 Programme for Government The Public Sector Standards Bill is at an advanced stage and should be ready for completion in the next Dáil. This introduces a new Public Sector Standards Commission, whose remit is to provide a statutory framework governing disclosure of interests and other ethical obligations for public officials. Ireland became a full member in 2014 of the Open Government Partnership, an international initiative designed to promote an open government agenda. Among other measures this has seen the establishment of an Open Data Platform.

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