Politics in Ireland is not really like anywhere else. Unlike most countries I am aware of,
we don’t have any extreme parties – either on the left or the right.
The basic structure is a bicameral national parliament called
An Oireachtas made up of An Dáil, and An Seanad and the President, Uachtarán na
hÉireann, who acts as a final representative of the state and the people. All political structures and titles are in Irish. The leader of the government is An Taoiseach which is an old Irish word for "leader"
We use a proportional representation voting system which,
while extremely fair and voting is a simple act of putting the candidates in
order of preference, the counting process is so complex that few in Ireland
could explain how it works! But elections are like a huge sporting event with aficionados
sitting up late at night to follow the “count”. Since vote counting is still
done by hand election results can take a day or two to come in and where it is
close, counts and re-counts can go on for a week.
Electronic voting was tried but
due to concerns about the security of the voting machines in use it was abandoned after use in only one
constituency.
Proportional representation voting has meant that coalition
government is now the norm.
As I mentioned above most of our political parties are
clustered around the centre with no extreme right-wing or left-wing parties of
any significance. There have been attempts to set up anti-immigrant parties,
one recently, but they get virtually no support. We have in the past had a
communist party but it also disappeared.
The two dominant parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, are
products of the Civil War which took place in the early 1920’s – they derive
from opposing sides in that war. Politically though it would be hard to
distinguish between them. That said their core voters would never vote for the
other party!
We do have a Labour Party which is to the left of centre but
have never held power alone. They have been in many coalitions but never as the
lead party – and their policies would be based on relatively mild left wing
views.
The political party Sinn Féin is the oldest party and is the
only one that operates in Northern Ireland and in the Republic. They were the
political arm of the IRA (Irish Republican Army) during the Troubles in Northern
Ireland. Once the peace process was in place in Northern Ireland they gradually
disassociated themselves form the military campaign. Sinn Féin, who would be
slightly further left than the Labour Party, have gradually increased support
in the Republic in recent years and are now the 3rd largest party. However,
their past connection to the IRA means many voters would not support them.