The Irish lower house of Parliament, Dáil Éireann, is elected by the STV system—proportional representation by means of the Single Transferable Vote. This relatively unusual system owes its origins to the circumstances of the Republic of Ireland’s achievement of independence in 1922. The departing rulers, the British, wanted some form of PR in order to protect the Protestant minority, while the new state’s political elite favoured PR in principle. With neither having much awareness of PR list systems, STV was adopted by agreement as the electoral system and has remained the electoral system ever since.
The Dáil is of central importance in the Irish political system. It elects the government, which needs to retain majority support in the Dáil in order to survive. Much less important is the presidency, although, unusually for a parliamentary system, the president is directly elected. Elections for the presidency take place under the Alternative Vote (AV) system.
The 166 members of the Dáil are elected from around 40 constituencies, each returning three, four or five members. Voting is straightforward: voters merely indicate their favoured candidate (by writing ‘1’ beside that candidate’s name on the ballot paper), and can go on to indicate their second and third choices and so on in the same way. Voters can rank candidates not only within but also across parties. Although most vote along party lines, it is not necessary to do so, and some vote along geographical lines, that is, they give their highest preferences, regardless of party, to the candidates from their own local area. The counting process, especially the distribution of ‘surplus’ votes, looks complicated to the uninitiated, but it is worth emphasizing that the voters do not have to be familiar with all the details; they need only to know how to cast their vote and to be satisfied that the counting process is ‘fair’ and transparent.
The electoral system is entrenched in the constitution and consequently cannot be changed without a referendum. On two occasions (1959 and 1968) the largest party, Fianna Fáil, instigated a referendum to replace STV by the British FPTP system, using the argument each time that any kind of PR was likely to create a problem of unstable coalition government. The proposed change was rejected by the voters on each occasion, by margins of 52 per cent to 48 per cent in 1959, and 61 per cent to 39 per cent in 1968.
On the basis of the criterion of stable government, anyone evaluating the record of STV in the Republic of Ireland would not, in fact, see its performance as a problem. Since the mid-1940s, governments (both coalition and single-party) have lasted three, four or five years, the only exception being a short-lived period of instability in the early 1980s. The voters, through their ranking of candidates of different parties, are able to indicate their wishes regarding potential coalition partners for their preferred party.
STV has generally delivered highly proportional outcomes, with Fianna Fáil receiving only a modest ‘bonus’ (around 48 per cent of the seats for 45 per cent of the votes at elections over the period 1945–92). However, the small size of the electoral districts (four seats per constituency on average) creates the potential for the largest party to reap a benefit if it can attract second- and third-preference votes from supporters of other parties. In 2002 the least proportional results ever, Fianna Fáil won 41 per cent of the votes and 49 per cent of the seats.
The system continues to allow representation to small parties and to independents, 13 of whom were elected in 2002. While many PR systems enable small parties to win seats in the Parliament, STV seems to give an unusual opportunity to independent candidates to do the same because of its essentially candidate-centred rather than party-centred nature.
Much of the praise and criticism of STV in the Republic of Ireland hinges on the same factor, namely the power it gives to voters to choose among candidates of the same party. This creates intense intra-party competition, especially among candidates of Fianna Fáil, which nominates between two and four candidates in each constituency. Statistics show that more incumbent Fianna Fáil MPs lose their seat to a running-mate than to a candidate of another party.
Critics argue that, as a result, incumbents become over-active at constituency level in order to curry favour with the voters and do not spend enough time on politics at national level, for example, on scrutinizing the government or discussing legislation in committees. They argue that this has an adverse effect on the calibre of Irish parliamentarians (in that individuals who could make a contribution at national level are discouraged by the likely casework load they would have to discharge if elected) and that it leads to short-termism and undue regard for localism in government thinking. They suggest that internal party competition for votes may lead to divided, incohesive political parties.
The defenders of the system, in contrast, see voters’ opportunity to choose among candidates of their party as a virtue. They argue that it allows the voters to replace incumbents by more able and more active newcomers and that, at a time of decreasing interest in conventional politics, this gives MPs a strong incentive to keep in close contact with the voters and thus fulfil the role of linking citizens to the political system. They maintain that there is no evidence that Irish MPs are of lower calibre than those elsewhere and that the Republic of Ireland’s recent record of impressive economic growth shows that there cannot be too much wrong with the behaviour of governments. They also point out that the Irish political parties are extremely cohesive and disciplined in their behaviour in Parliament, with no factions or recognizable subgroups.
In 2002 an all-party parliamentary committee considered the arguments for and against changing the system. It concluded that the public was strongly attached to STV, that a change to any other system would reduce the power of the individual voter, and that some of the alleged failings of the political system for which critics blamed STV were caused by other factors. As this conclusion indicates, there is no significant body of opinion in favour of amending or replacing the existing system.
Any evaluation of STV in the Republic of Ireland needs to take account of the characteristics of the country. It is a small country in terms of both area and population, and the ratio of MPs to population (about 1 : 20,000) is relatively high by international standards. This may foster closer links between MPs and their constituents, regardless of the electoral system, than are likely in a larger country. In addition, the Republic of Ireland is a prosperous, highly educated society where the political system as a whole is well established and is universally regarded as legitimate. Irish society does not have any significant cleavages (for example, ethnic, linguistic or religious).
For all these reasons we need to be careful about drawing firm conclusions about how STV would operate in other contexts. We can, though, say that there is no sign that the electorate in the Republic of Ireland would like to replace it by any other system.
