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The Oireachtas is the "national parliament" or legislature of the Republic of Ireland, sometimes referred to as Oireachtas Éireann. The Oireachtas consists of the President of Ireland and two houses; the two houses are often referred to as the Houses of the Oireachtas and are: Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann. The Houses of the Oireachtas currently reside in Leinster House in Dublin, an eighteenth century ducal palace. The directly-elected Dáil is by far the most powerful branch of the Oireachtas.
Composition Dáil Éireann, the lower house, is directly elected under universal suffrage of all Irish and British citizens who are resident and at least eighteen years of age, and is held at least once in every five years as required by law. However the house can usually be dissolved at any time at the request of the Taoiseach (head of government). Dáil elections occur under the system of proportional representation by means of the Single Transferable Vote. The Seanad is not directly elected but consists of a mixture of members selected in a number of ways. 49 senators are elected by councillors and parliamentarians, 11 are appointed by the Taoiseach, and six are elected by two university constituencies. The President of Ireland is directly elected once in every seven years, for a maximum of two terms. However if, as has occurred on a number of occasions, a consensus among the larger political parties can result in only a single candidate being nominated, then no actual ballot occurs. Role
Powers The Oireachtas has exclusive power to: Limitations Committees Each house of the Oireachtas has its own committees but there are also a number of joint committees that include members of both. There are currently twenty of these (the first thirteen below are based on the thirteen select committees of the Dáil): History The word oireachtas comes from the Irish language name MacOireachtaigh (Geraghty), believed to have been advisors to ancient King O'Connor and has been the title of two parliaments in Irish history: the current Oireachtas of the Republic of Ireland, since 1937, and, immediately before that, the Oireachtas of the Irish Free State of 1922-1937. The earliest parliament in Ireland was the Parliament of Ireland, in existence until 1801. This parliament governed the whole island of Ireland but was, over its history, subordinate to varying degrees to the English, and later British, Parliament. This Parliament consisted of the King of Ireland, a House of the Lords and a House of Commons. In 1800 the Irish Parliament abolished itself when, after widespread bribery of members, it adopted the Act of Union, which came into effect from 1 January 1801. The next legislature to exist in Ireland only came into being in 1919. This was an extra-legal, unicameral parliament established by Irish republicans, known simply as Dáil Éireann. This revolutionary Dáil was notionally a legislature for the whole island of Ireland. In 1920, in parallel to the extra-legal Dáil, the British government created a home rule legislature called the Parliament of Southern Ireland. However this parliament was boycotted by most Irish politicians. It was made up of the King, the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and the Senate of Southern Ireland. The Parliament of Southern Ireland was formally abolished in 1922, with the establishment of the Oireachtas under the Constitution of the Irish Free State. The Oireachtas of the Irish Free State consisted officially of the King and two houses, named, as their successors would be, Dáil Éireann (described, in this case, as a 'Chamber of Deputies') and Seanad Éireann. However the Free State Senate was abolished in 1935. The modern Oireachtas came into being in 1937, with the adoption by referendum of the Constitution of Ireland. The televising of Oireachtas debates commenced in 1990, whilst those of committees commenced in 1993. Northern Ireland representation Although, as adopted in 1937, Article 3 of the constitution asserted the "right of the parliament and government established by this constitution to exercise jurisdiction" over the whole of Ireland, it also provided that pending the "re-integration of the national territory" Acts of the Oireachtas would not apply to Northern Ireland. Therefore no serious attempts have been made for the representation of Northern Ireland in the Dáil. As Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera, while a staunch opponent of partition, who had been elected to represent a Northern constituency in the first Dáil, did not pursue the idea of seats in the Dáil for Northern Ireland, on the grounds that this would amount to representation without taxation, although subsequent Taoisigh have appointed people from Northern Ireland to the Seanad. More recently, Sinn Féin has advocated that elected representatives from Stormont, Westminster, or Strasbourg should have the right to participate in Dáil debates, if not voting rights. In 2005 the current Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, proposed that Northern Ireland MPs should be able to address a committee of the whole of house sitting in the Dáil chamber. However both the media and Fine Gael, Labour, the Irish Greens, the Socialist Party and the Ahern's coalition partners, the Progressive Democrats, all opposed the idea, as did some Oireachtas members from Fianna Fáil. Only Sinn Féin, the party that stood to gain most from the proposal, supported it, while the more moderate SDLP described it as a step forward. The proposal was also criticised widely in the media, with editorials and/or columns published criticising the proposal in The Irish Times, the Irish Independent, the Irish Examiner, the Sunday Independent and other publications Only the republican-leaning Daily Ireland supported the proposal fully. Footnote See also | ||||||||||
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