Electoral Reform committee  That's 14% of the first preferences, which is the figure we tend to look at.

Electoral Reform committee  Well, there are certain areas where they would be particularly strong. There is one near the border with Northern Ireland that's always been a strong Sinn Fein area. In a single-member constituency riding up there, Sinn Fein candidates might be the strongest. The result would be

Electoral Reform committee  It's unclear. We have a multi-party system now and how votes would be translated into seats under first past the post is unpredictable. You could get some parties getting a huge overrepresentation, while others might be very under-represented. It would be a bit random.

Electoral Reform committee  I think the party system we now have is completely incompatible with first past the post. First past the post is easy enough when you have two or three parties, but if you have six or seven, it's quite incompatible.

Electoral Reform committee  We did have a chance to see it and read it, and it was very interesting.

Electoral Reform committee  It simply is a by-election, so the entire riding votes to fill that one seat. That's what happens at general elections for the national parliament. We also fill seats for the European Parliament, and there it's done a bit differently. There at election times each candidate has a

Electoral Reform committee  I think that would be the overwhelming reason that even if there was any discussion on changing the electoral system in Ireland, no one would suggest changing to first past the post. It would be to change to some other kind of PR, although even that issue is not very live. The la

Electoral Reform committee  Well, I suppose the strength is that it potentially engages the citizens and legitimizes a change in policy, a change in electoral system, or not, as the case may be. The difficulty with referendums is that quite often the thing that people are asked to vote on is not simple. Ado

Electoral Reform committee  What we do have is typically called a “program for government”. When there's a coalition, the coalition parties will get together and agree on a program for government. That tends to have to go back to the party conference of each party to approve going into coalition with that p

Electoral Reform committee  It's quite an interesting history, and it goes back a long time, nearly 100 years. Ireland, as you know, was part of the United Kingdom, and in the U.K. there have always been electoral reformers who wanted to move to some kind of proportional representation. The model they wan

Electoral Reform committee  From an academic's point of view, one of the interesting things in Ireland is that the system is known as PR rather than PR-STV. Irish people think we have proportional representation. At the time it was adopted and for some time afterward, people didn't know that there was anoth

Electoral Reform committee  It's easier now.

Electoral Reform committee  Yes, that's why proportional representation was seen as important. It was to protect the Protestant minority.

Electoral Reform committee  I think gender is the one looked at most often, and in general, proportional representation systems using lists have far more women elected than we see in first past the post...[Technical difficulty—Editor] Putting several people on the ballot is a different process from just put

Electoral Reform committee  Women candidates.