Originally Posted by Drico

All this talk of "medical cards", "funerals" and the like is simply a dismissal of constituency work. This is a fundamental part of a TD's job and is incredibly important. Dismissing it is rather disrespectful of the many people who put in so much work at the ground level.

George Lee's problem was that he did not representing Dublin South to be the privilege that it is. Instead he felt that the Dáil was privileged to have him as a member, he seemed to think that constituency work was beneath him (he didn't even bother with a website ffs, nearly all councillors go to the bother of putting one up) as opposed to being the majority of a TD's workload. The c.100k salary could hardly be justified by the few days a year that the Dáil actually sits, especially when you discount the many of those days spent on local issues anyway. The reality is that most time has to be spent on the nitty gritty, less glamorous stuff at a constituency level.

Originally Posted by Drico

All this talk of "medical cards", "funerals" and the like is simply a dismissal of constituency work. This is a fundamental part of a TD's job and is incredibly important. Dismissing it is rather disrespectful of the many people who put in so much work at the ground level.

George Lee's problem was that he did not representing Dublin South to be the privilege that it is. Instead he felt that the Dáil was privileged to have him as a member, he seemed to think that constituency work was beneath him (he didn't even bother with a website ffs, nearly all councillors go to the bother of putting one up) as opposed to being the majority of a TD's workload. The c.100k salary could hardly be justified by the few days a year that the Dáil actually sits, especially when you discount the many of those days spent on local issues anyway. The reality is that most time has to be spent on the nitty gritty, less glamorous stuff at a constituency level.

Originally Posted by rockofcashel

Getting "medical cards" and "attending funerals" are NOT a fundamental part of a TD's job, and is NOT incredibly important.

It is that attitude that has backswoodmen elected to Dáil Eireann, and while Irish people continue to insist that these backswoodmen do the kind of work you characterise as important, then we will have poor public representation at national level.

I happened to stand for national election, and local election a couple of times, and I was not elected, and I don't do the funeral gig. Maybe that is one of the reasons I wasn't elected. But, I also happen to feel that it would be completely insincere of me to traipse from funeral parlour to funeral parlour night after night for years, trying to pretend I gave a damn about the people who are going through a personal tragedy, when they reality is, that I simply wish to be seen at the funeral.

If sympathising with a persons family is so important to a TD, then why don't they wait until maybe a day or two after the funeral, and go along to meet the family and offer their condolences.. instead of actually timing their arrivals to the parlour or church at the time of most exposure i.e. just before the lid is put on the coffin or after the decade for the rosary has been said in the church and people are about to turn to leave.

You see, I even know what time its best to "sympathise", because you can time it by the arrival of the various local pols... I've even had the pleasure of pols who know me tapping me on my shoulder at funerals where I have attended eg family or friends, and ask me to point of the deceased's family, because they haven't even got a clue who is dead, they simply happened to be passing through town when they saw the cortege.

Same with medical cards, grants, farm headage payments etc etc etc... 99% of these things can properly be sorted out by public servants without any input from a politician whatsoever, but the political tradition in this country has ingrained in Irish people some feeling of need to go to a local pol to get what they are either entitled to or not as is the case in some circumstances.

For anyone to use a politician to get something that they are not entitled to, is simply corruption, and means that resources are diverted to places where they should rightly be going instead.

The job of a Parliamentarian is to bring forward and scrutinise legislation for all the people, not those in their own backyard. That can be done further down the political ladder. Until we as a people start electing politicians to do that, we will end up with sub standard national representatives.

Jesus Christ, I remember once being in a debate about the "smart economy" and the "internet revolution" and hearing comments from all my local TD's, who admitted after the meeting that none of them were even able to turn on a computer. When John Bruton was first shown how to use Windows, he was told to click the icon on screen with his mouse to open a programme and promptly started tapping the screen with the mouse before complaining that it wasn't working. These people are away with the fairies as to what most of us actually need from our Government, because there isn't many votes in doing the actual work we are paying them to do.

Originally Posted by charley

the attendance of funerals and wakes is very important, it must be shown by the TD that he knows where he came from and who elected him.this is not a civil service job where you answer to a supervisor ,this is a job where a TD must be seen to sympathise with the voters at a sad time. any TD who doesn't attend funerals won't be a TD for long

Originally Posted by gatsbygirl20

Totally agree. I am amazed at the contempt shown on this site for ordinary voters and their so-called "gombeen" concerns. In a globalized world, where more and more decisions are taken out of our hands, and where a sense of alienation and powerlessness are driving the populace to self-medication with "reality" TV, and Internet surfing, one of the few moments of real "connectedness" some people have left in their daily lives, is a sense of engagement with local issues and local politicians.

Being lied to by the occasional "gombeen" politician about whether he can fix that street light or not, is chickenfeed compared to the lies of the globalized marketplace and its spin machine which seems to hold us all in its thrall.

People have a perfect right to be concerned about issues in their own community, and nobody who regards such issues as beneath him/her should enter politics. Local politics will test your commitment as a politician. Are you in this game to improve the lives of ordinary people----the ordinary unglamorous lives most people lead----or have you been reading another JFK biography?

Sure, politicians must legislate, but it is not just about economic expertise, or any other kind of expertise. It can't be. We elect "one of ourselves" with all our own flaws, blind spots, ordinariness. If we want another system, well----there are other systems definitely more efficient than democracy. Who was it who said "Fascism gets things done, but democracy---now, that takes time" ?

Yes I know politicians should not be sorting out medical cards. But, to hell with it, chatting about the issue to your local TD in your local clinic, gives people some small sense of being plugged into the National Political Grid, one small moment of belonging to a larger, accountable power structure fronted by a recognizable, local, friendly face. A face from a poster or ballot sheet, next to which they have put a tick. Voting, it's called . Our grandfathers and grandmothers fought for that right. And that, dear posters, is how ordinary lives are lived. And no, I don't think that was what "got us into this mess in the first place"

You economic hotshot posters who think politicians are all useless "teachers" and "culchie solicitors", go ahead, put yourself forward. Change "the system, man" as they used to say in my Hippie youth. If you are already a politician, which I suspect some of you are, well done. I do not think you are useless time-servers. I think you work hard for the people who elected you, and for the greater good of the country. Funny the way I imagined the two were connected.

Originally Posted by charley

the attendance of funerals and wakes is very important, it must be shown by the TD that he knows where he came from and who elected him.this is not a civil service job where you answer to a supervisor ,this is a job where a TD must be seen to sympathise with the voters at a sad time. any TD who doesn't attend funerals won't be a TD for long

Originally Posted by rockofcashel

What you're voting for is a social worker, not a legislator

Originally Posted by rockofcashel

Utter bullsh**.. the majority of politicians who attend funeral neither know nor care about the deceased.. they care about been seen. They are legislators, not professional mourners. FFS, I spoke to one FF TD who attended 14 funerals in day.. his family should have told him to cop on as it was making him a laughing stock

Originally Posted by charley

the attendance of funerals and wakes is very important, it must be shown by the TD that he knows where he came from and who elected him.this is not a civil service job where you answer to a supervisor ,this is a job where a TD must be seen to sympathise with the voters at a sad time. any TD who doesn't attend funerals won't be a TD for long