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Houses Of The Oireachtas
The Oireachtas ( ; ), sometimes referred to as Oireachtas Éireann, is the bicameral parliament of Ireland. The Oireachtas consists of the president of Ireland and the two houses of the Oireachtas (): a house of representatives called Dáil Éireann and a senate called Seanad Éireann. The houses of the Oireachtas sit in Leinster House in Dublin, an eighteenth-century ducal palace. The directly elected Dáil is the more powerful of the houses of the Oireachtas. Etymology The word comes from the Irish word / ("deliberative assembly of freemen; assembled freemen; assembly, gathering; patrimony, territory"), ultimately from the word ("freeman"). Its first recorded use as the name of a legislative body was within the Irish Free State. Composition Dáil Éireann is directly elected under universal suffrage of all Irish citizens who are residents and at least eighteen years old; non-Irish citizens may be enfranchised by law, which currently extends to British citizens. By law, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dáil Éireann
Dáil Éireann ( ; , ) is the lower house and principal chamber of the Oireachtas, which also includes the president of Ireland and a senate called Seanad Éireann.Article 15.1.2° of the Constitution of Ireland reads: "The Oireachtas shall consist of the President and two Houses, viz.: a House of Representatives to be called Dáil Éireann and a Senate to be called Seanad Éireann." It consists of 174 members, each known as a (plural , commonly abbreviated as TDs). TDs represent 43 Dáil constituencies, constituencies and are directly elected for terms not exceeding five years, on the system of proportional representation using the single transferable vote (PR-STV). Its powers are similar to those of lower houses under many other bicameralism, bicameral parliamentary systems and it is by far the dominant branch of the Oireachtas. Subject to the limits imposed by the Constitution of Ireland, it has the power to pass any law it wishes, and to nominate and remove the Taoiseach (h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fine Gael
Fine Gael ( ; ; ) is a centre-right, liberal-conservative, Christian democratic political party in Ireland. Fine Gael is currently the third-largest party in the Republic of Ireland in terms of members of Dáil Éireann. The party had a membership of 25,000 in 2021. Simon Harris succeeded Leo Varadkar as party leader on 24 March 2024. Fine Gael was founded on 8 September 1933, following the merger of its parent party Cumann na nGaedheal, the National Centre Party and the Blueshirts. Its origins lie in the struggle for Irish independence and the pro-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War, with the party claiming the legacy of Michael Collins. In its early years, the party was commonly known as ''Fine Gael – The United Ireland Party'', abbreviated ''UIP'', and its official title in its constitution remains Fine Gael (United Ireland). Fine Gael holds a pro-European stance and is generally considered to be more of a proponent of economic liberalism than its traditional rival, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Single Transferable Vote
The single transferable vote (STV) or proportional-ranked choice voting (P-RCV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which each voter casts a single vote in the form of a ranked ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternative preferences if their preferred candidate is eliminated or elected with surplus votes, so that their vote is used to elect someone they prefer over others in the running. STV aims to approach proportional representation based on votes cast in the district where it is used, so that each vote is worth about the same as another. STV is a family of multi-winner proportional representation electoral systems. The proportionality of its results and the proportion of votes actually used to elect someone are equivalent to those produced by proportional representation election systems based on lists. STV systems can be thought of as a variation on the largest remainders method that uses candidate-based so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proportional Representation
Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) among voters. The aim of such systems is that all votes cast contribute to the result so that each representative in an assembly is mandated by a roughly equal number of voters, and therefore all votes have equal weight. Under other election systems, a bare Plurality (voting), plurality or a scant majority in a district are all that are used to elect a member or group of members. PR systems provide balanced representation to different factions, usually defined by parties, reflecting how votes were cast. Where only a choice of parties is allowed, the seats are allocated to parties in proportion to the vote tally or ''vote share'' each party receives. Exact proportionality is never achieved under PR systems, except by chance. The use of elector ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Committees Of The Oireachtas
Committees of the Oireachtas are committees and sub-committees and select committees of Dáil Éireann and Joint Committees of Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann, that are small groups of TDs and senators of the Oireachtas, the parliament of the Republic of Ireland. Some committees are formed by statute after every general election, others are formed by agreement for a full parliamentary term or for a specific issue on a time-limited basis. Committees are formed on a proportional basis from members of the political parties/groups in each house. Chairs of committees are granted a stipend for their work. Some committees scrutinise the work and proposed legislation from specific government departments, and senior ministers or junior ministers of state as well as public servants or representatives of semi-state bodies and organisations supported by state funding are also regularly invited to address such committees. Private meetings Committees agree their agendas and ways of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opposition (politics)
In politics, the opposition comprises one or more political parties or other organized groups that are opposed to the government (or, in American English, the administration), party or group in political control of a city, region, state, country or other political body. The degree of opposition varies according to political conditions. For example, in authoritarian and democratic systems, opposition may be respectively repressed or desired. Members of an opposition generally serve as antagonists to the other parties. Scholarship focusing on opposition politics did not become popular or sophisticated until the mid-20th century. Recent studies have found that popular unrest regarding the economy and quality of life can be used by political opposition to mobilize and to demand change. Scholars have debated whether political opposition can benefit from political instability and economic crises, while some conclude the opposite. Case studies in Jordan align with mainstream though ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin ( ; ; ) is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The History of Sinn Féin, original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith. Its members founded the revolutionary Irish Republic and its parliament, the First Dáil, and many of them were active in the Irish War of Independence, during which the party was associated with the Irish Republican Army (1919–1922). The party split before the Irish Civil War and again in its aftermath, giving rise to the two traditionally dominant parties of Irish politics: Fianna Fáil, and Cumann na nGaedheal (which merged with smaller groups to form Fine Gael). For several decades the remaining Sinn Féin organisation was small and often without parliamentary representation. It continued its association with the Irish Republican Army (1922–1969), Irish Republican Army. Another split in 1970 at the start of the Troubles led to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Lou McDonald
Mary Louise McDonald (born 1 May 1969) is an Irish politician who has served as Leader of the Opposition in Ireland since June 2020, as President of Sinn Féin since February 2018, and as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin Central constituency since 2011. She previously served as vice president of Sinn Féin from 2009 to 2018 and as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Dublin constituency from 2004 to 2009. On 10 February 2018, following a special ( party conference) in Dublin, McDonald succeeded Gerry Adams to become Sinn Féin's first new leader since 1983 and the party's first female leader since Margaret Buckley (president from 1937 to 1950). She led the party into the 2020 general election, in which Sinn Féin delivered its best ever general election performance, attaining 24.5 percent of the vote and winning 37 seats in Dáil Éireann, one fewer than Fianna Fáil and two more than Fine Gael. Following Micheál Martin's appointment as Taoiseach in June ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leader Of The Opposition (Ireland)
The leader of the opposition () in Republic of Ireland, Ireland is a term sometimes used to describe the politician who leads the largest party in the parliamentary opposition in Dáil Éireann, the house of representatives of the Oireachtas (the Irish parliament). In the Dáil, the leader of the opposition sits on the right-hand side of the Ceann Comhairle and directly opposite the Taoiseach. The role is not an official one and is not recognised in the Irish constitution, nor in legislation. The leader of the opposition is, by constitutional convention (political custom), convention, the leader of the largest political party in the Dáil that is not in Government of Ireland, government. Opposition leaders leading a political party with five members or more have full speaking rights under Dáil Parliamentary procedure, standing orders; smaller parties and independent politicians are allowed to speak less often. Historically the two largest parties have nearly always been Fianna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simon Harris
Simon Harris (born 17 October 1986) is an Irish Fine Gael politician serving as Tánaiste, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and Minister for Defence since January 2025, having previously served as Taoiseach from 2024 to 2025. He has been leader of Fine Gael since 2024 and a TD for the Wicklow constituency since 2011. A Cabinet minister since 2016, he previously served as a minister of state from 2014 to 2016. Born in Greystones, Harris became politically active as a teenager, campaigning on behalf of children with autism and attention deficit disorder. He was elected to Wicklow County Council in the 2009 local elections. He was elected to Dáil Éireann at the 2011 general election, becoming the " baby of the Dáil" at age 24, and was appointed Minister of State at the Department of Finance in 2014. Following the formation of a Fine Gael minority government in 2016, he was appointed Minister for Health. On the formation of the coalition government in 20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tánaiste
The Tánaiste ( , ) is the second-ranking member of the government of Ireland and the holder of its second-most senior office. It is the equivalent of the deputy prime minister in other parliamentary systems. The Tánaiste is appointed by the President of Ireland on the advice of the Taoiseach. The current office holder is Simon Harris, TD, who was appointed on 23 January 2025. History Under the Gaelic system of tanistry, the word (plural , , approximately ) had been used for the heir of the chief () or king (). The word was adopted in the 1937 Constitution of Ireland as the title for a member of the government nominated by the Taoiseach to act in their place as needed during periods of the Taoiseach's temporary absence. Tánaiste is the official title of the deputy head of government in both English and Irish, and is not used for other countries' deputy prime ministers, who are referred to in Irish by the generic term , , approximately . The longer Irish form, , is sometim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
