Politics Ireland

Politics

Ireland is a constitutional republic with a parliamentary system of government. The Oireachtas is the bicameral national parliament composed of the President of Ireland and the two Houses of the Oireachtas: Seanad Éireann (Senate) and Dáil Éireann (House of Representatives). Áras an Uachtaráin is the official residence of the President of Ireland, while the houses of the Oireachtas meet at Leinster House in Dublin.

The President serves as head of state, and is elected for a seven-year term and may be re-elected once. The President is primarily a figurehead, but is entrusted with certain constitutional powers with the advice of the Council of State. The office has absolute discretion in some areas, such as referring a bill to the Supreme Court for a judgement on its constitutionality. Michael D. Higgins became the ninth President of Ireland on 11 November 2011.

The Taoiseach serves as the head of government and is appointed by the President upon the nomination of the Dáil. Most Taoisigh have served as the leader of the political party that gains the most seats in national elections. It has become customary for coalitions to form a government, as there has not been a single-party government since 1989. Enda Kenny assumed the office of Taoiseach on 9 March 2011.

The Seanad is composed of sixty members, with eleven nominated by the Taoiseach, six elected by two universities, and 43 elected by public representatives from panels of candidates established on a vocational basis. The Dáil has 166 members (Teachtaí Dála) elected to represent multi-seat constituencies under the system of proportional representation and by means of the single transferable vote.

The Government is constitutionally limited to fifteen members. No more than two members can be selected from the Seanad, and the Taoiseach, Tánaiste(deputy prime minister) and Minister for Finance must be members of the Dáil. The Dáil must be dissolved within five years after its first meeting following the previous election, and a general election for members of the Dáil must take place no later than thirty days after the dissolution. According to the Constitution of Ireland, parliamentary elections must be held at least every seven years, though a lower limit may be set by statute law. The current government is a coalition administration led by Fine Gael with Enda Kenny as Taoiseach, supported by the Labour Party with Eamon Gilmore as Tánaiste. Opposition parties in the current Dáil are Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin, the Socialist Party, the PBPA, the WUAG, as well as a number of Independents.

Ireland has been a member state of the European Union since 1973, but has chosen to remain outside the Schengen Area. Citizens of the United Kingdom can freely enter the country without a passport due to the Common Travel Area, which is a passport-free zone comprising the islands of Ireland, Great Britain, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. However, some identification is required at airports and seaports.

Local government

The Local Government Act 1898 is the founding document of the present system of local government, while the Twentieth Amendment to the constitution of 1999 provided for its constitutional recognition. The twenty-six traditional counties of Ireland are not always coterminous with administrative divisions although they are generally used as a geographical frame of reference by the population of Ireland. County Tipperary was divided into North Tipperary and South Tipperary in 1898, while County Dublin was divided into Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal, and South Dublin in 1994. The Local Government Act 2001 established a two-tier structure, with the top tier consisting of twenty-nine county councils and five city councils. The five cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick,Galway, and Waterford are administered separately by their own city councils.

The second tier consists of five borough councils and seventy-five town councils. The five boroughs of Kilkenny, Sligo, Drogheda, Clonmel, and Wexford have a certain level of autonomy within their counties, but have no additional responsibilities. While Kilkenny is a borough, it has retained the legal right to be referred to as a city. Local authorities are responsible for matters such as planning, local roads, sanitation, and libraries. Dáil constituencies are required to follow county boundaries as much as possible. Counties with greater populations have multiple constituencies, some of more than one county, but generally do not cross county boundaries. The counties are grouped into eight regions, each with a Regional Authority composed of members delegated by the various county and city councils in the region. The regions do not have any direct administrative role as such, but they serve for planning, coordination and statistical purposes.

Law

Ireland has a common law legal system with a written constitution that provides for a parliamentary democracy. The court system consists of theSupreme Court, the Court of Criminal Appeal, the High Court, the Circuit Court and the District Court, all of which apply the law of Ireland. Trials for serious offences must usually be held before a jury. The High Court and the Supreme Court have authority, by means of judicial review, to determine the compatibility of laws and activities of other institutions of the state with the constitution and the law. Except in exceptional circumstances, court hearings must occur in public. The Criminal Courts of Justice is the principal building for the criminal courts. It includes the Dublin Metropolitan District Court, Court of Criminal Appeal, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court and Central Criminal Court.

Garda Síochána na hÉireann (Guardians of the Peace of Ireland), more commonly referred to as the Gardaí, is the state's civilian police force. The force is responsible for all aspects of civil policing, both in terms of territory and infrastructure. It is headed by the Garda Commissioner, who is appointed by the Government. Most uniformed members do not routinely carry firearms. Standard policing is traditionally carried out by uniformed officers equipped only with a baton and pepper spray.

The Póilíní Airm (Military Police) is the corps of the Irish Army responsible for the provision of policing service personnel and providing a military police presence to forces while on exercise and deployment. In wartime, additional tasks include the provision of a traffic control organisation to allow rapid movement of military formations to their mission areas. Other wartime roles include control of prisoners of war and refugees.

Ireland's citizenship laws relate to "the island of Ireland", including islands and seas, thereby extending them to Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. Therefore, anyone born in Northern Ireland who meets the requirements for being an Irish citizen, such as birth on the island of Ireland to an Irish or British citizen parent or a parent who is entitled to live in Northern Ireland or the Republic without restriction on their residency, may exercise an entitlement to Irish citizenship, such as an Irish passport.

Foreign relations

Foreign relations are substantially influenced by membership of the European Union, although bilateral relations with the United States and United Kingdom are also important. It held thePresidency of the Council of the European Union on six occasions, most recently from January to June 2013.

Ireland tends towards independence in foreign policy, thus the country is not a member of NATO and has a longstanding policy of military neutrality. This policy has helped the Irish Defence Forces to be successful in their contributions to peace-keeping missions with the United Nations since 1960, during the Congo Crisis and subsequently in Cyprus, Lebanon and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Despite Irish neutrality during World War II, Ireland had more than 50,000 participants in the war through enlistment in the British armed forces. During the Cold War Irish military policy, while ostensibly neutral, was biased towards NATO. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Seán Lemass authorised the search of Cuban and Czechoslovak aircraft passing through Shannon and passed the information to the CIA. Ireland's air facilities were used by the United States military for the delivery of military personnel involved in the 2003 invasion of Iraq through Shannon Airport. The airport had previously been used for the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, as well as the First Gulf War.

Since 1999, Ireland has been a member of NATO's Partnership for Peace (PfP) program, which is aimed at creating trust between NATO and other states in Europe and the former Soviet Union