I thank the Chairman and members for the invitation to make my presentation. The overall theme for discussion today is constituency work. My two colleagues have established beyond doubt that constituency work is not unique to PR-STV, so I do not need to echo these claims. An aspect I wish to explore is a particular consequence of this emphasis on constituency work. It is a relatively unique consequence in the Irish context and it is the significant presence of independent parliamentarians. This relationship between PR-STV and the independent status adopted by some politicians will be the focus of my presentation.
First, I will indicate the comparative presence. The term "unique" should be used sparingly to describe features of the Irish political system but in the case of independent parliamentarians, no other liberal democracy has had such a significant proliferation of them as Ireland. In fact, there have been more elected to Dáil Éireann than the combined total elected to national parliaments in western Europe. Some 50% more independents have been elected to the Dáil since World War Two than the combined total in the other select democracies using a candidate-centred electoral system. Some 97 independents have been elected to the Dáil since World War Two. This does not mean 97 different independents. It refers to the number of seats. For example, the late Tony Gregory would have been elected on 11 occasions.
A figure circulated to members shows countries where independents are generally allowed to run and where they have a particular presence. It does not include states using list electoral systems where genuine independents are not permitted. For example, independents are not allowed to stand in Iceland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. Similarly, no independents were ever elected in Belgium, Germany, Lithuania, Luxembourg and in the Netherlands. In the Czech Republic, Portugal and Slovakia, independents can only run if they place themselves on a party lists. These are countries in which they have managed to win seats in national parliaments at some stage. If one sums up these countries, which include Malta, Australia, Canada, the UK, the US, New Zealand and Finland, it comes to approximately 64, so it is 50% less than the Irish total. This figure is made all the more striking by the relatively small size of the Irish Parliament in comparison to the likes of Canada, the UK and the US.
Such a presence in Ireland of independent parliamentarians is obviously the product of a significant vote. Another figure circulated indicates the level of support for independents in Ireland is quite an outlier. In fact, from a comparative perspective, it is only in Russia and Pakistan that independent candidates are stronger than in Ireland. By stronger, I mean they comprise a higher proportion of all candidates and receive a greater national vote.
Another figure indicates the national vote for independents in national parliamentary elections over the past six decades. In most countries, the figure has rarely gone above 1% or 2%, but it did so in the 1990s in Australia. There were a couple of prominent independent MPs there, including the late Peter Andren. The vote for independents in Ireland is the sum of the vote in these other systems. In fact, this aggregate vote for independents has been increasing steadily in the past three decades — in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.
What is also significant about independents and what should be considered in regard to the electoral system is that they do not have an insignificant role. For example, in the current House of Commons there are members such as Richard Taylor M.P., elected on behalf of the Kidderminster hospital concern. Members like him have a minimal concern in the role of the parliamentary system.
By contrast, in Ireland Independents have played an active role in the Government formation system. From 1922 to 2007, 40% of Governments formed in the State have been minority Administrations almost all of which have been dependent upon the support of Independent Deputies as is the case with the current Administration. In the past 30 years six Governments have depended on the support of Independents. The merits of this are a topic for discussion on a different day.
A slide in my presentation indicates the level of support for Independents since the foundation of the State. The line in the darkest bold indicates the level of votes and the line just below that indicates the proportion of seats they won. The thinnest line refers to the proportion of candidates comprising Independents, which, as the slide shows, has been rising steadily since the late 1970s. Today almost one in five candidates in Ireland at a national election comprise of Independents. Only Russia and Pakistan tend to have a higher proportion of Independent candidates.
To challenge some of the assumptions, one point often made outside of these circles is that this must be a product of our voting system. To return to constituency work, certainly the premium placed on this activity in Ireland means that a single candidate who cannot fall back on party loyalties, party resources or party policy to deliver votes, is not at a major disadvantage in Ireland and one need not be a policy expert or a party man or woman to engage in constituency work.
If we had a system where political competition revolved around national issues and where policy expertise was given greater priority, this would probably spell the end for Independents, the great majority of whom have a local focus. That being said, there are many other systems, as has been indicated earlier, where constituency service is an important function for parliamentarians and yet Independents are not elected. The possible difference in Ireland is that it exists alongside a favourable electoral system.
There are, perhaps, four possible reasons that would indicate why PR-STV helps Independents. There are few systems that are as attractive to an Independent candidate as PR-STV. The first reason on which we have elaborated is the facilitation of particularistic-style competition, that is, on constituency work.
The second reason STV might help Independents is because it is a form of PR. It is a proportional system, which, compared with non-PR systems, tends to help minor candidates like Independents. It is one of the few PR systems that both allows Independents to run on their own and ensures them a seat return approximately equitable to their vote and this proportionality is engineered by the presence of multi-seat constituencies. An Independent needs to attract only a fraction of the first preference vote to win a seat and does not need to beat all other party candidates, as would be the case under first past the post, for example.
The third reason PR-STV might help Independents is because unlike most other forms of PR that tend to be party centred, STV is a candidate-centred system that permits candidates to stand alone and not as part of a party. While there is no clear-cut evidence that this fosters candidate-centred political competition, PR-STV does not discourage its presence and it may support its continuing existence in the face of party competition.
The final reason STV may help Independents is because it helps centrist candidates, those who are acceptable to everyone, which is not true of other PR and non-PR systems, for example, candidates such as Mr. Ralph Nader in the US. Single transferable vote does this in two ways. The first is a product of its preferential nature, and STV is often called a preferential system in the academic literature. This preferential system in STV encourages sincere voting, by which we mean it lessens the likelihood of voters being discouraged from wasting their vote on Independents unable to win a seat, as regularly happens under first past the post where voters are free to waste their vote on a candidate who has no chance of winning a seat.
The second reason is related to the system of transfers. Centrist candidates, such as Independents, usually profit from transfers because party voters are more willing to give them a lower preference than a candidate from a rival party. For example, Independent Deputy Finian McGrath was elected in Dublin North Central with just under half a quota in 2002 and just over half a quota in 2007.
With the possible exception of the Borda count, as used by the Green Party, no other known electoral system offers Independents as much of a fighting chance as PR-STV. When at debates in similar circles to this — as occurred in British Columbia before it considered adopting a new voting system and at the Scottish local government level when it also brought in PR-STV — there was consideration of the various merits and virtues of PR-STV, the role of Independents was put forward as one possible reason in favour of adopting PR-STV.
One might then ask why so few countries have adopted PR-STV. It could be simply because of the presence of Independents. Parties fear the destabilising tendencies of PR-STV and tend to prefer list electoral systems, among other reasons, to consolidate their dominance vis-à-vis Independents. That said, as I will indicate in the next section, one needs to be cautious in assuming that Independents are the direct product of the Irish electoral system.
On whether PR-STV results in the election of Independents elsewhere, a slide in my presentation indicates the particular comparative vote for Independents in other systems using PR-STV. To reiterate, PR-STV has been used not only in Malta and Ireland, but in a number of other democracies which, for want of a better term, one can call Anglo-American, including Australia, Northern Ireland, parts of Britain, the United States and Canada.
Only three of these systems using PR-STV have levels of support for Independents that come close to matching the comparative Irish figures. These are the Northern Ireland local councils, the Tasmanian state assembly and the Scottish local government level. However, all of these three cases comprise second-order regional elections where, from a comparative perspective, Independents often experience greater electoral success than at the first-order national level. For example, in Britain, Independents might regularly get 10% of the vote at the local government level but their vote is fairly minimal at the national parliamentary level.
The only comparable national assemblies using PR-STV have been the Australian Senate and the Maltese House of Representatives, neither of which have been hotbeds of Independent support. Indeed, since Malta gained independence in the 1960s, there has never been an Independent MP elected to the Maltese Parliament.
Scotland is an interesting case, however. Although the Kerling commission, which this decade looked into a new electoral system, recommended the adoption of PR-STV at the council level for one reason, to help Independents, the numbers of Independents elected when STV was first used in 2007 fell by 20% compared to the previous local elections under first past the post in 2003.
However, what makes the Scottish experience even more interesting is that the numbers of Independent candidates increased at those elections, from 485 to 551 candidates. Similarly, the proportion of wards contested by Independents also increased, from 31% to 75%. The Independent vote also increased, from 9.5% to 10.9%. Despite a falling seat share, Independents still won a bonus of seats over votes. They won 15.3% of seats with approximately 11% of the votes.
I suppose the question the committee is interested in asking is, would removing PR-STV remove Independents. Not surprisingly, this is quite a difficult question to answer. First, it depends on what alternative is introduced to replace PR-STV. Under plurality systems such as first past the post or the French two-ballot system, Independents' chances of election would be very remote. The Australian alternative vote, which to all intends and purposes is STV in single-seat constituencies as we use at by-elections, would be perhaps less painful for Independents as they have already won by-elections here under the alternative vote.
With a list system Independents could still compete under personalised lists but their electoral chances would depend on the size of the constituencies, which need to be quite large to guarantee proportionality. This would put Independents at a disadvantage, as they would then need to be known beyond their local area. For example, if we had a single national constituency, as Professor Gallagher indicated is used in Israel, and a similar-sized Parliament, an Independent list would need approximately 0.67% of the national vote to win a seat, and in Ireland, with an electorate of 3 million, this comprises approximately 20,000 votes. To put this in context, no Independent candidate has ever won 20,000 votes at a Dáil election, although the likes of the late Deputy Alfie Byrne did come fairly close.
All that being said, too often the capacity of electoral systems to change outcomes is exaggerated. While PR-STV certainly facilitates Independents, this particular breed of politician, and the particular breed of culture that supports the politician, had been present in Ireland long before STV was introduced. In fact, the relationship between STV and Independents seems to depend on the timing of the introduction of the former. PR-STV has facilitated Independents only where it was introduced before a modern party system had developed. This explains why very few Independents have won seats in areas that adopted PR-STV after the consolidation of party competition. It explains why when it was introduced in Malta, Estonia and the Northern Ireland Assembly elections, it did not result in a raft of Independents being elected. In contrast, in Tasmania, where PR-STV was first introduced as early as 1919, party competition had not been developed. That is why it helped Independents in that particular system. It also explains why Independents continue to win seats on Scottish councils, as the vast majority of their victories are in regional areas where there is a strong tradition of non-party politics.
The most we can say, therefore, is PR-STV is not a disincentive to Independents unlike plurality or list systems. It encourages Independent candidates to run and it provides an incentive to candidate-centred behaviour by both candidates and voters alike. However, it is important to emphasise it does not magically produce an Independent vote out of thin air. It facilitates its expression in a system where the nature of competition is not disadvantageous. A different electoral system operating in a political culture where an ability to engage in constituency work was not an asset would most likely debilitate against Independents. However, while changing the former — PR-STV — can be done in a relatively straightforward manner, the same cannot be said about a change in political culture.
