| Horoscope |
|---|
|
|
|
| |
|
Ireland Page |
Welcome to ElectionInfo.com's pages on Ireland
Official Name: Republic of Ireland
Capital: Dublin
Area: 70,280 square kilometres ( 27,135 square miles )
Major cities (Population)
Dublin 911,000 (1995)
Cork 127,024 (1991)
Limerick 75,436 (1991)
Galway 50,853 (1991)
Waterford 41,853 (1991)
Population: 3,553,000 (1995 estimate)
Population growth rate: 0.3 per cent (1990-1995 average)
Type of government: Republic
Independence: 6 December 1921 (from the United Kingdom)
Constitution: 29 December 1937; adopted 1 July 1937 by plebiscite
Voting Rights: Universal at age 18
Government
The Irish Republic is headed by a popularly elected president who serves a seven-year term. The president has only a few executive powers, but can exercise considerable influence on national politics. A taoiseach (prime minister) serves as head of government. The cabinet is drawn from members of parliament.
The bicameral legislature is structured to provide both vocational and proportional representation. All members of the 166-seat house of representatives, called the Dáil Éireann, are directly elected. In the senate, called the Seanad Éireann, there are 60 members, 49 of whom are elected and the rest appointed. All citizens may vote from the age of 18. Elections are held at least every five years. Ireland has 26 counties. Many people in Ireland refer to Northern Ireland as the “six counties”; the oft-applied term Ulster is misleading because several counties belonging to the Republic make up part of that province.
Recent History
The Irish Free State, which was created in 1922, ended more than 700 years of British rule and gave 26 of Ireland’s 32 counties Dominion Status within the British Empire. The remaining six counties, which we now know as Northern Ireland, had been granted a separate Dominion Status in 1920.
Under a new constitution in 1937, the Irish Free State changed its name to Éire (Ireland). The country began to loosen its association with the Commonwealth. In 1949 Ireland formally withdrew from the Commonwealth and declared itself completely independent. The six northern counties remained part of the United Kingdom.
The Republic of Ireland has often sought the return of Northern Ireland to Irish sovereignty, but reunification talks over the years were never fruitful. The issue was clouded with significant violence, which resurfaced in the 1960s in Northern Ireland between the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which supports a united Ireland, Unionist paramilitary groups that oppose a united Ireland, and British armed forces. In the 1990s talks opened and repeatedly failed.
While most in the south are theoretically in favour of the reunification of the two parts of Ireland, many worry about what it would mean in practice. A 1985 agreement allowed the republic a consultative role in the affairs of Northern Ireland, but talks and a number of initiatives achieved little progress until recently. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) announced a cessation of violence in August 1994, and the Unionist paramilitaries followed suit. A year later little tangible progress had been made towards achieving an acceptable solution. In February 1996, the IRA ceasefire was ended by a bomb in London. Peace talks between representatives of Ireland, Great Britain and some of the parties of Northern Ireland began on 10 June 1996. This process was given a boost when the IRA announced a new ceasefire that went into effect on 20 July 1997. The question of sovereignty remains sensitive, as does the participation of Sinn Fein (“Ourselves Alone”), the IRA’s political wing. Unionists, who favour Northern Ireland’s continued association with Great Britain, oppose any contact with Sinn Fein, but Nationalists, groups traditionally in favour of Irish reunification, insist that Sinn Fein’s exclusion would doom the peace process.
Increasingly, elections in Ireland have produced results in which neither of the two main parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, has obtained a majority, and so the largest party has had to govern with the support of the Irish Labour party or the Democratic Left party. The current president, Mary Robinson, was elected in 1991 and is the first woman to hold the position. A general election took place in June 1997 and a new Taoiseach (prime minister), Bertie Ahern, was elected. He leads a coalition government, composed of his Fianna Fáil party and the Progressive Democrats. The previous government, also a coaltiton, comprised the Fine Gael party, the Labour party, and the Democratic Left party.
|
|
