Liam Weeks - Independents in Irish Party Democracy

Independents in Irish party democracy

Independents in Irish party democracy

Liam Weeks

Manchester University Press

Copyright Liam Weeks 2017

The right of Liam Weeks to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published by Manchester University Press
Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA

www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for

ISBN 978 0 7190 9960 1 hardback

First published 2017

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This book is a culmination of fifteen years of research on the subject of independents. It stems from an interest first sparked by a PhD on the topic in the Department of Political Science at Trinity College, Dublin, and it was later the subject of a postdoctoral fellowship. I am extremely grateful to the Irish Research Council for funding both these projects. The first was in the form of a Government of Ireland postgraduate scholarship (20025), and the second a Marie Curie CARA fellowship at Macquarie University, Sydney and University College Cork (201013).

A number of other institutions also provided crucial support, including the Royal Irish Academy, the Institute of Social Research at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne and the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study at Waseda University in Tokyo.

Of course this book would not have been possible without the advice I received along the way. In particular, Michael Gallagher deserves special thanks for supervising the original PhD dissertation, as does Michael Marsh, and Murray Goot for his counsel in Sydney. I am extremely grateful to Nicole Bolleyer, Fiona Buckley, Ken Carty, Michael Gallagher, Shane MacGiollabhu and Mchel Fathartaigh for reading and commenting on various draft chapters. I would also like to thank Martin Hansen for providing the roll-call data used in , and for always responding so promptly to my many queries.

Others deserving of at least a mention include Clive Ahern, Eddie Campbell, John Coakley, Neil Collins, Stephen Collins, Richard Colwell, Brian Costar, Anthony Egan, David Farrell, Kieran Galvin, Anika Gauja, Anthony Green, Martin Hansen, Airo Hino, Willy Jou, Muiris MacCarthaigh, Shane Martin, Ian McAllister, David McEllin, Ian McShane, Catherine Murphy, Yvonne Murphy, Eunan OHalpin, Maureen OSullivan, Roderick Pace, Steven Reed, Campbell Sharman, Kathy Sheridan, Rodney Smith, Peter Tucker, Tony Varley and Noel Whelan.

I have also benefited from the sage advice of colleagues at departments who have hosted me, especially the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney, the Institute of European Studies at Valetta, Malta, the School of Political Science and Economics at Waseda University, Tokyo, and the Department of Political Science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I am indebted to my colleagues at the Department of Government, University College Cork, for their support in this journey.

I am grateful for the expert advice provided from members of the various electoral commissions and parliamentary libraries across Australia, in particular Colin Barry, Philip Greene, Michael Maley, Terri Newman, Jenni Newton-Farrelly, Brian Stait, Steve Tully and Walter van der Merwe.

I thank all the team at Manchester University Press for believing in, and supporting, this project. This includes, in particular, Tony Mason and Dee Devine. I am also very grateful to the two anonymous referees who provided a number of extremely useful suggestions.

Some work in this study has drawn upon material from within: Liam Weeks (.

As ever, my family were a bedrock of support along the way. Special thanks are due to my parents Graham and Margaret, and my sister Caoimhe.

Finally, this book could not have been produced without the assistance of the independents themselves, who put up with my many requests and questions. They were always extremely generous with their time and patience. This book is dedicated to them.

Independents

This is a study of mavericks, of the independent politicians who go it alone. They are the metaphorical equivalent of sheep who stray from the flock, who would rather discover fresh pastures than graze on their own. In most political systems, there are very few incentives to take such a deviant path. The few sheep that wander tend to be quickly picked off by the preying wolf that is the party system. In Ireland things are a bit different, however, as the maverick path does not imply political termination. Life outside of the flock can bring its rewards, and for some can be the rational path to pursue. This study is a detailed analysis of these independents, primarily of the factors that explain their presence and survival in the midst of one of the longest enduring party democracies in the world.

With this in mind, the result of the electoral count for the rural constituency of Kerry at the February 2016 Dil (lower house of parliament) elections in Ireland would have seemed highly unusual to an international observer. Michael Healy-Rae, an independent candidate first elected to the Dil in 2011, comfortably won a seat again with 20,378 first-preference votes, almost 26 per cent of the total valid constituency poll. This was the largest vote won by any of the 551 candidates in all of the forty constituencies at that Dil election, and the fifth largest first-preference vote ever won at a general election in post-independence Ireland. That an independent was elected to national parliament was unusual enough from a comparative perspective; that he received the largest vote in the country was even more unusual; but perhaps the most unusual event of the night was the unprecedented election of his brother, Danny Healy-Rae, as an independent in the same constituency. Between them, these two brothers won almost two and a half electoral quotas in first preferences alone, a vote total that suggested had another member of the family run, he or she could also have been elected. Michael and Danny Healy-Rae continue a ).