Moving the Euro constituency goalposts one more time – but who’ll notice the difference?

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

I’d say only a tiny percentage of the electorate in Galway could name the three MEPs for the North West constituency without any difficulty. I’ll go even further and I’d say that at least half my fellow political scribes in Leinster House would also have to think long and hard. And even after that mental struggle, I’d say about half of them would get it wrong.

The European Parliament is an institution that seems very distant from the lives of ordinary people in the West of Ireland and elsewhere. It’s a parliament, sure – a very big one with over 600 members – but it does not have much relevancy in people’s lives.

The first reason for that is that few people know what it does. And the second (more potent) reason is that its powers, albeit increased, are very limited, especially when compared with the European Commission with its executive Commissioners (including our own Maire Geoghegan Quinn) and with the Council of Ministers (the prime ministers of all the 29 EU countries).

So it’s Europe’s version of our Seanad, a talking shop that struggles to justify its existence.

And now here’s your starter for three – who are the MEPs for the Dublin constituency? The answer is at bottom of the column.

I know that sounds like a hard judgement as there are some very hard-working MEPs and some of the committees are effective. And yes, the parliament has acquired more power in recent weeks, but the relationship with the other two institutions remains very lopsided, a small satellite to two mega planets.

But for most of the general population, their only meaningful encounter with the parliament comes when its elections are held every five years.

And if you look at the way those election campaigns have been run, they have mostly been about just about everything else except the politics of Europe. A little analogous to the presidential elections, they have tended to be political beauty contests with more emphasis on image and style than substance.

That said, parties put a lot of emphasis on the elections, as they can give a psychological boost during the mid-term and also allow smaller parties a chance to acquire a national platform.

The Green Party had two MEPs for a long period even though its national figures were tiny. The Socialist Party leader Joe Higgins won a seat in the European Parliament in 2009, two years after losing his Dáil seat. The seat gave the party profile and funding at a time when its stock was low.

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has announced that he will stand and if he wins a seat next year, it may give the same adrenalin shot to his party, after it reached rock bottom after the General Election two years ago.

Similarly, the European elections gave Fine Gael a massive fillip in 2004 and established a solid platform for the future, only two years after a disastrous General Election. It won five of the seats including getting two candidates (Avril Doyle and Mairead McGuinness) elected in the East constituency.

The expansion of the EU has meant that Ireland’s number of seats will be reduced to 11 for next year’s elections. The group which will recommend the changes will not be reporting until September (it’s very late, I know!) and the most likely outcome is the country will have three constituencies.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.