Ireland’s 1937 constitution is one of the most enduring in Europe. It is also one of the very few constitutions to have been changed through a process that began with a mixed sortition chamber.2 This chapter discusses the operation, outputs, and outcomes of the 2012–14 Irish Constitutional Convention, a unique minipublic that seated randomly selected citizens alongside public officials.3 This process resulted in a referendum to guarantee marriage equality in Ireland, thus making it the first country to do so through a public vote.
In this chapter, we focus on the uniqueness of the Irish Constitutional Convention. By combining a sortition element (the random selection of members from the general public) and a representative element (the proportionate allocation of places to members of parliament), the Irish case provides a test case of the potential of deliberation in mixed sortition bodies. Mixing two very different sets of members risked inequalities of voice—with the politicians dominating the proceedings—and suboptimal outcomes.
To recount the experience of the convention, we first outline how random selection came to be adopted as a legitimate method for debating constitutional reform in Ireland. After detailing the origins and design of the convention, we describe its deliberative process, which followed key principles aimed to achieve equality among the convention’s members, but especially between the citizen and public representative members. We then review the convention’s outcomes, including its realization of procedural equality. We conclude by discussing the ongoing efforts to incorporate sortition into Irish governmental and constitutional decision-making.
The Origins of the Irish Constitutional Convention
Ireland was one of the European countries most affected by the Great Recession. Its banking sector imploded and required an EU/IMF financial bailout in November 2010. There was a general sense that many of the major institutions of Irish life—the political parties, the Catholic Church, the banking system, the civil service—had failed the Irish people and that a process of renewal was required.4 Indeed, the crisis prompted a reassessment of relations between the government and citizens, with questions over the existing political system’s overall fitness.5 For many observers, the crisis showed that Ireland’s political and economic establishment had failed. This led to calls for political reform and reform of the 1937 constitution, which critics found increasingly wanting.
This provided an interesting dichotomy: In Ireland the sole route to constitutional change is via referendum and a binding majoritarian vote of the people (with no minimum turnout threshold). The word of the people is binding, yet the people have no role in determining the subject of referendums—or even their wording. There is no citizen initiative in Ireland. Instead, placing policy questions on the ballot is the purview of the executive.6 There were some civil society activists and academics (two of the current authors included) who argued that constitutional reform should take a deliberative approach, using sortition to directly involve citizens. This could give the process democratic legitimacy and potentially reconfigure future democratic practices.7
It was in this context that all of the major Irish political parties published substantial sections on political reform in their manifestos before the 2011 election.8 In particular, the two parties that went on to form the government set out specific proposals for a citizen-oriented constitutional review process. The Labour Party proposed a constitutional convention to draw up a new constitution for the Ireland of the twenty-first century. The party stated that it was “time for a fundamental review of our Constitution, by the people to whom it belongs.” Labour proposed that one third of the convention’s members would be drawn from the parliament, one third would be members of civil society organizations (or have relevant legal or academic expertise), and one third would be ordinary citizens chosen by lot. This body’s mandate would be to review the constitution and draft a reformed one within a year. The larger Fine Gael party’s proposal was for a citizens’ assembly “along the lines of those used in the Netherlands, to make recommendations on electoral reform.” This was to be a sortition assembly composed of up to one hundred members chosen from the public to reflect the demographic makeup of the country.9
In negotiations between these two parties to form a coalition government, they reached a compromise. The Programme for Government proposed establishing a constitutional convention to implement “a process to ensure our Constitution meets the challenges of the 21st century, by addressing a number of specific urgent issues.”10 The convention would be given a brief to report within twelve months on seven specific matters: review of the Dáil (parliament) electoral system; reducing the presidential term to five years (from its current seven); provision for marriage equality; amending the clause on women in the home;11 measures to encourage greater participation of women in politics and public life; removing blasphemy from the constitution; possible reduction of the voting age. Also welcome were any “other relevant constitutional amendments that may be recommended by the Convention.”12
In other respects, the program was vague, notably on the composition and operation of the convention and the extent to which it would use sortition. Further details came in February 2012 when the Department of the Taoiseach (prime minister) produced a memorandum for government that proposed an agenda for the convention, its composition, reporting lines, and a timetable for its work.13 The memorandum confirmed the commitments in the Programme for Government, but with additional details and clarifications.
On the agenda, the memorandum clarified that the proposed voting-age reduction would be from eighteen years to seventeen. One additional topic not included in the Programme for Government was added: “Giving citizens the right to vote at Irish embassies in presidential elections.” The memorandum also proposed that the convention should consist of sixty-six citizens, thirty-three politicians, and an independent chair. The citizens would be chosen by sortition to be representative of the population as a whole. The politicians would reflect relative party strength in parliament. The memorandum specified that the chair would be someone with “very high levels of public acceptability, known fair-mindedness, effective chairmanship skills, and knowledge of the Constitution and the law with an ability to arrive at workable solutions, while ensuring as far as possible that all participants get a fair hearing.”
The decision that lay citizens chosen by lot would make up two-thirds of the convention was an important innovation. Nothing like this had been tried before in Ireland. Irish policy makers were influenced by the citizens’ assemblies on electoral reform in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia (2004) and Ontario (2007) and the 2006 Dutch citizens’ forum (Burgerforum),14 as well as by the 2011 We the Citizens process, a deliberative experiment run by two of the authors of this chapter.15 In all these cases, citizen members were selected at random and deliberation was the modus operandi. The convention would differ from all these, however, by including members of parliament in the deliberative body.16
A number of interest groups had sought seats at the convention, but the government took the line that lay citizens should be the members of the convention. Nongovernmental organizations and advocacy groups would be invited to present their views on the different topics. Sinn Féin, a political party that advocates for a united Ireland, had suggested that citizens from Northern Ireland be involved in the convention. The government proposed instead that each of the political parties in Northern Ireland would be asked to nominate one person from the Northern Ireland Assembly for a seat at the convention.
The proposals in the memorandum provided the basis for consultation between the government and other political parties during the first half of 2012. This in turn led to the formal resolution on the establishment of the convention presented to the Irish parliament in July 2012.17 The resolution reflected the content of the memorandum for government, but it provided additional detail. The convention composition was confirmed, along with a list of ninety-nine substitutes selected on the same criteria as the convention members. The convention was also required to have “appropriate regard to the Good Friday Agreement and the St. Andrews Agreement.”18 Beyond that, the convention would “agree [to] its own rules of procedure for the effective conduct of its business in as economical manner as possible.”
Introducing the resolution in the Dáil, Taoiseach Enda Kenny provided important insights into the government’s approach toward the convention. He stated that the convention should be founded on the principles of being innovative, independent, and influential. Innovation was reflected in the composition of the convention, with a majority of citizens. “For the first time,” Kenny said, “both the legislators who bring forward proposals for constitutional reform and the citizens who decide on the merits or otherwise of those proposals will jointly and publicly consider whether constitutional reform is necessary or desirable.”19 The independence principle meant that the convention would be independent of government, would be established by resolution of both houses of parliament, and would report to them. The influence principle could be achieved only if the convention’s recommendations “are responded to in an appropriate and timely manner.” This was the basis of a government commitment to give a response, through parliament, to each recommendation from the convention within four months. Where the government accepted a recommendation for a referendum, it would include a time frame for such a vote.
Following the formal establishment of the convention, the government put in place a number of administrative arrangements. A secretariat was appointed, headed by a senior civil servant who had extensive experience with parliamentary committees and working with parliamentarians. The secretariat hired a polling company to assist in the selection of the sixty-six representative citizens in a process of stratified random selection, requiring the sample to fill proportionate quotas (based on the electoral register) for gender, age, social class, and geography. In practice, about one in forty of the citizens approached ultimately agreed to become convention members.
Four political parties from the Northern Ireland Assembly agreed to participate in the convention: Sinn Féin, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Alliance Party, and the Green Party. The two main unionist parties—the Democratic Unionist Party and the Ulster Unionist Party—refused the invitation.20 This meant that the political representation in the convention consisted of twenty-nine parliamentarians from the republic, reflecting party strength in parliament, and four members of the Northern Ireland Assembly. The formal announcement of the appointment of Tom Arnold as chair was made to the Dáil in October, and the first meeting of the convention was set for Dublin Castle in December 2012.
In the lead-up to the opening meeting, skepticism about the convention was expressed in political, academic, and media circles. Some critics judged the convention’s agenda as too narrow. Others questioned whether the proposed model of deliberative democracy, involving randomly selected citizens and politicians, would work. In addition, there were questions over whether the government would take the exercise seriously, notwithstanding the commitment to provide a response to each recommendation within four months and set a time frame for those recommendations that should go to referendum.21
Institutionalizing Equality in the Convention Process
Opening the first working meeting of the convention on January 26, the chair proposed that the convention should work on the basis of a series of operational principles, of which the key one was equality, namely that all members should be given equal voice in the deliberations of the convention. This goal was of overriding importance given the mixed membership: there were initial concerns that the politician members with their greater expertise in public affairs and public speaking than most of the citizen members might dominate proceedings.
The other principles that the chair enunciated—openness, fairness, efficiency, and collegiality—while significant in their own right, were in large part designed to support the main goal of equality. Openness referred to the need to operate with complete transparency, with all plenary sessions being broadcast live on the convention’s website. Submissions on each topic would be solicited from the public and interest groups and all submissions would be published on the website. The convention would also be fair in the sense that the full spectrum of views would be heard on every issue, and the briefing material for convention members should be impartial and of the highest quality. This was especially important as the convention would deal with sensitive topics such as marriage equality and blasphemy, on which there would be deeply held and divided views within Irish society. It was important too that the convention would operate efficiently: well-run meetings would be necessary, as they would take place from a Saturday up until lunchtime on Sunday. This was a short time for deliberation and decisions on complex issues and thus required effective use of meeting time. Finally, there was the principle of collegiality, which was required to ensure that the one hundred convention members would operate in a spirit of friendship and common purpose.
In proposing these operational principles, the chair had not drawn on any existing blueprint. Rather, he had formulated the principles based on reading the literature of other examples of deliberative democracy,22 and making a judgment on what was appropriate for Irish circumstances and political culture. The deliberative approach was also reinforced by the facilitators, who asked members to follow the world café rules of respectful and inclusive participation. The convention’s deliberative procedure included mixing open plenary sessions with private roundtable discussions; arranging members in mixed (politicians and citizens) groups at tables of eight; and using trained facilitators to ensure that all members had an opportunity to speak, discussions stayed on topic, and members were respectful of each other’s opinions.
In general, each weekend-long session had the following components: presentations by experts who had prepared the briefing papers for convention members; presentations by advocacy groups representing a range of perspectives on the topic under discussion; roundtable discussions, guided by suggested questions; presentations of the content and conclusions of these roundtable discussions back to plenary sessions; framing of a ballot paper on which to vote; securing agreement from the convention on this ballot paper; voting on the ballot paper; and reporting the outcome to the convention.
A number of practical issues arose while trying to follow this meeting format. The academic and legal team played an important role in identifying and securing top-quality experts to prepare briefing papers for convention members. Papers were required to be short (typically four to five pages in length), written in simple and clear English, and free of any advocacy. The papers were circulated one week in advance of the meeting. Then the experts needed to be available on Saturday morning to make a presentation and answer questions at plenary sessions and during roundtable discussions.
Selection of the advocacy groups requested to present to the convention was done by the chair and secretariat in consultation with a steering group that included citizen and politician members. This required an exercise in judgment, guided by the operational principles the convention had adopted, as there were invariably more groups who wanted to present than there was time available to hear them. Public submissions, academic “expert” presentations, and stakeholder panels informed the convention’s deliberations. In the case of invited speakers, care was taken to ensure a wide range of opinions, perspectives, experiences, and political views. A close eye was kept to the gender mix of presenters and panelists. The convention also monitored the gender balance at the roundtables. Members’ feedback was sought each weekend to ensure the process was reflective and responsive to members’ needs.
Each roundtable discussion included groups of seven or eight members. These tables were arranged in advance by the head of the secretariat, who ensured that there was an appropriate mix of politicians and citizens and that no cliques emerged. A trained facilitator and notetaker sat at each table. The task of the facilitator was to moderate the discussion and to ensure that everyone was involved. The notetaker captured the range of discussion and any conclusions reached. The notetakers subsequently reported to the academic and legal team, who presented a summary of the discussion back to plenary (typically using a slide presentation). This was regarded as the most efficient use of time, obviating the need for individual tables to report back, and allowing further discussion at plenary.23
Work on framing a ballot paper on which to vote normally commenced on Saturday evening, involving the chair, secretariat, and academic and legal team. The ballot paper was finalized on Sunday morning and presented to a plenary session for approval. Both framing the paper and securing approval for it were frequently challenging, but they were always done within the allocated time.
In the next section we assess the extent to which the convention abided by its operational principles—and particularly its key principle of equality. Before getting to this, we first summarize the main outputs of the convention.
The agenda of eight topics set out in the resolution establishing the convention were covered in seven meetings during 2013. The convention then obtained agreement from the government for a two-month extension to its twelve-month time frame, giving it time to examine two additional topics—Dáil reform and economic, social, and cultural rights.24
In total, the convention operated for fourteen months, meeting on average about once a month (with the exception of the summer period). The ten topics it discussed resulted in almost forty recommendations, which appear in table 5.1. Over half of these would not require constitutional reform to implement (for instance, recommendations to establish an electoral commission).
Table 5.1. The outcomes of the Irish Constitutional Convention.
Topic |
ICC output |
Government reaction |
Action? |
Reduction of presidential term |
Three recommendations |
Government accepted two; rejected one |
Referendum on presidential age defeated May 2015 |
Reduce voting age |
One recommendation |
Government accepted this |
Referendum promised for 2019 |
Role of women in home/public life |
Two recommendations |
Ministerial task force to investigate further |
Referendum on women in the home held in October 2018 |
Increasing women’s participation in politics |
Three recommendations |
Ministerial task force to investigate further |
No further updates; appears to have disappeared from the political agenda |
Marriage equality |
Two recommendations |
Government agreed to referendum and to supporting legislation |
Referendum passed (May 2015) and legislation passed |
Ten recommendations |
Government promised to establish an electoral commission and to task it with addressing four of the other recommendations; remaining five recommendations rejected |
Parliamentary Committee on the Environment published a report (January 2016) supporting electoral commission establishment; its establishment is still an “active” promise of the government |
|
Votes for emigrants / N. Ireland residents in presidential elections |
One recommendation |
To be investigated further |
Referendum promised for 2019 |
Blasphemy |
Two recommendations |
Government has agreed to principle of referendum, but no date set |
Referendum promised for October 2018 |
Dáil reform |
Thirteen recommendations |
Government accepted three, rejected two, and gave ambiguous responses to the rest |
There was a major overhaul of Dáil procedures that implemented the bulk of the ICC’s recommendations. |
Economic, social, and cultural rights |
Two recommendations |
To be investigated further |
Appears to have disappeared from the political agenda |
Note: For more details, see Farrell et al. (2017).
The convention’s recommendations were nonbinding: it was an advisory rather than a declaratory body. On its establishment, the government committed to responding to its reports in a timely fashion by way of parliamentary debate. Eighteen of the convention’s recommendations would require constitutional reform, and of these just two were taken forward to a vote of the people in May 2015 (on marriage equality and the age of presidential candidates). The remainder, together with the bulk of the recommendations that wouldn’t require referendum, have faced a longer path to implementation, as reflected in the final column of table 5.1.
Undoubtedly, the most significant constitutional output of the convention was a recommendation to hold a referendum on marriage equality—a cause the Irish LGBTQ community had championed for years. The smaller coalition partner, the Labour Party, had promised a referendum on this issue in its election manifesto in 2011. However, the more senior partner, Fine Gael, had a more lukewarm position on the matter—one reason why it was referred to the constitutional convention in the first place.
When the convention’s July 2013 report recommended that the constitution be amended to introduce marriage equality, it marked the first time in Irish history that a referendum was called as a result of public deliberation. It was also one of the first times in the world that a deliberative process based on sortition resulted in a constitutional referendum. More than that, the vote succeeded:25 in May 2015, the referendum passed with support from 62 percent of Irish voters.
On the same day as the marriage equality referendum, voters were asked if they wanted to reduce the minimum age for presidential candidates from thirty-five to twenty-one years of age. This referendum, which also emanated from a proposal at the constitutional convention, was sidelined due to focus on the marriage equality referendum. It attracted virtually no coverage, and it was evident on Election Day that most voters were unaware of this second referendum.26 The proposal barely won the support of one-quarter of the electorate (26.9 percent), marking the worst outcome of any Irish referendum.27
Equality of Voice in a Hybrid Sortition Chamber
In examining how the convention operated, we can refer to the five operational principles established by the chair at its first meeting. As discussed above, each of these was in large part centered on the fundamental guiding principle of equality. In this section we start with an analysis of how each of the principles were operationalized in practice. This is followed by a more detailed assessment of the extent to which the convention was successful in meeting the overriding goal of equality.
Operationalizing the Convention’s Five Principles
The principle of openness was expressed in practice through the development of a convention website and the livestreaming of the convention’s plenary sessions. In effect, the focus of this principle was on equality of access for those outside the process. The website contained all the submissions made to the convention. A total of 1,536 submissions were made on the eight topics on the original convention agenda, while an additional 800 submissions were made on the two additional topics agreed on following public consultation. The livestreaming of the convention’s plenary sessions had a significant number of viewers, both in Ireland and abroad.
The fairness principle was designed in large part to ensure that all members had equal opportunity to become informed on the matters being discussed. This is shown in terms of the documentation presented to convention members and the selection of experts and advocacy groups to present to the convention. The advisory and legal team played a key role in identifying academics who were the leaders in their fields and were noted for their independence and not being identified with a partisan position on the different topics. Adhering to these criteria meant excluding a significant number of people whose public position of a particular topic was known and who were effectively advocates for a particular position. Experts commissioned to produce papers were given guidelines by the academic and legal team on the expected length, format, and balance of the papers.
Advocacy groups were normally included in the program on Saturday in the late morning or after lunch, following the presentation of papers by the chosen experts and a first set of roundtable discussions. There were inevitably more advocacy groups who wished to present to the convention than there was time available; thus, choices had to be made by the secretariat in consultation with the steering group as to which groups were to present. This was done with the aim of ensuring that a spectrum of views on the particular topic was presented to the convention. Guidance was given to the advocacy groups chosen as to the time they had available and the mode of operation of the convention.
The need to properly consider complex topics and arrive at recommendations in the space of one and a half days put a particular importance on the operational principle of efficiency. At the most basic level, this required strict timekeeping—namely, starting and finishing all the different component parts of the weekend on time. Infrastructure was put in place to ensure that the convention ran efficiently, including an effective secretariat, the advisory and legal team, facilitators and notetakers, a communications team, and a website with the associated support. It was a distinct advantage that the head of the secretariat knew most of the parliamentarians and carried authority. It was also critically important that the chair and the head of the secretariat developed a warm personal relationship and effective working arrangement.
The budget allocated to the convention was modest—€300,000 in 2013—so the secretariat was required to show ingenuity in securing services at competitive prices. This was backed up by a considerable spirit of voluntarism and pro bono contribution: the convention members were giving freely of their time albeit with their traveling and accommodation expenses being covered. Thus, none of the experts who prepared papers or otherwise contributed were paid.
The collegiality principle was of profound importance to the success of the convention. This was about helping to create a positive atmosphere within the group, seeking to avoid any domination of voice by any members, and ensuring a spirit of respect between members and toward the process. The design of the weekend had a role to play in assisting the development of collegiality. Many of the members from parts of the country outside Dublin arrived at the hotel on the Friday evening: a reception provided the basis for people to get to know each other at the beginning and renew friendships as the convention developed. The Saturday program was intense, albeit with coffee breaks and lunch, and concluded on time at 5:30 p.m. An informal dinner was held on Saturday evening. The dinner, along with whatever continuation there was in the bar afterward, was an important part of building relationships between convention members, whether citizen or politician.
The availability of convention members on the Friday evening was also used, for certain of the sessions, to provide them with a more detailed briefing on the topics they would consider over the weekend. This was particularly important for a number of the citizen members who were not well informed about topics such as electoral reform and Dáil reform.
While the value of establishing collegiality among the convention members could be regarded as a positive, it could also bring the risk that over time the members might settle into a routine of uncritically adopting recommendations. To guard against this, the head of the secretariat arranged the membership of the tables at each meeting. This ensured that there was an appropriate mix of politicians and citizens at each table, and it aimed to ensure that no cliques emerged with different arrangements each week.
Finally, the primary principle of equality had applied in advance of the establishment of the convention through the process of selection of members. There had been a concern that politicians might dominate citizens in the proceedings, given their greater expertise in public affairs and public speaking. As it turned out, this was not a problem. The citizen members, after a slow start in some cases, proved more than capable of holding their own in the discussions. The chair also had the responsibility of ensuring that a balance was struck during the plenary sessions between politicians and citizens and that no particular voice or voices were allowed to dominate. The fact that facilitators were present at the roundtable discussions, with instructions to ensure engagement of all the people in the group, assisted in this regard. Indeed, the facilitators also ensured equality of voice between the participants in order to ensure that those who had more formal education—or more assertiveness—did not dominate.
Assessing the Equality Principle
We know from many deliberative forums that simply including people in a process, though essential, does not guarantee equality of voice.28 As political scientists Christopher Karpowitz and Chad Raphael note, ensuring “inclusion in practice is often far more complex than merely opening the doors of the forum to all comers or even than inviting a simple random sample of the public at large.”29 In this instance of a mixed sortition chamber, there was good reason for concern that the professional politicians, used as they are to public speaking and debate, could dominate the discussions.
The issue of politician dominance over a deliberative process featured in a recent British experiment. The 2015 Democracy Matters Citizens’ Assembly research project was a joint venture involving academics and practitioners who sought to test the potential for a constitutional minipublic in the British context. Informed by the Canadian and Irish experiences, the research team designed two city-based minipublic experiments, one involving only citizen members (the Canadian model) and the other a mix of citizen and politician members (the Irish hybrid model). Their evidence from surveying the members is that citizen members in the latter group were more inclined to feel that some members dominated the discussions: when probed it was clear that for the most part it was politician members who were seen to be domineering. The report’s authors conclude, “At least in the short term, inclusion of politicians decreases the quality of deliberation (including the amount of perceived domination).”30
As we shall see, however, the Irish case produces quite different findings. In a series of semistructured interviews with nine of the citizen members that were carried out in the final days of the convention, the question was posed whether the politicians dominated the roundtable discussions.31 For the most part, the citizen members held the view that the politician members did not seek to dominate. As one citizen member (male) put it quite bluntly, “[The politician members] never tried to take over the table. They’d say what they had to say, and then they’d shut up.” Another concurs: “At the roundtables, I thought everyone was pretty much equal most of the time.”
There were some exceptions to this general view. A few of the interviewees referred to individual politician members occasionally being more dominant, particularly when technical issues were being discussed (such as electoral or parliamentary reform—both issues that politicians could be expected to have strong views on). Furthermore, some interviewees noted the “subtle ways” that politicians sought to exercise influence, such as giving guidance to the notetaker on the summary of a discussion. But these appeared to be minority instances of politicians trying to dominate the roundtable deliberations. For the most part, the views of the citizen members about the role of the politician members were very positive. In addition, they did not feel that they were dominated by other citizens, whether older or better educated or for any other reason.
We have survey evidence to support this. For eight of the meetings of the convention (which each occurred over a weekend), we surveyed the members at the start of each meeting (on the Saturday morning) and toward the end (late on the Sunday morning). These surveys attracted a response rate of 57 percent to 75 percent, the bulk of the response rates being in the mid- to high sixties. In the second weekend survey in seven of the eight weekends, we asked the members whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement that “Some participants tended to dominate the discussion.”
Breaking down the 403 responses between the citizens and politicians, a marginally larger number of citizens (14 percent versus 9 percent) believed that some participants tended to dominate (see table 5.2). However, a marginally larger number of citizens also disagreed that some participants dominated the discussion. Overall, however, these numbers and the differences are too small to expect that they might have an appreciable impact overall. In a regression analysis (not reported here) that includes the week number and other demographic characteristics of the participants (age and sex), we find that the difference between politicians and citizens is not statistically significant.
Table 5.2. Responses to the question of whether some members dominated discussions.
Strongly agree |
Agree |
Neither agree nor disagree |
Disagree |
Strongly disagree |
Sample size |
|
Citizens |
5% |
9% |
16% |
14% |
57% |
310 |
Politicians |
3% |
6% |
26% |
14% |
51% |
93 |
Total |
4% |
8% |
18% |
14% |
56% |
403 |
Source: Weekly surveys of convention members.
And what of the politician members? It is not inconceivable that the (successful) strategy of the convention organizers to ensure equality of voice might have resulted in some frustration on the part of the politician members, who could have good reason to complain that their voices were not being heard sufficiently. However, based on their public utterances, it is clear that the views of the politician members of the convention were largely positive. As one independent member of the Dáil, Catherine Murphy, observed,
An important and astonishing message which has emanated from the convention is that when 100 people are put in a room together in the expectation that they will engage in a quality debate, they can be trusted to do just that. Such individuals do not have to be members of political parties or formal groups in order to take part in debates of that nature. It is amazing how people can follow a debate or a conversation and reach their own conclusions. It is a privilege to be a member of the convention which, I hope, will be given a much wider remit in the future.32
Many of the parliamentarians admitted to having been skeptics at the start of the process. As Seán Ó Fearghaíl, then the chief whip of the main opposition party, Fianna Fáil, observed in another Dáil debate,
Many of us had some doubts at the start of the convention as to whether it would be possible to maintain the level of public interest and the level of participation by members of the public and politicians in the process. However, the manner in which it has been organised and the parity of esteem which is obvious for members of the public and political representatives has ensured that, to date, the convention has been a great success.33
Another deputy—John Lyons of Labour—remarked on the growing camaraderie that grew among the citizen and politician members over time:
Thinking back to our first meeting in Dublin Castle, there was a bit of an “us and them” scenario, with “us and them” being citizens and politicians. I can remember one particular citizen standing up and asking attendees not to let the politicians do all the talking. I thought, “Oh God, here we go, this is going to be a disaster of nine months if this is the attitude.” But the ice was broken in Dublin Castle that day. Anyone who is a regular attendee of the convention at the weekends has seen that friendships have developed at each and every table across all parties, sexes and ages.34
This overall positive attitude—and particularly the willingness to admit to having been skeptical at the outset—was reflected in face-to-face interviews carried out with a number of the politician members in late June to early July 2014.35 The general view was that the convention worked “as a process.” The parliamentarians liked how the meetings went, and how everyone was engaged. A particularly appealing aspect was the informal method of operation. As one opposition Teachta Dála put it, it was “casual clothes in your head.” In short, there was plenty of positive reaction to the process.
Ireland’s national experiment with sortition has proven a success in at least three respects. In the first instance, the government implemented a large portion of the convention’s recommendations, albeit slowly in a number of cases (see table 5.1). Most prominent among these were the successful referendum on marriage equality in 2015, along with the major overhaul of parliamentary procedures in the Dáil implemented in 2016.36
Second, the convention was successful in meeting its primary organizational principle of equality. Despite its hybrid nature—in mixing sortition with conventional representation, the evidence presented in this chapter shows that both citizens and politicians were satisfied that the process was fair, respectful, and lacking in domination by one side over the other.
A final measure of the success is the fact that a subsequent Irish government decided to establish a second sortition chamber, on this occasion a pure one consisting solely of citizen members. The Programme for Partnership Government (of the current government, elected in early 2016), agreed between Fine Gael and some independents, plus the tacit support of the largest opposition party (Fianna Fáil), included a commitment to a citizens’ assembly seated entirely by sortition. This new body, which sat from late 2016 through to the spring of 2018, made recommendations to the Dáil on five further constitutional and political reforms: abortion, climate change, aging, fixed-term parliaments, and the manner in which referenda are held. Of these, the recommendations on abortion have had the most political impact to date, resulting in a government promise to hold a referendum, which was fulfilled in 2018.
The Irish experience demonstrates the virtue of sortition in providing space for reflective, respectful deliberation. Both the 2012–14 Constitutional Convention and the 2016–18 Citizens’ Assembly, however, are discrete experiments in deliberation. There is no clamour in Ireland to institutionalize this into a permanent structure, along the lines of the sortition chamber advocated by Gastil and Wright. That said, there is every likelihood that Ireland will use other sortition chambers in the future. In that sense, at least, they are likely to become part of the ecology of democratic institutions.37