THE IRISH political and economic model was fundamentally broken and a new development paradigm was needed, NUI Maynooth politics lecturer Dr Mary Murphy told the MacGill Summer School.
The current crisis had opened up possibilities to move from an unsustainable past to a better future and this project could be advanced through the vision of a “second republic”.
Ireland renewed its model of economic development in the 1920s, 1950s and 1980s, but had never renewed its institutions to achieve the capacity to avoid a boom-to-bust model.
Nineteen republics were established between the first and second World Wars but Ireland was the only one still extant.
Many republics went through processes of self-transformation, she said. France was the obvious example, now in its fifth republic, while Kenya made 49 changes to its constitution in 2010 to found its second republic.
The development of a second republic should be underpinned by values of active citizenship, participation, equality and sustainability.
The failures of Irish politics included the relatively passive nature of Irish civil society and the absence of an active public sphere.
Social partnership had consolidated a political culture that avoided the contestation of ideas, according to Dr Murphy, who is co- author with Prof Peadar Kirby of Towards A Second Republic: Irish Politics after the Celtic Tiger.
