Talk:Government of the 33rd Dáil

Including Ministers of State on this page

A good faith edit by @Edl-irishboy added all the Ministers of State announced yesterday to this page, under the heading which was then in place Ministers of State attending cabinet. As only three of the MoS attend cabinet, I've edited the page to correct for this. But it brings me to a discussion which I had planned to reinstigate. This is effectively relisting of a proposal I made last year. Now with particular focus on the pages, I hope it might prompt more discussion. I propose that in all instances, back to Parliamentary Secretaries of the 3rd Dáil, the lists of junior ministers would appear on the relevant Government page. This is done on Wikipedia in a number of other jurisdictions, e.g. Second Johnson ministry, Second Philippe government, Third Rutte cabinet, Fourth Merkel cabinet. I would propose having the table of Ministers of State below that of the table of Members of the Government, clearly indicating in the text that they are legally distinct group. I would use the table with full information on MoS responsibilities and departments, as not on Ministers of State of the 33rd Dáil. To summarise the reasons:

• It shows the reader at a glance what the breakdown is between parties in a coalition, at both levels of minsiterial rank, and also how they may balance departments, with a cabinet minister from one party, and a junior minister from another. This is helpful for governments going back to near the foundation of the state: take Parliamentary Secretaries of the 6th Dáil, with the Farmers' Party getting a junior, showing its role in support for the Executive Council. Or how in Parliamentary Secretaries of the 13th Dáil, Clann na Talmhan got a junior, to balance the two cabinet positions Clann na Poblachta got.
• In the cases of reshuffles, it's clearer when someone rises from junior ranks
• In the case of resignations, they tell part of the story of a government; a Shortall or Creighton resigning is part of the incidents within the government, just as much as Shatter or Fitzgerald.
• Some Ministers of State attend cabinet, but they are still legally distinct, receiving their appointment from the government rather than the president. They remain creatures of statute rather than the Constitution, but it is useful to list those at least on the Government pages. This proposal would list them in the table of Ministers of State, while noting that they attend cabinet. This avoids duplication, when treating the legal distinction appropriately.
• While certainly distinct, they are not entirely separate. There is a sequence which has been followed in nearly all instances, such that the same Dáil debate references can be often used for lists of ministers and for lists of ministers of state (nomination of Taoiseach; announcement of appointment of Taoiseach and nomination of members of the government; announcement of appointment of members of the government and of ministers of state).

Possible models for this would be:

• User:Iveagh Gardens/sandbox/Government of the 32nd Dáil — Including both governments on the same page where there is a change of Taoiseach, so simply taking what we currently do and adding the Ministers of State table in the appropriate place.
• User:Iveagh Gardens/sandbox/31st Government of Ireland — With a separate page for each new government with a new Taoiseach. In fairness, that's a whole separate debate, and one I think worth exploring, again it's what's done for most other jurisdictions. But even if there's no interest in that change, I see clear benefits to merging the Ministers of State into the regular government pages.

Even if we opt to keep governments within the same Dáil on the same page, I don't think it's unwieldily long, given the nature of such pages. Again, see the detail on Second Johnson ministry. These pages should have as much relevant information to the government as is reasonable. Given that some of these pages include additional information, such as events within the government, I'd certainly contend that Ministers of State are relevant. –Iveagh Gardens (talk) 09:35, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Support This would lead to better cohesion of related information and make it easier to edit everything. I don't think the nature of how long these articles will be is an issue as they are always going to be naturally long, but they're actually pretty easy to read due to the lack of walls of text; instead, the tables makes everything easier. I support! Eolais|Talk|Contribs 11:39, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Support I only created the new Ministers of State article as one existed for previous Dails - this makes more sense to have everything in one article JW 1961 Talk 12:57, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Support Well said. Merging will make more sense and it will be easier to edit on one page. Edl-irishboy (talk) 14:43, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Oppose - This is at least the third time Iveagh Gardens has tried to merge Cabinet Ministers and Ministers of State. Just goes to show, that if you refuse to accept consensus and keep up a war of attrition, you may get your way. Anyway, my arguments against are: Ease of navigation is a poor argument, just follow the relevant link, no reason Wikipedia should use the Irish Governments website as its template.I see no advantage to having to all on one page, just makes for a very long, unwieldy, hard to follow/read page. Also, Cabinet ministers are constitutional officers, where as MoS are appointed by the Taoiseach on a legislative basis, so there is a clear distinction, so they shouldn't all be lumped into one article. Spleodrach (talk) 11:48, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Support Not really a great reason to keep them separate. There are directly related, why have two articles discussing the same topic, separate, if they can be combined into one. B. M. L. Peters (talk) 04:17, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

In the discussion above, we're at five to one in favour of merging. As I noted in opening, I had previously proposed this in August 2019, which adds two new voices to the discussion from that above, with I hope I'm not mischaracterising, a proposed compromise and weak support. My issue with the proposed compromise last year was that it would have created duplication across different pages, and possible later divergences, a view shared by one other of the contributors then. Looking back to the earlier discussion, which was mainly about splitting governments within a Dáil term into separate articles in July 2018, doesn't add any new voices. It didn't prompt any serious discussion, with one voice in opposition after my own proposal.

Taking the three discussions into account, it looks like there is a consensus in favour of merging the pages. However, I acknowledge my bias as the proposer. I've clearly long seen having all ministerial positions on one page as the better way to organise the pages, as long as all constitutional distinctions are very clear. Although we're at the customary week reserved for discussion, I might wait till the weekend being making any changes, in case anyone sees merit in a RfC. I'll start from the 3rd Dáil and move forward, in case there are further changes or clarifications of department titles in the case of the current government. There's been very little take-up on the proposal of splitting pages where there have been multiple government, so I don't propose to move on that. They are, in fairness, separate questions, and it was the Ministers of State to this page being added that prompted me to restart this discussion. —Iveagh Gardens (talk) 08:31, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Over the weekend, I finished the process of merging these series of pages. I hopefully have distinguished between cabinet-level government ministers and the ministers of state through being clear and precise about the form of appointment in each case:

• Taoiseach, nominated by the Dáil, appointed by the president
• government ministers, nominated by the Taoiseach, approved by the Dáil, appointed by the president
• attorney general, nominated by the Taoiseach, appointed by the president
• ministers of state, nominated by the Taoiseach, appointed by the government

There may of course be other guidelines in presentation we might want to establish through these pages. —Iveagh Gardens (talk) 07:16, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Splitting pages into government, rather than Dáil

As mentioned in the previous discussion, I previously made the case for organising these pages by Government, rather than within Dáil. On that basis, there would be two separate pages for the 2016 to 2020 period, 30th Government of Ireland and 31st Government of Ireland, and if all goes according to the agreement between the current parties, we'd have the same for this Dáil period, one for 2020–22, and one for 2022–25. At the moment, when there are two separate governments within the same Dáil period, the pages work as one on top of the other, each with separate infoboxes, where it's the norm to have just one infobox per page, and at the very top of the page. Fairly much all other countries have their lists of ministers separated according to government, rather than legislative terms (e.g. Castex government First Johnson ministry, see the various examples on Template:EU governments, as they are distinct entities. In lists, tables (Taoiseach, Irish heads of government since 1919, Irish cabinets since 1919, List of women cabinet ministers of the Republic of Ireland and templates (Template:Governments of Ireland, we link them separately. We even link them within the same page, from within the infoboxes, linking to a government further below or above. Per the last point in WP:DONOTFIXIT, "If editors persistently use a redirect instead of an article title, it may be that the article needs to be moved rather than the redirect changed. As such the systematic "fixing of redirects" may eradicate useful information which can be used to help decide on the "best" article title." There's something in the fact that we do see the merit in linking governments by cabinet rather than Dáil.

Having separate pages reflects their legal distinctiveness, and can also reflect the reality from time to time. This year was an unusual one, and I made the case before it happened, but we had the 31st government, listed on Government of the 32nd Dáil, governing and even legislating a fair bit into this 33rd Dáil. We could get away with fewer subheading levels too, which we get with 23rd Government of Ireland and 24th Government of Ireland.

I don't think it's an issue that have Executive Council from 1922 and then have Governments from 1937. We have similar changes in titles there and at other periods of Irish history. We don't have any templates dependent on a consistent naming pattern. There greater difficulty is with the revolutionary period. Those three could be left as they are, as we already have First Dáil, Second Dáil and Third Dáil articles, in a way we don't have for others, and there's enough to discuss there on those terms. Although arguably, calling either of the Provisional Governments governments of any Dáil is a misnomer, as they weren't approved by the Dáil. My previous proposal had been to lists those governments on the pages of Ministry of Dáil Éireann and Provisional Government of Ireland (1922). But we probably better deciding if this is worthwhile at all first, and then considering the revolutionary period.

There is already one vote against, when I proposed this in in July 2018, and a further suggestion from another contributor in favour in August 2018, in the context of developing the narrative parts of these governments. That's a bigger project, which needs more references so that major events are chosen objectively and described fairly. I've done a bit of that by adding references to referendums, and some major foreign policy developments. I think there's a decent argument if we're doing more of that to have them on separate pages. For example, even within the coalition government of 1989-92, we can describe O'Malley's relationship with Haughey qutie differently to those with Reynolds, and the reasons for the two governments' ultimate demise. A similar case can be made with other governments.

I'm not going to formally propose moving them at this stage, partly because I've just completed a series of moves that involved a bit of work. But if at any stage between now and December 2022, when I think the case for this might become more apparent when we have a second government again, and anyone else sees merit in having this discussion, I have the arguments here. —Iveagh Gardens (talk) 07:16, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Split by government

I propose splitting this page into 32nd Government of Ireland and 33rd Government of Ireland, and if agreed, to similarly split or move pages from 1922 to be named for government number rather than Dáil. I've given the reasons above in a notice when the coalition was formed. I'll summarise these as:

• Recognising formal legal position: each new government under a new Taoiseach is a separate entity, not simply a reshuffle (however it might be discussed). An encyclopedia can reasonably use different ways of structuring than the media might.
• Structure of the page themselves: where this is more than one government in a Dáil, these pages are effectively structured one one page on tope of another, with two separate infoboxes, each with its own navigation template at the very end. They follow a structure of appointment, lists of ministers, and other information, before effectively starting again with the second government. Also, in mobile devices, the infobox information is used to show an image for the page as a whole, which doesn't reflect the second government, and section links to the second government within a Dáil term don't work as well in the app as on a desktop browser.
• Relationship to other pages: on pages like Irish cabinets since 1919, they are linked and listed as if they're separate.

I appreciate that Spleodrach may argue that I've made this case before, both directly in 2018 and indirectly, such as the above discussion on merging Ministers of State. However, even in the years since, these pages have undergone further development, such as including a vote for Taoiseach box in all cases, information about votes of confidence, and other relevant information, so that the case for this being a WP:CONTENTSPLIT is stronger. As to a consistent naming (Executive Council vs Government), we already have an inconsistency between Government of the Nth Dáil and Nth Government of Ireland since the split of Government of the 27th Dáil into 23rd Government of Ireland and 24th Government of Ireland, as proposed by jnestorius. If there's an inconsistency, better that it reflect a change in the constitution in 1937 than the sufficiency of change in a coalition. As to the work involved, from experience with similar moves, including of the Ministers of State, and changes in organisation of constituencies, it can be done relatively efficiently (e.g., using WP:AWB.

One argument I'd see against is that this is the same coalition, subject to the same programme for government, and grouping them on the same page reflects that. Even at that, given the structural issues I've discussed, I think the balance of the argument favours a split, while clearly using the introductory text to link back to the previous government. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 07:25, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Has WT:IE been notified? Spleodrach (talk) 10:53, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Oppose - seems to be designed for editors rather than readers? I mean, there were what - four changes of minister, and that's including Taoiseach/Tánaiste? The "new" government has the same coalition, working to the exact same programme, and other governments have had far more changes than in terms of personnel. The general practice in Ireland is to refer to "nn Dáil" rather than "nn Government of Ireland". I know in 5 years time if I'm looking up who was the minister of that temporary department that was split off from Education, I think I'd be looking up 33rd Dáil rather than 32nd Government of Ireland. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 14:10, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Oppose - As I said before, Iveagh Gardens is proposing a whole lots of moves for no gain at all. Now, they are in the format of Government of the Nth Dáil. Moving some to Nth Government of Ireland and the rest to Nth Executive Council of the Irish Free State is not helpful, as there is no consistent naming format. Nor do I see any valid arguments for a separate page when there is a change of Taoiseach in the same Dáil. The Dáil has not changed, there has been no general election, so there is no need for 2 separate articles. Spleodrach (talk) 17:37, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Weak oppose – 27th Dáil was obviously more exceptional than this since the party composition changed. I admit the 2010 discussion was limited, but I stand by that split without thinkig it's a precedent for a more general change. We don't have separate articles for a reshuffle, even when parties quit in Jan 1987 and Jan 2011; and cases like the present are in effect a reshuffle where the Taoiseach is among the portfolios to change. It's more efficient to have the rotating Taoiseach explained in one article rather than two. OTOH, the most minimal change is between 4th and 5th Executive Councils of the Irish Free State, where the Government of the 6th Dáil resigned on a technically and was immediately reappointed with no portfolio changes — does Iveagh Gardens propose separate articles here as well? jnestorius^(talk) 21:32, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I'd agree that the 1994 split makes sense however we resolve this, I wouldn't argue that this has to follow from that, although it did introduce a naming inconsistency. My argument is based more on structure than an assessment of the extent of the change: each page is laid out in a structured way, which now hides the second government within a Dáil further down. 1987 and 2011 (and Nov 1994) aren't quite the same; although the party composition changed, it was a case of ministers leaving a government which limped on, rather than a new government. This had originally occurred to me post-2017, when there actually was some personnel change around the cabinet table (at least more than the AG!), so this year is less compelling on its own, but would argue it as a general change. As to 1930, while I certainly wouldn't argue it on its own, if we split other pages (which now looks unlikely!), I'd suggest it there too for consistency. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 07:04, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

• strongly support constitutionnaly two governments.

Panam2014 (talk) 02:38, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't seem like there's a consensus, but to summarise my case here: my argument for a split isn't about the extent of the changes on this occasion, but that it's reasonable for an encyclopedia to use official distinctions of a new government as when to start a new page, even if the media will simply call it a reshuffle. It also means that anyone clicking a link for the current government will clearly see the current Taoiseach in the infobox, as per this mock-up. Further, that since these pages have developed beyond a mere list of names of ministers, the page on any of these occasions (whether this year, 2017, 2008, or so on) has a doubled structure, with a natural split at the change of Taoiseach, with the second government quite far down, a fresh infobox halfway through the page. As to the name change in 1937, I don't see any harm in the different constitutional basis being recognised. If the consensus is not to split this and similar (and rename other to align), the distinction is of course worth maintaining through section redirects. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 08:30, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

This is closed now, please accept the consensus and give it a rest. Spleodrach (talk) 18:47, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Certainly, I'm happily working away on other pagess where there's no dispute. From my experience in other discussions though, as there's been at least one other contributor in favour of my proposal, I think it needs non-involved editor to formally close the discussion. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 18:55, 6 January 2023 (UTC)