Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary is running out of patience with our newly elected independent deputies and attracted fire for describing them as “local lunatics” last weekend.

He is on to something though – never before has government formation taken so long and the presence of so many sole traders, unattached to any platform or programme, devoted only to constituency issues, contributes to the confusion.

The 32nd Dáil, still struggling to select a Taoiseach and government, has 158 members. No fewer than 34 of these represent small parties or stood as independents. The four national parties won 134 seats between them – 50 for Fine Gael, 43 for Fianna Fáil, 23 for Sinn Féin and just seven for Labour, which had its worst election ever.

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Shopping list

The three mini-parties which won seats are the Anti-Austerity Alliance (six), the Social Democrats (three) and the Greens (two), with the remainder attached to no party. Enda Kenny’s representatives have been negotiating with the 23 independents for several weeks now and each appears to have a local shopping list.

One of these is the north Dublin TD Finian McGrath, a member of the six-member non-party Independent Alliance. He announced last week that his terms for supporting a minority Fine Gael government included the mandatory local hospital expenditure but also the reservation of five or six cabinet seats for independents.

The constitution limits the number of cabinet members to 15, a piece of foresight by Eamon de Valera back in 1937 for which the taxpayers should be thankful. Deputy McGrath appears to think that the Independent Alliance, which polled 4.2% of the national vote, should have all six of its members in the cabinet, or all bar one unidentified omission.

He supports a new Minister for Rural Affairs and there are demands also for a cabinet minister to deal with housing and another one for climate change.

In the recent past, there was a full minister for community, rural and Gaeltacht affairs. There was once, believe it or not, a minister for lands, and there are periodic demands for full ministries for women, fisheries, sport, children and assorted other concerns which command the political attention span for a while.

If the limit of 15 had not been imposed in the constitution, it would be standing-room only at cabinet meetings. It is a curious illusion that the allocation of a cabinet slot to a problem area is a substitute for an effective policy.

The depth and persistence of the economic slump in Europe is re-drawing the political map in many countries as the traditional parties of government lose support. The declining combined vote of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael is part of a broader pattern which has seen new political parties prosper across the continent.

What is different in Ireland is that the outcome has been such a large representation for unaligned deputies. This reflects more than public dissatisfaction with the state of the economy, it also reflects the unique Irish system of multi-seat proportional representation. Put simply, it is relatively easy for independent, or mini-party, candidates to get elected here, but virtually impossible in most European countries.

The reason is not just the 1-2-3 transferable vote, it is also the multi-seat constituency. With three, four or five seats on offer in each district, any candidate who can gather as few as 10% of the votes on the first count has a sporting chance of securing election.

Thumping endorsement

In Dublin southwest, the final seat went to an independent candidate, Katherine Zappone, who secured 6.6% – that is one vote in 15, on the first count. Ms Zappone may well make a fine contribution to the new Dáil if it lasts, but it is a bit of a stretch to pretend that she received a thumping endorsement from an enthusiastic electorate. The same is true for many of the independents elected to this Dáil.

Support for the main political parties has fractured partly because the voting system is an open invitation for deputies elected on a party ticket to jump ship on a popular issue. It is striking how many of the independents come from backgrounds in the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour parties.

Hazard

Sinn Féin, should they join a future administration, will face the same hazard.

The source of the problem is that the Irish system chooses representatives but is not designed to choose an executive. In the late 1960s, there was a live proposal to scrap, not proportional representation and the alternative vote, but the multi-seat constituencies. It was not pursued. It would have resulted in a PR election to 158 distinct constituencies with one member each. In that system, a few of the independent deputies might have managed to get elected. Far more of them would never have jumped ship from the main parties in the first place.