Break It To Build It
Party affiliation is another aspect of Dáil Deputy metadata. Its usefulness may be limited when dealing with parliamentary questions, as although they are a primary method of holding a Government to account, the questions are not by necessity party political in nature. Consequently, it may be worth considering if introducing the extra dimension of party affiliation hinders, rather than helps, interpretation of question data.
Nevertheless, with a packed bubble chart grouping the questions by party, it is possible to visualise which parties ask the most questions, which should, all things being equal, be a function of the number of how many Deputies each party has. The packed bubble chart appears to bear this out, although it is worth noting the main Opposition parties of Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin both asked more questions than the Fine Gael Government party, perhaps suggesting that parliamentary questions are used more by those in Opposition. It is also worth noting how the number of questions asked by smaller parties and Independent Deputies was indicative but not a function of their size; indeed, many punched well above their weight.
Deputy metadata can be structured in a hierarchy so as to allow parties to be broken down into question information for each Deputy. This reveals the wide variance in the numbers of questions asked by the public representatives, including the effect of outliers like Deputy Michael Healy-Rae and Deputy Bernard Durkan.
