In the aftermath of the Lisbon treaty campaign, considerable attention has been devoted to the apparent disconnect between the electorate and the body politic. It appeared the public were engaged in one type of conversation while the professional political class seemed to be talking among themselves.

The travelling roadshows of the Forum on Europe and the Oireachtas joint committee on European affairs failed to engage the people, drawing only small crowds of political anoraks despite significant expense to the public purse. Yet people in general were quite eager to talk about Lisbon or, at least, what they thought Lisbon was about. If they couldn’t say what they wanted in traditional — public — forums, they took their views elsewhere and went online.

As Margot Wallström, European commissioner for institutional relations and communication strategy, noted in a recent report, the online discussion in Ireland had a tendency to be negative towards the treaty. Yet the EU and state’s efforts in this area hardly provided room for discussion, let alone dissension. Sites such as Lisbontreaty.ie singularly failed to engage the voting public.

Outside the state-sponsored sector though, there was a “virtual” free-for-all where the discourse was reflective of that taking place across the country. It mirrored, in all its gaudy chaos, the woolly thinking, messiness, unpredictability, bald inaccuracy, prejudices and tendency towards hyperbole, all the while exposing a broad spectrum of viewpoints for and against.

In other words, the general confusion in the public mind about what was involved in the Lisbon treaty was manifest online long before it came to the notice of the mainstream media.

Though online discussion has many flaws, it shows we have at our fingertips the means to extend democratic involvement beyond what Americans term “the beltway”. We have the capability to move away from the binary mentality that sees people as either passive voters or active politicians.

Jed Bartlet, the fictional American president on TV’s West Wing, said: “You know, we forget sometimes, in all the talk about democracy, it’s a republic. People don’t make the decisions; they choose the people who make the decisions.”

The parliamentary forms of representative democracy were created, in part, because of limitations in travel and communication. These, along with the lack of educational attainment, meant that only a minority of citizens could gather in one place and understand the issues being debated. That is no longer the case.

Public participation in the political process as evidenced by voting, party membership and attendance at public meetings has experienced a steady decline in recent decades. The focus in addressing this disengagement has primarily been on making voting more accessible, simpler and easier. This is to address the wrong problem.

Voting is, by and large, an activity that has huge popular support. It is participation in what comes before a vote is cast that is the crux of the issue. What we need to do is extend the arena of political discourse to embrace the general public. Our system of parliamentary procedure has changed little from the time of Gladstone and Parnell. Most Dail deputies aren’t even present to listen to what others have to say. Genuine debate, a real contest of ideas or even limited constructive argument, is substantially absent from the Dail.

The population could be afforded a significantly greater opportunity to be involved. For example, why not allow citizens to submit parliamentary questions or to have ministers address their questions in committee? Or even participate in the scrutiny of legislation?

In the meantime, online forums and group blogs such as Politics.ie, Irishelection.com and Sluggerotoole.com appear to be hothousing embryonic communities that may evolve into more participative forms of democracy.

If a potential transition is in prospect, it must be one that serves to underpin democracy rather than merely leading to a form of e-mob rule. Let 100,000 flowers bloom through experimentation. The public can decide the best course.

This is not a magic bullet to solve the problem; it is a diet and exercise regime to help revive the belief that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Daniel Sullivan is a software researcher, moderator of Politics.ie and was an independent candidate for the 2007 Seanad on the NUI panel. www.danielsullivan.ie

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