You theoretically could watch Irish politicians at work, from the comfort of your own home. No need to sit in the gallery. RTE doesn't offer a digital channel like BBC Parliament or C-Span in the US, but there's a webcam connected through Oireachtas. ie that lets you watch Dail proceedings to your heart's content. You just need a reasonably reliable internet connection and a lot of patience. It's Big Brother without the sex.

Last week was more eventful than most in the chamber (during those rare weeks when the Dail is in session). Take Tuesday.

There was Taoiseach's Questions in the afternoon, followed by a special debate that evening about the Dublin riots that followed the abortive Love Ulster march. The first turned, as usual, into an extended argument over what people were allowed to argue about. The Dublin riots debate attracted perhaps 10% of TDs to the chamber, to debate the most serious breakdown of order on the capital's streets in 25 years.

So one of the reasons that no one knows what politicians actually do for a living is that the formal heart of the Irish political system, the Dail chamber, is empty . . . of warm bodies and meaningful debate. The truth is that over the last 30odd years Irish politics has outsourced its main responsibilities, to be taken up by specialists in quiet, out-of-the-way places, in a process that has steadily eroded the legitimacy not just of politicians but of the state itself.

This is a state of affairs that most people recognise but few will articulate. The reason people don't know what most politicians do is that most people suspect it doesn't matter. And they're right.

Who really decides the things that matter? JeanClaude Trichet, Neelie Kroes, a changing cast of a handful of judges, Margaret Curley and Bertie Ahern.

For those who don't know, Jean-Claude Trichet is the guy who just raised your mortgage payments. He's the president of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt who with his board voted to raise interest rates for the countries that use the euro. It's the second increase in recent months and this one will cost you an extra 29 per month on every 100,000 borrowed if you've got a variable-rate mortgage.

Neelie Kroes is the woman responsible for restoring the number 8 bus between Dalkey and Dublin city centre. She's the head of what was formerly called DG4, but in more humanfriendly parlance is the European Commissioner for Competition. Dun Laoghaire councillor Eugene Regan, an ex-commission staffer, was clever enough to figure out that for even something as local as the allocation of bus routes, look to Brussels before Leinster House.

The judges are the unelected folk who in their spare time head up the tribunals and redress boards that make up the rest of our politics. They are the people to whom the elected politicians are now expected to pass the buck.

So when the victims of Dr Michael Neary want justice, they want a redress board that will overcome the statute of limitations for many and for the rest just avoid court. Whether in the latter case this is a sound basis for public policy is another argument, but that's where people look now for justice. And when someone asks how much has been spent on tribunals (what is it now, a quarterbillion? ) and when they might end (when Cecelia Ahern is Taoiseach? ), none of the elected legislators can tell you.

Margaret Curley is the series producer of RTE's Liveline, our make-believe national assembly. It is where people expect the 'real' issues to be emoted about rather than debated, and the forum from which real pressure can be brought to bear on government. Magic mushrooms killed your son?

Talk to Joe. Selecting topics and callers and generating the feeling of authenticity isn't easy . . . just ask TDs . . .

but Livelinemanages it, which is why its devotees consider it to be a more legitimate arena of politics than the Dail.

Finally there's Bertie, who is only important because he's the lead negotiator of social partnership, where our macro-economic decisions not outsourced to Brussels and Frankfurt are made. Ictu's David Begg wants to make Ireland more like Sweden (just when Sweden is desperate not to look like Sweden). Will he succeed? Don't ask the twothirds of workers not represented in that room, and don't ask an ordinary TD . . . she's just elected.

The idea is probably as outdated as harpsichord music, snuff and powdered wigs. That the people's representatives would get together in one room and, in language that voters will understand, meaningfully debate the things that affect people's lives before making decisions that are accepted as legitimate.

But we really should stop pretending that's how things work and switch off that damned webcam. It's embarrassing.