AFTER a limited release in a handful of Irish cinemas in March, the Italian film Il Divo has now been released on DVD. Nominated for the prestigious Palme D'Or award at last year's Cannes Film Festival, it is a political biopic based on the career of former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti.

Il Divo tracks the mysterious and shady seven-time prime minister's career from his seventh election as prime minister in 1992 up to the trial where he fought allegations of Mafia connections.

Between 1992 and his Mafia trial, the film takes the viewer on a chaotic journey that involves everything from political intrigue to suicides, violent assassinations, to the media, elections and the Mafia.

In the middle of director Paulo Sorrentino's study of this complicated and slippery figure – a man Margaret Thatcher described as having "a positive aversion to principle" – there is a scene that shows Andreotti never forgot his humble beginnings, long after he rose to high political office.

In a scene akin to the 'parish pump' politics of rural Ireland, Andreotti holds the Italian equivalent of a constituency clinic and gives out cash and food parcels of pasta to a queue of impoverished constituents.

The strength of Andreotti's association with the people who elected him is echoed in the political careers of most Irish TDs, be they urban or rural.

While Andreotti was eventually acquitted of ties to the Mafia in 2003 after a protracted legal battle, former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has never hidden his own 'Mafia' connections. A different animal to the Italian Mafia, Bertie's 'Drumcondra Mafia' were the most formidable political machine in Irish politics over the last 30 years.

While Ahern rose to high office, he constantly knocked on doors, held clinics and had his mafia there to cement his dominance of Dublin Central.

If the children of a canvasser saw a light missing on a road, they would go home and tell their parents. A letter would be sent from Ahern to everyone living on the street that he was going to have the light fixed. After the repair job, Ahern's name would be associated with a job well done.

At the same time Andreotti was handing out pasta and Ahern was fixing lights, TDs all over Ireland were knee-deep in this unglamorous but necessary work to secure their re-election. They still are.

At a wedding recently, a number of Tánaiste Mary Coughlan's constituents were eager to point out to this reporter that the Dublin media perception of their local girl matters little in Donegal South-West. "People in Donegal feel sorry for her... she's doing her best... she has a lot on her plate... if there was an election tomorrow we would still vote her in," said constituents.

Even though Coughlan may be deemed to be out of her depth in some quarters, she 'gets things done' in Donegal and that is all that matters.

After her appointment as Tánaiste, her local paper crowed: "Mary One Step Closer to Becoming Taoiseach". All politics is local and how a politician is perceived locally is everything to them.

Enda Kenny brewed up a political storm a fortnight ago with his pledge that he will hold a referendum on abolishing the Seanad within 12 months of becoming Taoiseach.

And in the coming weeks Fine Gael will publish its 'New Politics' document detailing Kenny's plan for political change.

Much has been written on these pages and elsewhere about Kenny's radical plan to scrap the Upper House but the other elements of his plan should not be ignored.

While his Seanad plan was labelled populist, his plan to reduce the number of TDs by "at least 20" may yet prove to be anything but.

With politics becoming more significant for Joe Public in the last year, giving out about the number of TDs 'above in the Dáil' is a common complaint everywhere, from bar stools to radio phone-ins.

Kenny is not the only one talking about political reform – Fianna Fáil and the Greens' revised Programme for Government also pledges to establish an independent electoral commission. Within 12 months that commission will make recommendations for political reform, including the "number of deputies and their means of elections".

The 43-page Programme for Government may be viewed as nothing more than a glorified aspirational manifesto. Yet, imagine if it delivers on its promise for electoral reform or, alternatively, the government falls and Fine Gael takes over. One way or the other, both have promised to look at cutting the number of TDs.

People are losing their jobs so it is good to hear that some TDs will lose their €100,000-plus jobs as well. But there is a flipside. Culling TDs could rob 20 of the 42 Dáil constituencies of one TD each. In theory it would be popular to cull the 20 posts. In reality, nobody will want to have their own area's representation in the Dáil diminished.

Andreotti handed out pasta. Bertie fixed lights in Drumcondra. Mary Coughlan "gets things done" in Donegal. Similar feats are achieved by TDs all over Ireland.

Culling them may make economic sense but watch this space for chronic 'nimbyism' should any area be robbed of a TD by either Fine Gael, the current government or an independent commission.

The same people calling for the cull will be pleading to save their local TD from extinction. After all, sure don't they 'get things done'?

cmcmorrow@tribune.ie

Shane Coleman is on leave