IF YOU are not one of the 430,000 people without a job, you most likely start work between the hours of 8am and 10am from Monday to Friday.If you are a TD, life is very different. Take last Thursday for instance.

At about 10.25am, the sound of the Dáil buzzer reverberates around Leinster House. TDs make their way into the chamber. The day commences at 10.30am with the Order of Business, the point where the members decide on the agenda for the day. Given that the Dáil only sits from Tuesday to Thursday, those who do not follow politics closely will probably be surprised to hear that the Order of Business lasted for 64 minutes last Thursday.

After 25 minutes of debating how long they will spend debating the banks' bailout, the Ceann Comhairle Séamus Kirk raises the important issue of holidays, reading out the proposal that the Dáil be adjourned until Tuesday 20 April, giving TDs a fortnight-long Easter break.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore immediately jumps to his feet. The opposition does this every time holidays are proposed. He says: "This is not acceptable in the times we are living in…"

Gilmore's solution is to call for a vote, so at 10.59am all TDs are summoned into the chamber for that vote.

At 11.11am, Kirk reads out the result: Tá 69, Níl 64. The fortnight break has been granted ? much to the delight of everyone, including the 64 who voted against it, safe in the knowledge that the Yes side was always going to win out.

After the vote, it's back to business. By 11.22am, veteran Fine Gael backbench TD Padraic McCormack rises to his feet. Forty-eight hours after one of the most historic days in the history of the state, McCormack is looking for an apology. Does he feel that it is unfair that his children and their children's children will have to pay for the Anglo bailout? No. He wants an apology from the Taoiseach for branding him "gurrier-in-chief" the previous day.

Shortly after the laughing stops, Labour's Emmet Stagg also seeks an apology. This has nothing to do with Anglo either. Stagg's party colleague Joan Burton was branded a "felon-setter" the previous day. She should also get a "sorry".

Eventually, at 11.34am the Order of Business is over and the Dáil proceeds with members making statements on the bailout.

Thursday's events were no different to any other day in the Dáil – in fact the discussion over the Order of Business often goes on for much longer. It is a little simplistic to say that all TDs only start work at 10.30am. Most of them are in their offices from much earlier and, as well as the three days they spend in the Dáil, they spend most of the other four dealing with constituents' concerns and other aspects of clientelist politics.

Most of them will spend the next fortnight engaging in constituency work. In fact, politicians would argue that the Easter break is not a break at all.

But there is clearly a disconnect between the world of politics and the real world of the people. Imagine if staff in an office environment wandered in to work at 10.30am and held a free-for-all debate for an hour or two before lunch on what work was to be carried out for the rest of the day. It would be impractical and inefficient.

Unfortunately, the Order of Business charade is just a tiny part of the problem with Irish politics. More worrying is the perception that our government exists in a bubble, where some ministers have been driven around in state cars since 1997, completely cut off from the daily concerns of everyone else, leaving them incapable of meaningful two-way communication with the outside world.

Brian Cowen's inability to communicate his message is now such a major source of concern it is causing tension among even loyal followers. It is even leading to political instability. During last Wednesday's Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting, he pledged to his party that he would work harder in getting his message across to the public. He admitted he has failed to connect with voters.

On the same day, the Washington Post reported that US president Barack Obama sits down every night to read 10 letters sent to him by members of the US public. The article reported that Obama says he reads the letters (and responds to some) as a means of having "a look outside the presidential bubble".

Nobody is suggesting that Cowen should sit down at night reading letters or listening to re-runs of that day's Liveline. Our politicians are much closer to the people than Obama. But the Taoiseach, the government and the political process needs to reacquaint itself with the public and what is going on outside the Dáil. Other than having clinics to listen to constituents' worries about potholes and medical cards, politicians need to look beyond narrow clientelist concerns.

Before his promotion to cabinet, former chief whip Pat Carey, along with Stagg and Fine Gael's David Stanton, had formulated the bones of a reform package for a very simple thing ? day-to-day running of the Dáil. The new government chief whip John Curran should make it his business to immediately achieve cross-party support for the reforms agreed with his predecessor. That would be a small step towards fixing the system but a giant leap towards mending the disconnect between politics and the people.

cmcmorrow@tribune.ie

Shane Coleman is on leave