> This demonstrates that electoral systems based on political parties
> are actually more attractive to the voters in the modern world. For
> the reasons I suggested earlier, it is a system that offers a greater
> degree of consistency and reliability than the US-style system of
> usually unreliable and self-interested independent candidates.
>
> Except in the US.
I'm not sure how Ireland fits in with your analysis. It's definitely a party-based system, and party discipline is fairly strong (stronger than in Britain I would say), yet the two parties which have dominated ever since the origin of the State are non-ideological parties, both capable of positioning themselves to either the left or the right of the other depending upon the issue and the mood of the electorate. The last time a party representative broke ranks in a parliamentary vote was about two years ago, when the leader of the main opposition party, Fine Gael, ordered his party to vote against an Immigration Bill which he wasn't opposed in principle to, simply on the grounds that the Government was ridiculously limiting debate on it. FG's Justice Spokesperson was angry that he hadn't been consulted on this decision and so voted Yes. This caused a minor political uproar and he had to publicly apologise over it. When he was finally stood down from his Spokesperson role over something else, this incident featured prominently in news reports about his rebellious nature.
And the third largest party, the Labour Party, who are supposed to be a left-wing party, have agreed a deal with FG to fight the next election as coalition partners. The smaller (and theoretically more left) Green Party will also be asked to join this coalition if their numbers are needed, although they have not formally agreed a deal yet.
There are already signs that the two supposed ideological parties in this potential coalition are moderating their positions on controversial issues in order to smooth over differences between themselves and FG. The election will be fought on the basis of making a change in the bums on the Government seats rather than on the basis of any really significant policy changes.
Also, in the current Dáil (parliament) there are 15 independents (out of 166 seats) and over half of them have no connection to any of the major parties. And splits happen all the time here - in fact, the junior party in Government, which has 7 seats, was formed by an expelled member of the senior party in Government back in the mid 1980s. The Irish writer Brendan Behan once famously said that when a new political party is formed here, "the first item on the agenda is the split"!
And Ireland's electoral system couldn't be more different from the US's: we have proportional representation and multi-seat constituencies. The parties themselves determine who gets on the ballot and there's nothing stopping someone who doesn't get a party nomination from registering themselves as an independent.
Nonetheless the two countries are very similar in terms of the lack of ideology in mainstream politics; I'd actually argue that there is more difference between the Democrats and Republicans than there is between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. There is one other crucial similarity between the two countries and that is that in both, the two dominant parties are closely linked to either side of a civil war. The US has gone further in breaking away from simplistic "civil war politics" but perhaps the war itself may have had more to do with creating the conditions for the present incohesive nature of US party politics than the electoral system has.