THE THREE NEW kids on the political block - Renua, the Social Democrats and the Independent Alliance - between them have a wide variety of positions on a few matters.

But there is one common thread between all three: they all promise that their TDs would be given a free vote on 'matters of conscience', such as relaxing Ireland's current restrictions on abortion.

In one sense this is a telling consistency: while every new outfit will be guilty of a certain amount of populism, the fact that all three groups are agnostic on abortion indicates a broader unhappiness with the rigid whip system that has stifled any true debate on the matter to date.

But simply promising a free vote on such issues is not in itself the panacea that those groups' leadership might claim.

Sure, it's nice to think that the opinions of a party's leadership would be invoked if the Dáil ever had to vote again on such a sensitive issue - and therefore, that the resulting vote might more closely reflect the opinions of the public as a whole.

In that sense, Enda Kenny's promise to allow a similarly free vote among his TDs when the issue next arises is particularly welcome. With Fianna Fáil having a similar position, we are inching closer to having a Dáil vote with no whip applied on any member at all, an altogether 'purer' form of democracy.

But there seems to be some regrettable reluctance - at least among some of parties - to tell us exactly how individual members might vote in those circumstances.

When launching their manifesto last week Renua candidates were asked, through a show-of-hands poll, which of them would support repeal of the 8th Amendment, which grants equal constitutional weight to the lives of a mother and an unborn child. Seven of the 18 raised their hands (we understand, in one case, in error.)

'We're not Renua'

The same question was put today to the 20 candidates of the Independent Alliance - but went unanswered. John Halligan, one of the group's five outgoing TDs, said his fellow candidates didn't want to be left raising hands "like schoolboys".

"If you want to ask us individually we'd be delighted to tell you where we stand," he said. When it was put to him that Renua candidates had no such problem, he simply commented: "We're not Renua."

(I should add: John Halligan's own stance on abortion in cases of rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormality is very clear.)

This comment comes only days after an Irish Independent poll of Fine Gael deputies found that 15 were undecided on repeal of the 8th Amendment - while another 15 refused to answer the survey at all. Of the outgoing 67, only 37 had a position they could clearly state.

In reality, very few voters will make abortion such a high-priority issue that it will determine their first preference. But, equally, in circumstances where a voter's eighth or ninth preference could well decide a seat, voters deserve to know how their chosen TD stands on such a significant issue of conscience.

It would appear many candidates are yet to recognise that if their party abdicates responsibility for matters like that, it then falls to the candidate themselves to state their own position. That applies not only to the older creatures of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, but also of Renua, the Social Democrats, the Independent Alliance and beyond.

A functioning democracy demands nothing more.

Gavan Reilly is Today FM's Political Correspondent. twitter.com/gavreilly