Irish Politics

So i take it whoever ends up with most seats gets first chance to form a government or is it whoever wins the first preference?

I think the best outcome would be to call another election
 
lsd said:
So i take it whoever ends up with most seats gets first chance to form a government or is it whoever wins the first preference?

I think the best outcome would be to call another election
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I'm not sure theres any set rule. Whoever can get 81+ TD's to support a government is made government. I think they try to listen to the electorate so the party with the most TD's is generally expected to form the government. I think its generally accepted that Sinn Fein won but most parties have promised they wouldn't go into coalition with them and were voted on that basis, there's no set rule that whoever won first preference votes is automatically entitled to go into government afaik.

Withnail said:
If the Greens go in with that lot I hope they've learned their lesson from the last time.
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Not sure how else you can form a government. It can't be formed without 2 of the 3 main parties and they'll still be 5+ seats short of a majority. Suppose there's Independents.
 
Wont be another election, fg/ff won't let it happen and let sf run 2 candidates in areas they where topping polls with huge surplus ballots in.
 
A FF-SF-Green coalition is the the only stable government I see coming out of those numbers.

Also, I think I'm right in thinking that the Dublin seats FF were targeting and didn't get largely went to SF and Green candidates? They may see wearing their clothes for a period on government as a way of re-establishing themselves in those areas, which they badly need to do.
 
golden_blunder said:
As of December I’m signing on at 46 years old for the first time. I was made redundant.
I receive €203 per week and feel totally embarrassed having to stand in a post office queue to get it. You have to go to all sorts of meetings and it’s for a maximum 9 months. It’s soul destroying
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Been there mate, prepare yourself to be sat in front of some, middle aged, life long public servant, trying to get you take an ECDL course to get you off the 'unemployed' list..... I've a first class honours degree in IT and thats what I was met with.
 
golden_blunder said:
As of December I’m signing on at 46 years old for the first time. I was made redundant.
I receive €203 per week and feel totally embarrassed having to stand in a post office queue to get it. You have to go to all sorts of meetings and it’s for a maximum 9 months. It’s soul destroying
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I'm 41 and went through the exact same thing in Nov 2018.

There are some very good courses out there. Have a look on fetchcourses.ie if you're looking for a career change or to up-skill in something that interested you.

The 9 months is job seekers and if you sign up to a course they pay you job seekers straight into your bank account while you're on it and you don't need to sign on etc

I took the opportunity to retrain in QA Automation and thankfully my lump sum allowed me to do that. The course started in March and I'm nearly finished a 12 week internship (which was part of the course) and looking forward to my first real paycheck.
 
sullydnl said:
A FF-SF-Green coalition is the the only stable government I see coming out of those numbers.

Also, I think I'm right in thinking that the Dublin seats FF were targeting and didn't get largely went to SF and Green candidates? They may see wearing their clothes for a period on government as a way of re-establishing themselves in those areas, which they badly need to do.
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Yeah I think there's no other option really.

If SF went in with all of the left-leaning parties they'd still need 14 independents and that's too many to manage. They'll all want something.

If the Greens do go in I'd expect them to be a lot stronger this time around, given how their last turn in govt affected their standing with the public.

EDIT: The major concern with SF/FF in govt together is how long it would last. Once it's politically expedient to do so I can see FF pulling some SF skeleton out of the closet in order collapse the coalition.
 
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So what are SF gonna do about that idiot down in Waterford? If they want to govern for all they need to start disassociating themselves from that kind of nonsense
 
golden_blunder said:
So what are SF gonna do about that idiot down in Waterford? If they want to govern for all they need to start disassociating themselves from that kind of nonsense
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Nothing it seems like. He was on the news with Mary Lou standing beside him while he talked some guff about how it was the old IRA he was talking about, and he was happy the IRA was no more. A FF guy on the panel of Claire Byrne, don't know his name, was asking for an apology so we may not have heard the last of it.
 
Withnail said:
Nothing it seems like. He was on the news with Mary Lou standing beside him while he talked some guff about how it was the old IRA he was talking about, and he was happy the IRA was no more. A FF guy on the panel of Claire Byrne, don't know his name, was asking for an apology so we may not have heard the last of it.
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Yeah just saw a video of MLM standing beside him as he made that statement.
That’s a mistake imho, his reason isn’t good enough. This type of comment will no doubt cause more than a few comments and questions in a delicately poised Stormont.
People will be saying it didn’t take long for the mask of SF to slip
 
SF are going to run the country into the ground if they're given any real power.

The best outcome now would be for them to stay in the sidelines and the election result shows the other parties that people have had enough of the same thing from them over and over again, and maybe a few years down the line, a proper left-wing party comes into place, not those populist cnuts.
 
golden_blunder said:
So what are SF gonna do about that idiot down in Waterford? If they want to govern for all they need to start disassociating themselves from that kind of nonsense
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It's OK Mary Lou said she didn't see it and knows nothing about it plus she would assume he was singing a song about Celtic :rolleyes:
 
Massive Spanner said:
SF are going to run the country into the ground if they're given any real power.

The best outcome now would be for them to stay in the sidelines and the election result shows the other parties that people have had enough of the same thing from them over and over again, and maybe a few years down the line, a proper left-wing party comes into place, not those populist cnuts.
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Its already in the ground. They werent elected due to anything populist, they were elected because of the sheer distain of FG and FF.
Promising to work on our health system and housing crisis isnt even populist, its a genuine concern in our country.
 
cyberman said:
Its already in the ground. They werent elected due to anything populist, they were elected because of the sheer distain of FG and FF.
Promising to work on our health system and housing crisis isnt even populist, its a genuine concern in our country.
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They won't do a thing on any of that.

I saw a question in exit poll where out of the people who voted SF, more of them would've preferred money being spent on public services than on lowering taxes.

Seriously, did nobody even bother to read their manifesto? Clearly not.
 
Massive Spanner said:
They won't do a thing on any of that.

I saw a question in exit poll where out of the people who voted SF, more of them would've preferred money being spent on public services than on lowering taxes.

Seriously, did nobody even bother to read their manifesto? Clearly not.
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Their manifesto isny any more unrealistic than the other parties. They all tend to exaggerate. I was just reading this last night which ties in nicely..

If Sinn Féin is profligate in advocating €2.4bn a year in tax cuts, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil will need to explain why their mooted cuts, of €2.81bn and €1.85bn, are prudent. If the contention is that Sinn Féin will never deliver 100,000 public homes, Fianna Fáil will need to explain why and expand on how it intends to deliver the same amount. Fine Gael will need to undermine both parties' pledges and reassure voters its more modest targets are the most realistic approach.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have alleged Sinn Féin's combined €3.8bn in tax increases will cripple business. A tax on intangible assets held here by multinationals, which Sinn Féin says will raise €722m, has come in for particular criticism.

Yet, according to Mr Kinsella, this is "an excellent idea" which will "fund the Exchequer handsomely" while the measure was also recommended by Seamus Coffey of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil will need to address this discordance and convince voters their tax plans for business make more sense.
 
cyberman said:
Their manifesto isny any more unrealistic than the other parties. They all tend to exaggerate. I was just reading this last night which ties in nicely..

If Sinn Féin is profligate in advocating €2.4bn a year in tax cuts, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil will need to explain why their mooted cuts, of €2.81bn and €1.85bn, are prudent. If the contention is that Sinn Féin will never deliver 100,000 public homes, Fianna Fáil will need to explain why and expand on how it intends to deliver the same amount. Fine Gael will need to undermine both parties' pledges and reassure voters its more modest targets are the most realistic approach.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have alleged Sinn Féin's combined €3.8bn in tax increases will cripple business. A tax on intangible assets held here by multinationals, which Sinn Féin says will raise €722m, has come in for particular criticism.

Yet, according to Mr Kinsella, this is "an excellent idea" which will "fund the Exchequer handsomely" while the measure was also recommended by Seamus Coffey of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil will need to address this discordance and convince voters their tax plans for business make more sense.
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It's not but at least we know what we are in for with those other parties, for good or bad (probably more bad). SF's manifesto was essentially "hey so we're going to do all these great, expensive things to fix the most serious issues our country is facing, abra-ca-upthera". FF and FG had a lot of waffle too but at least FG didn't pretend they could fix the housing crisis, health service or insurance costs with a little one liner like "build 100k social houses... somehow"
 
SF will feck things up to an unprecedented degree, and then FG/FF will come back like knights in shining armor and they know it fully well too. Irish politics aren’t going to change any time soon and it’s quite depressing.
 
Withnail said:
I'm 41 and went through the exact same thing in Nov 2018.

There are some very good courses out there. Have a look on fetchcourses.ie if you're looking for a career change or to up-skill in something that interested you.

The 9 months is job seekers and if you sign up to a course they pay you job seekers straight into your bank account while you're on it and you don't need to sign on etc

I took the opportunity to retrain in QA Automation and thankfully my lump sum allowed me to do that. The course started in March and I'm nearly finished a 12 week internship (which was part of the course) and looking forward to my first real paycheck.
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Fair play man. I've been through it myself, constantly stressing especially since I had a newborn at the time. When you get in to a tight spot like that it's literally survival mode and sometimes good things do come out of it.
It's why I will never have anyone knock food & beverage work. Although low paid it can keep the wolf from the door. Without it I wouldn't have met the dozens of cool realtors after the housing crash.
 
I think people might be underestimating Sinn Fein's cynicism when they say they'll ruin the country to an unprecedented degree. I rather suspect they'll quite happily shed quite a lot of their more extreme left-wing policies if that's what is expedient in government. It's not like we can't see examples of that in NI. I certainly wouldn't expect a SF/FF coalition to be at all extreme economically.

Plus in terms of housing and health, the reality is that there's not that much difference between the relevant parties. All are broadly backing Slaintecare, all broadly agree on measures needed to tackle the housing crisis. It's more a difference of focus and pace on those issues, something that can be negotiated relatively easily one would think.
 
sullydnl said:
I think people might be underestimating Sinn Fein's cynicism when they say they'll ruin the country to an unprecedented degree. I rather suspect they'll quite happily shed quite a lot of their more extreme left-wing policies if that's what is expedient in government. It's not like we can't see examples of that in NI. I certainly wouldn't expect a SF/FF coalition to be at all extreme economically.

Plus in terms of housing and health, the reality is that there's not that much difference between the relevant parties. All are broadly backing Slaintecare, all broadly agree on measures needed to tackle the housing crisis. It's more a difference of focus and pace on those issues, something that can be negotiated relatively easily one would think.
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Which could be a truly awful if there’s enough stupid people to vote yes to some of these policies, such as voting away our free speech. Also a possible coalition with the greens is even more grim considering what they did in power.
 
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So with FF-SF-Greens looking most likely, how does Martin play it? He surely doesn’t want to legitimize SF and would hope to see them fail, but how does he facilitate that while actually governing alongside them and avoiding drawing the bulk of dissatisfaction to his own party?
 
2cents said:
So with FF-SF-Greens looking most likely, how does Martin play it? He surely doesn’t want to legitimize SF and would hope to see them fail, but how does he facilitate that while actually governing alongside them and avoiding drawing the bulk of dissatisfaction to his own party?
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I dont know. Stand aside and let them live or die on their own policies?
Position it as an act of necessity, that they dont particularly support various policies but feel the electorate has spoken and as an act of pragmatism you'll vote in favour of it reluctantly. Act as the enforcer keeping them on the straight and narrow so pick up Dept. of Defence, Justice, maybe Brexit negotiations as a way of stating they're not trustworthy to manage these things, while largely keeping themselves insulated from the economy, housing and health (sinn fein have the peoples mandate for that, we'll leave it to them and wash our hands of it). They're the 3 issues sinn fein will be judged by and they're pretty hard to get right. Drop the coalition and crash the government if or when people get pissed off with Sinn Fein or they seem to be failing or just become unpopular. Its hard to campaign against a record you've supported for the lifetime of a government.
 
Before the GE I would have said he wouldn't want to legitimise SF. I'm not sure what that actually means when they've already won the popular vote though. That particular fight has been largely lost, I think.

I suspect his political focus will instead be on trying to cannibalize their (and the Green's) support, particularly in the urban areas where they flourished and FF struggled. After all, these aren't voters who are particularly loyal to SF, they're very much up for grabs.

It would make sense to minimize FF's exposure to SF's past by keeping them away from departments like justice and defence but once you're in government with them you will always be exposed to a certain degree. Ultimately though the people voted for SF so.... *shrugs*

Beyond that, they just have to see how the electorate reacts. Will be interesting to see how much of FF's support ends up shifting to FG, for example.
 
Shark said:
Which could be a truly awful if there’s enough stupid people to vote yes to some of these policies, such as voting away our free speech. Also a possible coalition with the greens is even more grim considering what they did in power.
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What's the free speech abolishment policy? Isn't that enshrined in the Constitution?

Re: the greens, they have a lot more seats this time and you'd have to imagine they'll have learnt from their predecessors so shouldn't be as naive and should display some backbone.
 
Shark said:
SF will feck things up to an unprecedented degree, and then FG/FF will come back like knights in shining armor and they know it fully well too. Irish politics aren’t going to change any time soon and it’s quite depressing.
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Pretty much. Pyrhhic victory for SF. Not enough seats to enact any promises, but will still have the weight of expectation from their base when they're in govt. They will tank in the next GE unless they manage to rescue their rep forcing a border poll through
 
Shark said:
Which could well destroy the country even further if there’s enough stupid people to vote yes in some of these policies, such as free speech. Also a possible coalition with the greens is even more grim considering what they did in power.
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"Even further." Does this mean the country is currently destroyed? I keep reading this sort of rhetoric.

Ireland is one of the best countries in the world to live in. People speak as if it's North Korea.
 
Be interesting if there is a FF/SF/Green coalition. How many ministerial appointments would the greens get? I think there are 14 posts and obviously they will be given the Environment Ministry but maybe Transport would be good and look at promoting public transport and reducing emissions in that sector. I'm not sure what to make about people who think the country is on it's knees. Definitely Health and Housing needs to be addressed as does poor infrastructure but I think if you improve the infrastructure and transport you could resolve some housing issues. The health sector could do with significant reform.
 
Some murmurs that Martin is considering letting SF sink or swim in a minority left-wing government. Risky move if so.
 
Shane88 said:
"Even further." Does this mean the country is currently destroyed? I keep reading this sort of rhetoric.

Ireland is one of the best countries in the world to live in. People speak as if it's North Korea.
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No, I didn’t mean it that way, Ireland is indeed a lovely place to live. Just in the sense that I think FG lead by Varadkar did more damage than good and what worries me about SF, is that their votes came from a large number of people that still believe they’re still some kind of nationalist party, when they’re as globalist, populist left wing as it gets and then you have the younger people that voted for them simply in protest of FF/FG.
 
RexHamilton said:
Careful, I tried to say this the other day and I was a Nihilist who hated homeless people.
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As you said, there is serious self entitlement in Ireland that you don't really see in other Western countries. We are very lucky to live here, but I do think there are a lot of problems that such a rich country shouldn't really have. Our health system is a shambles and our public transport investment has been abysmal, plus the rent in Dublin (and to a lesser extent Cork and Galway) is a total disgrace, albeit it's a common issue in many western capitals and hardly unique to us. That said, I think we also do a lot of things right that countries like the US and UK do not. I would like if we took a more Nordic approach to things and instead of lowering taxes, used the money to benefit people in other ways, but I think our populace would go mental at the idea of higher taxes so it'll never happen.

Overall we have it really lucky here and I hope we improve on the above and build a fecking metro.
 
Massive Spanner said:
As you said, there is serious self entitlement in Ireland that you don't really see in other Western countries. We are very lucky to live here, but I do think there are a lot of problems that such a rich country shouldn't really have. Our health system is a shambles and our public transport investment has been abysmal, plus the rent in Dublin (and to a lesser extent Cork and Galway) is a total disgrace, albeit it's a common issue in many western capitals and hardly unique to us. That said, I think we also do a lot of things right that countries like the US and UK do not. I would like if we took a more Nordic approach to things and instead of lowering taxes, used the money to benefit people in other ways, but I think our populace would go mental at the idea of higher taxes so it'll never happen.

Overall we have it really lucky here and I hope we improve on the above and build a fecking metro.
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Yeah.

We have major issues that need to be addressed. We shouldn't have 10,000 homeless in a country like Ireland in 2020. We should have a health service that is functional at least, and ours is bursting at the seams in some areas and wait times are unacceptably long. Public transport in Dublin, when compared to other cities of similar size and wealth is a joke. Between corruption and incompetence, there have been some huge mistakes over the last 20 years.

But to listen to some people, in real life, on social media and on here, you'd actually believe that the country was ruined.

We have an excellent education system with every child in the country being offered free education up to third level (i know there are some registration costs, but it's a system we take for granted), We have free GP care to every child in the country under 6 (with every child under 13 begin suggested going forward), The vast majority of people in the country live very comfortable lives, we'd all like to be a little more comfortable, but that doesn't take away from how good most of us have it.

If your earnings are quite low, you qualify for a medical card which gives you access to free healthcare. While we have a housing crisis, there are thousands of people in social housing where rent is made affordable based on your income.

There is much we can improve on and much we can learn from other European countries, but it's so frustrating to hear so many people who have plenty giving out that Ireland is fecked and the country is ruined.
 


I'm surprised.

The only alternative really is for FF and FG to work together. Yet I would have thought that was more dangerous for FF in the long run and something FG wouldn't want either given how badly confidence & supply just played out.

Wonder to what degree this position on SF would hold if talks with FG didn't produce a result?
 
Wouldn't Sinn Fein ultimately much prefer another election? I mean, they have to make it look like they're seriously trying to firm a government but FF & FG turning them down plays right into their hands in the event of another election surely?
 
Raulduke said:
Wouldn't Sinn Fein ultimately much prefer another election? I mean, they have to make it look like they're seriously trying to firm a government but FF & FG turning them down plays right into their hands in the event of another election surely?
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That's assuming they get the same level of popular support in another election, which is a risky assumption from their POV.

After all, this surge of support for them seemingly came from nowhere. They did terribly in the local elections, were polling at 11% of the vote just in January and were anticipating a struggle in this election. So it would be reckless on their part to simply assume that those voters will turn out for them again. Especially in the context of an election campaign where they would be the almost exclusive target of attack for the two other parties, who spent most of this last campaign focused on each other.

Whereas if they manage to get into government then that marks a permanent change in Irish politics. Even if this sudden upsurge in support declines in future elections, they will have been legitimized as a viable party for government/coalition going forward.

One of those "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" scenarios.
 
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