General Irish politics discussion thread

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121932779#Comment_121932779

She was nominated by a majority the cumann of the party and was elected/ratified by the membership of the party at the Ard Fheis.

Simon was crowned by a small number of the parliamentary party and the membership where ignored this time it seems. They were last time too but at least they went through the pretense of giving them say.

Did I miss anything?

Water John

Yeah, Pearse Doherty was told; "it's not your turn, lad."

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933156#Comment_121933156

I know some don't like 'democracy' in other parties pointed out, but FG's controlled process bypasses the membership if it decides to and this time ignored it altogether it seems to me.

pureza

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933175#Comment_121933175

Or it makes no sense to have a waste of time hustings/election when only one candidate is available

Same applies to Sinn Féin except Mr Mcadoo (Ivan Yates ?) makes a salient point

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933553#Comment_121933553

A reasonable chap when it comes to the Shinners is Tull. 😂

Doesn't get away from how Harris has got to where he is. A similarly 'reasonable' person could portray it as an undemocratic coronation, as it has all the hallmarks of one.

Why were the membership ignored this time? Genuine question.

Brussels Sprout

I suspect this will be popular with posters over in the CA forum anyway:

A senior Fine Gael TD has called on the incoming party leader Simon Harris to abandon the Government's hate speech legislation, ditch plans for the late night sale of alcohol and move Fine Gael away from "left wing" policies.

Michael Ring, a former minister, said Fine Gael has been "too left for too long" and warned the incoming party leader that he will pay a big price at the next election unless he returns the party to traditional values.

link

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933797#Comment_121933797

"Our core values are not abortion, our core values are not to open pubs all night, our core values are not about hate speech.

"Our core values are to support small businesses which are in difficulty now, our core values are to get the public services that they need, to build houses and look after people in this country," Mr Ring said.

I can spot the contradiction here, not sure Mr Ring does however. It reads like Ring has been sucked into an online echo chamber himself; maybe he's one of those posters you allude to - he's the right age bracket. I don't doubt we're gonna see some kind of right leaning bump but there's a cohort who have convinced themselves there's this Meloni/Wilders/Trump/Johnson figure about to sweep into the Dàil.

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933850#Comment_121933850

Charlie Flanagan is out pushing the same nonsense, it seems to be a specific older age group in FG pushing this values nonsense. The only reason I can think is they are trying to usurp this position from FF which is a weird move to be going for.

Itssoeasy

So who do we think will be the new minister for justice ?

retalivity

I thought Flanagan was retiring, why is anyone giving him airtime?

Geuze

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933875#Comment_121933875

I would not call it nonssense to call for FG to return to where it should be: a centre-right party.

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933905#Comment_121933905

Like it or not FF and FG are both centre right when looked at through a solely Irish prism. FG have always been more economically conservative and socially liberal and FF the opposite so the idea that FG should be returning to some socially conservative stance that they never really held makes absolutely no sense.

Water John

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933905#Comment_121933905

Is this the era before Garret Fitzgerald or maybe before the 'Just Society' of Declan Costello?

antimatterx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933886#Comment_121933886

heather humphreys

pureza

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933588#Comment_121933588

Harris is basically a cunning political game player

He has played his parliamentary party perfectly

Little wonder Bertie has heaped on the praise

There are 2 things going on I'd imagine- first those that believe in him

Second those that would like to believe in him but will pounce if it all goes belly up

His overtures to Kate o'Connell likely has a bit of a shiver down Ivana's spine that's for sure

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121934043#Comment_121934043

The oldies in the party seem to be worried by him with all the pronouncements about needing to go more conservative

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933797#Comment_121933797

returns the party to traditional values.

meaning, take populist-right stances on a few currently controversial but not earth-shatteringly important issues in a bid to win over a chunk of the 'middle Ireland' vote from FF....

marno21

There is a large vacancy in Irish politics for a centre right/conservative political party that seems to be fairly clear to a large swathe of the Irish population.

We had referendums recently that were resoundingly defeated and the only party that was in step with the majority was a minority party with 1 TD.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fail's parliamentary parties seem to be completely out of touch with a large cohort of their actual voters, and amazingly going on polling and the referendum exit poll, Sinn Fein even more so especially with their working class base.

Seems quite clear to me anyway that Varadkar and many senior FG Ministers seem to spend quite a lot of time pandering to Soc Dems type supporters and completely neglecting their own voters. Stances that are effective on Instagram and Twitter are not indicative of the Irish voting population as a whole.

It'll be a good election for independents next time out, especially outside of Dublin and Cork. Perhaps a good showing for Aontu after the referendums also.

Peregrinus

The truth is that the dominant parties in Ireland are, and always have been, centre-right. In international terms, Ireland is characterised by having had an unbroken series of centre-right governments since the foundation the state. We've never had a government in which the dominant party was left of centre; that makes us highly unusual.

The perception by some that the major parties are left-wing seems to largely emerge from their (in recent years) relatively liberal stance on social issues. But a liberal stance on social issues is not a characteristically left-wing stance; plenty of people who are generally right of centre hold liberal social views.

(The other factor that leads to people describing Irish governments as left-wing is relatively high marginal rates of income tax. But this, of course, is just the flip side of our relatively low rates of capital taxation, and low capital taxation is very far from being a left-wing stance; quite the opposite.)

And all the evidence suggests that voters generally attach more significance to economic and governmental issues than to social issues. They might have strong views about gay marriage or abortion or migration or whatever, but their vote is more likely to be affected their economic concerns, and by their perception of the various parties' economic positions and their reputations for competence and effectiveness.

It's certainly embarrassing for the government parties to have lost the recent referendums so decisively. And while you can argue that it makes them appear out of touch, they appear out of touch on issues that, for most voters, are second-order issues at best. This is not unprecedented; governments have failed to get referendums through before. And that isn't always followed by the government being turfed. Irish voters are quite capable of distinguishing between the particular issue in a referendum and the wider range issues that arises when electing an Oireachtas and a government.

PommieBast

There's no shortage of attempts at targeting the right-of-FF/FG, with National Party, Freedom Party, Ireland First, etc. They all tanked. Peadar Toibin is basically an independent who got in on personal vote.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121935836#Comment_121935836

The Progressive Democrats were, arguably, an attempt to outflank the dominant parties on the right that enjoyed some success, at least for a period. But note that it was to the right on economic issues; not so much on social issues.

Pete_Cavan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121935819#Comment_121935819

A lot of the reason why Ireland has never had a government in which the dominant party was left of centre is probably because we haven't needed one. Despite decades of governments which many consider centre-right, we have a large welfare state with a lot of social supports, public services are provided by the state directly or outsourced in a controlled manner (little privatisation), universal access to all levels of education, etc. None of the main parties, even the centre-right ones, want to change any of that and the current government, made up of two centre-right parties, is undertaking a major public housing programme.

When you add in the liberal stance on social issues, it isn't surprising that left of centre parties have played only a minor role in government. The space available for left parties is seems to be either further left than most Irish people are comfortable with or general populism.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121935696#Comment_121935696

We had referendums recently that were resoundingly defeated and the only party that was in step with the majority was a minority party with 1 TD.

It is a mistake and bias to project too much and apply reductive logic that one party was "in step" with the population; stopped clocks and all that.

It's a frustrating and repeated insistence to glom some sort of ideological meaning from the referendum defeat, rather than taking the more mundane and prosaic reading that it as a dreadfully worded ref, confirmed thus by the AG, and which frustrated a lot of individual carers who reasonably noted the wording disavowed the state of any responsibility.

The government messed this up with dreadful wording, amounting to throwing some bills over the fence for some cheap publicity, and a mealy mouthed campaign. But reading it as some kind of clarion call for the socially right is hopeful projection of the highest sort. At least read the things Carers were themselves saying, who wanted a progressive change to the ref,.

https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/care-referendum-rejected-in-ireland-6323126-Mar2024/

Peregrinus

A lot of the reason why Ireland has never had a government in which the dominant party was left of centre is probably because we haven't needed one. Despite decades of governments which many consider centre-right, we have a large welfare state with a lot of social supports, public services are provided by the state directly or outsourced in a controlled manner (little privatisation), universal access to all levels of education, etc. None of the main parties, even the centre-right ones, want to change any of that and the current government, made up of two centre-right parties, is undertaking a major public housing programme.

Well, we've always had a succession of centre-right governments, long before most of that was true.

I think we're basically a conservative (in the sense of "cautious") people. While we like social solidarity and mutual support and so forth, in terms of state policy we rolled them out fairly slowly (compared to other countries), and mostly (the 1980s excepted) not ahead of our capacity to pay for them, and — the crucial bit — we were never willing to disrupt the established social or economic order to any significant degree to accelerate the process.

(Possibly the same combination of traits helps to account for the persistence of the Catholic church as a dominant social institution in Ireland long after it had ceased to be in most of Europe. Just a thought.)

Tl;dr: we have right-of-centre governments because we're a right-of-centre people. We are nature's Christian democrats 😉.

mariaalice

If more independents get elected especially of the one ot two crank issue type that goverment won't last.

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121936410#Comment_121936410

A SF/FF government could easily go the distance but I see it likely falling apart in year 3 or 4. A SF/PBP/ind left coalition will never make it past 2 years.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121936456#Comment_121936456

SF-Ragbag Would fail to agree a budget I suspect. Wouldn't have the numbers to do it with just left and left-leaning Independents (all few of them there are) so there'd be all sorts of right wingers being bought vote by vote too.

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121936486#Comment_121936486

With the likes of PBP who are unable to compromise you're right, I can't see how they would even pass a budget

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121936486#Comment_121936486

There is no scenario where SF could form a lasting Government without FF , certainly not at anything close to their current polling levels.

They might be able to get one started , but it wouldn't be long before various Independents etc. start bailing out over some decision or other with SF possibly limping along for a bit as a minority government but not for very long.

ednwireland

listening to bacik over the weekend and she said how many candidates they were running . I thought how can they afford that ? then remembered are they still funded by the unions ? and if so why ?