General Irish politics discussion thread

Nobody. They aren't a proper party, they say they won't have a whip and would be essentially useless if trying to form a government. If the main parties were short a seat or two they'd be better off getting one of the reliable independents (Healy-Raes, Lowry, Mattie McGrath, etc) rather than try to do a deal with Independent Ireland.

As it is, I doubt the independents will factor in any sort of government formation post the next election (I reckon it'll be FF + FG + something else - which will likely be the Soc Dems, Labour, Greens or a combination of them).

I reckon the independents would come into play if FFG have a bare majority of seats. There would be a lot of pressure from grassroots/backbenchers to leave out the smaller left parties but some form of additional support would be required. Like you I believe that would be more likely to come from the gene pool 'true' independents rather than II.

This is not city centre but it's only 30 mins from Cork city. Affordable housing in Macroom, 2 bedroom €220K, 3 bedroom €270K. Produce more of that.

https://www.corkbeo.ie/news/local-news/gallery/look-inside-new-220k-affordable-29945102

MM I wouldn't think would be that happy with a coalition taking a turn to the right. If the numbers are close, FF would certainly prefer Lb/Soc Dem and possibly Green at the table. Problem there is that each of those three will want a cabinet post and a junior. But it would bring a good social ethos and balance to the coalition. The right wing of FG can be very raw if left away with it, even going back to John Bruton, taxing childrens shoes.

But if, as looks very likely at this stage, FG is the larger party, would the final call not be ultimately theirs? If the scenario I posit of a very slight FFG majority arises, I think FG's strong preference would be for side deals with 4 or 5 the 'gene pool' independents over one with whichever of the soft left parties…

From memory, you've got six months from the vacancy arising to move the writ. Four vacancies arose on 16 July, when the TDs who has been elected to the European Parliament resigned and a fifth on 26 August, when Joe Carey resigned for medical reasons.

So at least 4 writs must be moved by 16 January 2025; it seems almost certain that the fifth write would be moved by then too. The by-election should follow between 17 and 25 days later — so, in the first or second week of February;

However, if the Dáil is dissolved after the writ is moved but before the by-election is held, the by-election is automatically cancelled. So the government could go as late as early February, then dissolve the Dáil, and there would be no by-elections.

There needs to be a 'surprise' for a shift like that to occur. If memory serves me, that was provided by Charlie Flanagan.

Oh, there could be, but the odds of it a low IWT.

For surprises,you'd want to be relying on government parties not to have learned from past election time mistakes wouldn't you and for SF to be infallable?

When really you should be relying on policy,hows that going for SF at the moment ?

While polls aren't indicative of what will happen, they do point to trends. And currently the trend is that both FF & FG are going up while SF is going down. So you can say that if an election was to be called now it's likely that that trend would continue.

Regarding the RedC poll of 71% combined for the now governing parties - I assume you mean the combined FF, FG and Green numbers? I checked the polling for 2020 and the highest they ever got in the RedC was a combined 64% in the poll of September 2019 (FG: 29, FF: 28 & Green: 7). They slid from that highpoint to 63% in October, 61% in November, 57% and then 52% in January and finished with 50.2% in the General Election. The big drops were for FF (28 down to 22.2%) and FG (29 down to 20.9%). Greens stayed static.

The combined government party polling figures since the last GE were at their highest in the first poll after GE (57% in March 2020) and they dropped from there. The lowest they hit were 37% in June 2022 (FG: 19, FF: 14 & Green: 4) and again in April this year (FG: 20, FF 14 & Green 3). They have since gone up to 45% as of last week (FG: 23, FF: 18 & Green: 4).

So the difference between now and the lead up to 2020 is that the trend (as of now anyway) is a net positive for FF & FG and SF are going down. Unless something causes that to change (which, to be fair, could happen in the election campaign) I don't see those figures going down much. The Greens are static at 4, but if you swap them out with Soc Dems and Labour you get ~8-10% there too.

Where did you pull the 71% figure from btw?

Apologies, not enough coffee, you are correct. 61% is the correct figure.

But the point remains the same, there was huge fluctuations in the run up to the last election. When FG and FF were polling numbers like 30% and 24% Sf were back on 11%

FG are at 23% at the moment FF on 18% or 22% SF are on 18% based on whatever poll you believe.
The effect on those numbers of a campaign and whatever self inflicted damage the parties do to them selves is only beginning.

The most 'likely' outcome is change. What will change remains to be seen.

FG have fallen from grace in this term of government - they had 35% in polls at one point. And to boot could very well be in government seeing a further fall in their vote.

The political dynamic is in flux here and still is. There is a huge volatility/floating in voting intentions across the electorate. It has already forced the two main parties together in what I think was a short-sighted move that will result in unrecoverable damage to one of them when the electorate tire of the arrangement which they inevitably will.

With Roderick trying to offset blame to FF and FG in the Sunday's and now this, surely the reflection on the Greens is that basically they'll put up with anything to be in government.

The strategists might want to have a rethink. Not a great look tbh

Are you worried because the Greens are presenting a distinct identity to the Government and may therefore attract back voters?

Roderic also said that he couldn't see an alliance with SF because nobody knew what exactly their policies on immigration and housing were. Pretty damning.