General Irish politics discussion thread

Half of ff sitting tds voting against allowing an abortion referendum is a very very startling distinction.

They may tied with fg at the hip on property but within the home they are most definitely different polities.

Try responding to my argument - no party leader in the past 30 years has sought an overall majority. So, no real change because not running enough candidates to win an overall majority is just acknowledging that long-standing reality.

Of course, reducing the number of candidates on the party ticket will piss off aspiring candidates who might run as Independents but most of those are male who would be blocked by the 40% gender quota. https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/elections-2024/shock-in-wexford-as-long-serving-fianna-fail-councillor-quits-party-to-run-as-independent-in-general-election/a2132717276.html

Even with the reduced numbers, no party imagines that all their candidates could be elected (though Sinn Féin came close and that will always haunt them 🤡)

Define woke please.

TDs shifting their stance in retrospect just means they'll change their outlook again as needed for reelection.

A third voted against repeal and theres still votes to be chased there. Aside from aontú I don't see tds from any other party except ff openly courting them.

I didn't announce it. I posted a journalist announcing it as the first time something had happened since the foundation of the state.

No, not a change at all at all. 😁

The "FG and FF have to merge" claim reminds me of the paradoxical "I've always hated the Greens, so they've lost my vote" line.

If someone already hates FG and FF, what difference would their merger make to them? They're not going to vote for the parties separate or combined, and they haven't lost their vote either.

If anything it's advantageous for opposition parties that the parties they reckon are identical and going after the same voters are dividing their resources, duplicating their efforts, and running candidates against each other.

It's just a soundbite that doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

It's always the most wokiest of wokes who demand definitions of woke on here.

IMO the acknowledgement is a huge thing.
The 'first time' something happens in the history of the state can rightly be called that. Ambition and belief in a distinct policy/ideology has been put to one side. This will enable fudged mergers rather than the offering of a distinct choice to the electorate. By not running enough candidates it seems to me that it is now the choice of some.
Just an opinion.

Here is a shocking notion - if the candidate you vote for is in the minority, they should do the honorable thing and sit on the Opposition benches until they win a majority. Politicians of opposing views working out compromises is a valid political process but it is far removed from the democratic will.

A coalition of like-minded parties could reflect the majority view as has sometimes happened in Europe (e.g. CDU/CSU/FDP under Kohl) but it has never happened in Ireland (and it happens much more rarely in Europe now as politics has fractured). Instead, until 1989, we had unhappy marriages of convenience to get FF out but then Haughey miscalculated - he had to swallow the bitterest pill (the PDs) and Bertie understood FF must join in the coalition game.

You say Ireland has been better governed by the coalitions in the past 30 years. You may be one of the last of the Bertie supporters but you must admit they drove the economy into the ditch with the bank guarantee. Or perhaps you give credit to FG/Labour for turning the country around in 2011-2016 but then you must give credit to the Troika. Or you are one of the 20% who supported the governing party (FG) in 2020?

The Irish people will pass judgement soon on the current government. Some may vote for a return to the nearest thing to single-party government but I don't think FF/FG can win an overall majority and we will again have a Programme for Government which is a patchwork of pet projects.

But nobody will have a majority? So does that mean everybody sits on the opposition benches?

How do you know that people who have voted (as a random example) for Fianna Fáil automatically want them in power with Fine Gael? Or that if you vote Labour you must want them in power with Sinn Féin?

There's no way of knowing, but because we have a representative democracy we allow the elected reps make that decision for us as a public.

The idea that a single party in majority if a good thing is madness to me.

The idea that a single party in majority if a good thing is madness to me.

Amazingly, most of Irish people would agree with this unfounded proposition and for only one reason - they don't trust our politicians. More precisely, after Haughey took power they didn't trust FF, the only party that could form a single-party government. Now our politics is too fractured to generate a majority for any single party so we try to make a virtue of necessity. But let's not fool ourselves into believing that a mash-mash of opposing parties is superior to a single party government.

So does that mean everybody sits on the opposition benches?

Not at all. Let those parties which are like-minded form a government. FF and FG are the obvious examples but SF and the Left would also be workable if they had the votes.

There's no way of knowing, but because we have a representative democracy we allow the elected reps make that decision for us as a public.

There is the source of the disconnect between the Irish people and our politicians. No politician has the honesty to say "Give me the power to make choices on your behalf!"

Time and again, the voters have taken the first opportunity to punish parties (the PDs, WP, the Greens, Labour, IA) who joined in coalition with the parties they despised but politicians refuse to draw the obvious lessons, except one - "Disguise your intentions until after the election"

The Greens had a nightmare outing at the EP/Locals and they will get a second dose at the end of the month. But by Christmas, there will be some party (SDs?) or bunch of Independents ready to prop up a government their voters did not want. The alternative may be a minority government but, unlike many others countries, our Constitution requires firstly a majority vote in the Dáil to nominate the Taoiseach and Ministers.