Irish General Election - Friday, November 29th *Read OP for Mod Warnings*

Oh, the young aren't voting?

Who in the sweet **** are they supposed to vote for?

These parties are so incestuous and interchangeable that it makes a total mockery of the old adage about not wasting your vote. I completely understand why the youth of today would be disengaging from the whole **** system.

I'm in my early thirties. I voted FF because it's the best of a bad bunch. I'm not overly enamoured with the current set-up but when Sinn Féin are the only alternative, I'd rather stick with what we have.

I've had nobody canvassing at my door. There was a lot of nobodies on the ballot paper. We will have a lot of newbies in the Dáil whatever happens. I'm not surprised by the low turnout.

There isn't a clear opposition to the parties in charge.

FG and FF merging Would probably give them a majority to run the government, and allow for progress.

Instead we have a government made up of at least 3 parties.

Don't get me wrong, the current status quo suits me. And I'm happy without change.

But i do see the value in a real opposition party. Current Sinn Féin are not that. They need a clip around the ear, and really figure out who they are

Here lies the problem.

You say for any young couple wanting to own their own home vote for SF.

You’re disregarding all the young couples who have managed to secure their own home under this government.

It’s all sound bites like this that SF have tried to use that won’t work and resonate with the majority.

In the medium term, in electoral terms, the soc dems may be the future face of chance. It's a pity Holly's pregnancy and the election timing coincided and that shortall was retiring. They need to build grass roots more in the next cycle. They offer the potential of enough change from the status quo but in a much more sensible way than SF.

The Green party would like to put their hand up (or maybe not)

They would have got my vote, but not on the ballot here in Tipp South :-(

Yeah this is a pretty remarkable victory for the government. Every country in the world that had an election this year has booted out their government because of the covid hangover that led to the global inflation which fed into the cost of living and the cost of housing anywhere desirable, which uneducated people everywhere seem to think only exists in their own home country and is solely and somehow deliberately caused by their existing government.

The Irish government has pretty much stood alone in doing such a good job of managing the economy, keeping everyone in solid, well paying jobs, that it's offset these global headwinds enough to stop the populists getting in with their false promises like they have elsewhere.

It s clear that sinn fein have probably gone as far as they can go with their current strategy. It feels like they have reached critical mass.

"We need a border poll" - Very few people really care about a united ireland. It just doesn't enter their daily thinking

"There has been no change in 100 years" - in fact there has been significant change and mostly positive. They have been painting a picture of FF FG ruining the country, when the country is clearly nowhere near ruined.

Housing and healthcare are real problems, they always hit home on these, but they are not seen as any sort to provide a solution.

They have flip flopped and taken ambiguous positions on the referendums earlier this year and on immigration

"Change" has been a buzzword/slogan for a long time. "Give us a chance" is another one, but neither is resonating. People just don't want change for changes sake, and give us a chance is almost like begging

So are we going to have another 5 years of hyperbole - every big or small issue described equally as a disaster, a shambles, a national shame, an embarrasment., and then expect a different result? Or are they going to change tack and try present themselves as a viable alternative - they aren't doing so now

modular units to house Ukrainians came in at 440k cost price? How much will a house cost?

in 5 years we’ll be only about 15 years away from the tax payers ratio going from 5-1 to 2-1 and a lot of higher taxed tech jobs will no longer be positioned here. I don’t see anything in any of these free everything, houses for all manifestos about this potential tsunami to our public finances. But then politics is short term. That’s why every single net new drain on public sector finances now is so important.

At least 35,000 new homes and as many as 53,000 may be required each year to meet housing demand, according to the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI)

I didn’t vote for FFFG and couldn’t vote for SF. Mary Lou bellowing about the country being awash with money but FFFG has destroyed the economy total soul destroying discourse. voting felt very much like shopping on Christmas Eve when almost everything is sold out - doing something for the sake of it knowing it’s a wasted effort.

As an aside the fastest way to make housing available is filter out the demand side by getting rid of all the fake demand ie people that we have no default obligation to find housing for and that is a pretty big number. Again no mention of this on any manifesto. As a country we can’t just build unlimited amounts of houses when the infrastructure’s not there we are steaming at full speed into the iceberg again.

I'd assume the same place as FG's promised homes. As their manifestos pretty much stated the exact same numbers.

It's ok we or rte don't question ffg on this only sf and it's lapped up

Fack! I forgot to vote.