General Irish politics discussion thread

The over all vote was 81% No ,, to 19% for ,,, Most voters saw what Leo was up to,, But 19% saw him as a pied piper,, and followed him into the deep water.

I don't see her being Justice Minister again, but she will definitely be a Minister of some description - she's the Deputy leader of FG!

So is there a fall out from the election for parties other than losing seats?

Has Simon been asked to step aside after he's just given Micheal the role of An Taoiseach?

Has Sinn Fein been asked if Mary Lou is to be removed as leader? Or are they holding on to the idea of Ireland's 1st Female Taoiseach?

Has the Leader of the Green's been asked to step down, or is their remaining TD their only hope?

As for the Left and Far-left are they sure they real won much more seats

Party  |  2020  | 2024
GP     |  12    | 1
LP     |  6     | 11
SD     |  6     | 11
PBP    |  5     | 3
R2C/I4C|  1     | 0
TOTAL  |  30    | 26

Did the % of the vote change for these parties that drastically that they lost 4 seats, in a house with more seats? Going from 17.43% to 15.7%.

And of the 16 independents just 3 could be consider of Left wing linage. Catherine Connolly (former Labour), Paul Gogarty (former Green) and Séamus Healy (former WUA). Potentially Barry Henegan also but I don't know enough to say, he has no former link to any party that I know of.

From briefly listening to Upfront last night it seemed to me that LP and SD actually think they increased the Left in the Dail. taking 12% of the seats up from 7% but at the cost to other Left wing parties and in the process losing 4 seats in an expanded Dail!

The other indos elected

Canney - no former link to parties but sat in gov with FG

Grealish - former PD

Harkin - no former link

Healy-Rae - FF

Healy-Rae - FF

Lowry - FG

McGrath - FF

Moran - no former link to parties but sat in gov with FG

Murphy - FG

Nolan - SF

Stanley - SF

Toole - FG

I think when grouping parties you need to treat the greens as close, but different to the traditional left. There's also a difference between traditional left and the far-left reactionaries like PBP.

So a straight like-for-like comparison is that Labour and Soc Dems increased their chunk's share, which is better for the country too (we don't really want people at either extreme around). The big question about "the left" is whether or not you include Sinn Fein in there or not. They speak left, but are more of a populist party than anything else.

What I mean is that I don't think sinn fein are as wedded to their ideals (with the exception of the North and Irish unity) as Labour & Soc Dems are.

I'm not comparing SF to FF or FG in this respect (but it is noticeable that while Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael AND Sinn Féin all talked about cutting taxes; Labour and Soc Dems both advocated for no tax cuts).

I think those linked to the Independent Alliance - Canney, Moran and Heneghan - would see themselves as progressive in some sense and certainly having an agenda beyond the local parish pump. Harkin I would put in the same box although AFAIK she was not involved with IA.

Which is why I wouldn't class Sinn Fein as a left-wing party in the traditional sense. Their base isn't there. Their base wants populist policies which can change with the direction of the wind. It's gotten them to be one of the 3 biggest parties, so it's working for them. Next is to see if it can grow.

I really depends on how you look at it, to me the Greens are left and have been left for some time, this idea that they are neutral along left right lines is really needs to be forgotten about, their voter base is left, with some centre and right leaning voters believing this idea that they are centre in someway.

Labour is a Left wing party, while the Soc Dems are largely just the good face of the far left, in my opinion.

Labour and the Soc Dems want us to believe that they are Centre-left, does anyone really believe this? Do they have an issue defining themselves as Left?

I think Labour suggested increasing taxes, no? I am saying that both Labour and Soc Dems are left. My point is that I several occasions I heard both talk about the centre left and other centre left parties.

The new Dáil has its first technical group - behold the new(-ish) ‘Regional Group’:

Sean Canney TD

Marian Harkin TD

Barry Heneghan TD

Noel Grealish TD

Michael Lowry TD

Kevin (Boxer) Moran TD

Verona Murphy TD

Gillian Toole TD

It just a technical group of independents but there are some people you don't associate with Gillian Toole (Sharen Keoghan) is top of that list, along with Verona Murphy Michael Lowry, and the rest.

Sharon was pushing her campaign. She made no attempts whatsoever to distance herself from Keogan.

It's the Regional Group from before, adjusted for differences in membership and minus Aontu. So its not really an appear case.