I think it will be FF/FG again with god knows who. Hopefully a left wing party
It will be November 15th
Mick Clifford outlining the madness of the delay in forming a government and the nonsense of it possibly dragging into January.
The electorate voted back in FF and FG. Their laziness in forming a government quickly is leaving a bad taste.
Hasn’t stopped @BlueSkyDreams nice one astro 😀
What are you talking about?
If you start with a spike on your trend period, expect to be called out on it. Using it to make a point is nonsensical.
You're forgetting Morton's White Elephant Fork;
This is the laughable and best bit! Its why I would not touch going into government if if were SD , Labour etc, things will likely get worse, never mind getting better… The housing completions this year, will be the same as last year, yet we have heard for years, about how they were going to take it seriously. Talk of 50-60,000 completions a year, is the stuff of comedy!
This stuff would take years … The planning system is an absolute farce, densities are a farce, that is just for starters, but they wont address those issues, that alone sinks their bullshit claims… Forget about the labour required, lack of infrastructure servicing the sites. If they got serious now, it would take years to sort the issues, to even allow those numbers of homes to be completed…
They have a dream scenario, the are maintaining power , while at the same time, literally benefiting from the "housing crisis" for the decision makers in government, home owner's, likely own other properties, its a get rich scheme. So its only a crisis, if you are on the other side of the fence, they are in the minority… that pretty much sums up, why nothing will be done… Prices increased over 10 percent this year so far… Immigration floodgates open. They are gaslighting the population…
lol! from south dublin to the airport? do you know it will serve the largest town in Ireland without a rail line? Swords… it will carry 100,000,000 passengers a year, facilitate massive amount of new residential construction and take serious volumes of traffic off the road… And FYI, dublin is a massive loser in terms of the spend it gets versus the wealth it redistributes to the rest of the country…
The volume of traffic between Cork and Waterford is not high enough to justify a motorway connection. Govt policy should not be based on emotive statements like "2nd largest and 5th largest cities" and instead be based on cost benefit analyses. Cork to Waterford does not pass a CBA.
One outcome I could have predicted - Michael O'Leary's comments about teachers did no harm at all to Peter Burke in Longford-Westmeath. Burke topped the poll, elected on the first count and brought in a running mate. Nailed on for another top Ministerial post.
Will the people's votes give pause to all those in the media who piled on and misrepresented what O'Leary said? No, they are shameless.
Will FG regret their spineless apology, throwing O'Leary to the media dogs (though he is well able for that)? Of course not.
How many teachers in the new Dáil?
Same reason Micheál and other Dáil deputies hang with the SDLP up north.
Was Michelle O'Neil elected to the Dail?
Anyone know why she was there today?
SF lost vote share in one election. Sin é.
If they lose more in the next GE then you can start talking 'trends'.
I meant exactly what I wrote.
Only 25% of TDs are female. SF have the highest with 16 TDs.
You mean decent opposition in terms of Labour and Soc Dems? Yes, I agree.
I don't vote SF. People are afraid to vote SF which is why the wasters in FFG are kept in. However we now have an alternative opposition with decent numbers for the first time in years. Let the games begin. FFG will have a very very hard time living up to their promises. The promises were to fix the disasters they caused !!
If you dont see the importance of the current trend data, I really cant help you Francie.
I cant help it if you dont understand trends, but good luck.
FG will be in govt. SF, buddy, will not.
And thats better than good.
We are talking about the current trend period
You are trying to turn a one GE cycle into a 'trend' and looking a bit silly in the effort. Somebody tried to do the same comparing different elections and now looks equally silly.
Nice to see they all put their female TDs at the front and the centre for the group photos. The female TDs just seem to go along with it.
Hey Buddy, I will decide the trend period I want to use thanks. I will also deal with TD numbers while you persevere with other irrelevant data points. FG are the 3rd largest party. That's good.
I voted IND, SocDem, Labour and II in the recent election. My IND lady Catherine Connolly sailed home and the other parties did well. The future looks good. FFG need to get on their toes now.
2011 is not relevant.
We are talking about the current trend period, which is the time between the last GE and this one.
That is the only data that shows the recent trend and that trend for SF is categorically downward; both on FPV and seat share in an enlarged Dail.
Your data shows that SF peaked in 2020, following a very sharp rise since 2011, yet from 2020 to 2024, there is a rapid decline.
The decline in FPV in particular is huge (22.5%) and reflects left wing voters migrating to Soc Dems and Labour...the change is happening.
SF got 535k popular votes in 2020 and only 418k in 2024 - that is an epic drop!
FG got 455k popular votes in 2020 and increased to 458k in 2024.
There is only one of those 2 parties maintaining/increasing their vote and it is not SF!
GE 2028/29 looks bad for SF if the 22.5% downward trend is not urgently reversed.
It appears SF have peaked and on their way downwards, as left wing voters move to Labour/Soc Dems.
Metrolink connection to the airport will affect those living Swords (as many work at the airport and will commute daily) rather than residents of Dublin centre as they will make a few flights per year. However, Metrolink connects with many other trip generators like DCU, Cross Guns/Glasnevin connecting with Dart+; Mater; OCS; Tara St, SSG. It is not just a Airport to Dublin CC.
Metrolink is a major carbon reduction project if we get people out of their cars, and we need all of that we can generate.
There is a huge call from dairy farmers for the nitrogen derogation to be retained, with those calling for it the most not realising the way to retain it is to improve water quality of our rivers - but they are not prepared to put in the hard yards to achieve that.
To achieve the current housing building targets requires a town the size of Athlone every year, with schools, GPs, shops, parks, and lots more. Add to that the requirement for water connections, sewerage, electricity supplies and sufficient grid extensions. It is not going to happen without emergency legislation, which will not happen.
Whoever takes over as Gov are taking a poisoned chalice. I doubt that any of the current crop have any of the required skills.
Whatever about Rosslare linking the second and fifth largest cities in the state by motorway seems like a credible infrastructure project. There hasn't been more calls for it because the second and third largest cities are not linked by motorway either so that's been getting all of the attention.
Talking about avoiding the question
Francie you declared on the SF thread you would never vote for SF or support them if they would end up been mudguards in government for either FF or FG.
SF have made plenty of attempts now to do exactly that with FF.
Yet you seem to be still supporting SF?
If Martin hasn't ruled out going in with SF they would have gotten less seats. Wouldn't have gotten the transfers they got from FG voters which got them over the line in a lot of places. FF and FG voters transferred to each other on the basis of both staying In power and keeping SF out.
I have heard many words from farmers describing what the thought of the Dept. of Agriculture and efficient was not among them.
This present ACRES seem to be a particular mess where farmers look on the Dept as clueless. But that is a whole other topic and not really related to this thread.
There is a business case for road connectivity to Dublin
There is also a business case for Cork to Limerick. There is no business case for cork-waterford-rosslare by motorway. What is the logic in that? It's not a big trip generator, nor do we have large amounts of freight that need to go port to port? (Why would they?)
Dublin is massive even compared to cork, and especially so compared to Waterford or Galway. The reason they bulk or transport investment is in Dublin is because Dublin needs it the most - Dublin has the most amount of people that need moved around it efficiently.
The idea that LUAS was only because of parish pump effect in Dublin is BS. As is the idea that motorway network is because of politics and not because Dublin is the economic backbone of the country.
As for Cork Luas/Galway Luas - the reason those haven't happened yet is because of local authorities. Galway has hitched it's wagon firmly to the motorcar, and Cork council have torpedoed their own Luas project for Cork. It's nothing to do with Dublin-centrism by decision makers and everything to do with local incompetence.
If you think there’s no “parish pump” politics involved in Dublin based Ministers making decisions that favour Dublin, you are being unrealistic.
Almost without exception our investment in major infrastructure is heavily focused on infrastructure that goes to/from Dublin or is internal Dublin only. Even Cork doesn’t have any significant investment in non-Dublin focused infrastructure, never mind the smaller cities. There is no Cork-Galway or Cork-Waterford-Rosslare Harbour motorway or rail service and no interest from the Dublin based Dept of Transport and Agencies in even contemplating putting them in place.
Already, the government has spent more on the planning stages for the Metro line than it did building the two LUAS lines. Which means, by the time it is actually built, we could probably have built light rails in all our other cities for the same money. But that of course won’t happen as the priority will be for a metro to whisk people from south Dublin to the airport.
There are only two pathways, (or a combination of them) for SF getting enough votes to govern.
Move towards the centre hoping to take enough votes of FF & FG to prevent them having enough support to form a coalition government, or move further left and cannabalise other parties on the left.
Moving towards the centre to attract FF & FG votes would have a few difficulties for SF. FF & FG`s core voters may not like each other to any great degree but the one thing they have in common is that both despise SF, and both have a strong core vote. So weaning any substantial numbers of them away would be extremely difficult. It would also leave SF in the position of any such votes they might gained on the swings they would lose on the roundabout with many of there own core voters leaving due to SF moving towards the centre.
When it comes to moving further left. There may have been a bit of a warm glow towards SF from others on the left after the 2020 GE where some got over the line due to SF transfers, but that was not because of any great love for them from SF. It was due to SF not fielding enough candidates, which had they done, those transfer would never have reached those others on the left. As Ged Nash of Labour pointed out, SF didn`t do any favours for anyone else on the left this time when it came to instructions on transfers.To me this proposed SF coalition of the left in opposition is nothing more than an attempt to cannabalise other parties on the left, and something these parties, the SD`s in particular, are now waking up to recognise as such.
