Could Fine Gael be pushed to the right?

The same FG that promised to scrap USC? That FG?

On Count 18 the gap was about 6000. But on Count 18 he was only 3,000 votes behind. He ended up behind 13000 on Count 19. Many pundits expected him to be elected eventually but with PRSTV its about the order of eliminations. The valid poll was 376,720 so percentage wise the difference was small as a share of the total valid poll, though large as a share of AOR and Boylan's individual votes.

One of the reasons he didnt win was that the transfer patterns were not strictly Left→Left or Right→Right all the time. Daly transferred about 7000 votes to Boylan, and Steenson transferred about 737 votes to Daly.

Irish people aren't anti-immigration but I'd say most are concerned about the type of immigration that we have seen in recent years. I don't think anyone had too many problems with the Polish plumber.

When it comes to asylum seekers the worry is that many of them will end up dependent on the state and you get the fear of crime as well.

Without a doubt there is a large right of center vote in Ireland currently homeless. You'd think FG should be the best party to tap those voters and maybe they are waking up to it now.

Still actions speak louder than words. We shouldn't have people loitering in the country when they've been ordered to leave.

Another thing that confuses me is are they still getting some form of social protection after being told to leave, are they in some form state accomodation? An obvious push would be to cut all receipts off, maybe not immediately but after a few weeks to encourage a quick exit.

They've been given a serious message and people have had enough of the BS, this is about saving their own Skin...

Listen or lose...

Simon Harris today stating that people on the left shut down discussion about immigration.

Now I know there's a few posters here who insist that Fine Gael are on the left, but the leader today very much pinned his party to the right of the spectrum.

"Of course I must follow the mob, I'm their leader!"

A new record of homelessness today, but obviously the left are responsible for not allowing the government talk about it.

5o Ukrainians a day arriving here…

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2025/10/31/accommodation-for-ukrainians-will-run-out-by-end-of-november-warns-department/

I tend to view things in a different light to you. I have no truck with either FG or FF - now widely known as FFG for their joined-at-the-hip approach.
Nevertheless, though they share policies and an electoral space today, their history is very different. FG claim Michael Collins as their own, so in reiewing their history, it is only fair to begin with CnaG in the first decade of the state's existence.

There was widespread emigration in the 1920s, so much so that the population is estimated to have dropped by around 150k in that period. FF stabilised the population, and there was even some small growth in their first period in government, up until 1948 when a rebranded CnaG came to power as FG in a broad coalition. This led to a decade of horrific emigration, which it took FF several years to staunch. We have all heard of how tough the 1950s were in Ireland when economies were growing in Europe.

FF returned to power, staunched the outflow and many returned to Ireland in the 1960s. The state joined the EEC in the early 70s and although FG returned to power, the economy boomed and the population continued to grow; still they lost power after a stint in government. Come the 80s, FG had another bite at the cherry, and again the country fell apart under the weight of FGs policies of looking after the wealthy and people were encouraged to emigrate in their droves - and they did so. It was only after the USSR fell and their resources became available to the West that the outflow was staunched. This lasted from the early 90s till the crash. Emigration has been a major factor in Irish life ever since - even while there is a huge counterflow of immigration.
This time the emigration began under FF, but the 14 years of FG government has seen it continue. Young Irish people are today leaving the country in droves, but FG just sees it as a "lifestyle choice".

So no, I do not accept the FG trope that FG just came to power to fix FF's mess - the evidence appears to be the opposite: FF came to power on the back of FG's policies of forcing people to emigrate in order to preserve the place of the wealthy in Irish society, and, barring the 1970s FG-led government, on each occasion FG's legacy was so bad that FF remained in power through several elections as a result.

This is all history now, as the two parties can no longer have a separate existence if they are to remain in power. All that now differentiates them is which clans control which party, and so which clans will get the biggest slice of the pie as they divvy it up.

Are you saying FG didn't close any hospital beds in the 1980s?

And yet you'll blame immigration for the government not meeting its own housing targets.

You'll blame immigration or the left for the government delaying the release of its revised housing targets.

You'll blame the left for the government not releasing it's infrastructure plan

You'll blame the left for the Budget which gave taxpayers the square root of f*ck all, while McDonalds and developers got tax cuts.

Be honest with yourself, this government has done f*ck all. You've Simon Harris coming out weekly saying 'Jaysus it's not great is it? There should probably be changes to that' and he's been the same since he was Minister for Health.

It's high time the government stopped commentating on the problems and started fixing them. They're not doing it. They're not doing it because they've been in power for far too long and they've simply run out of ideas.

And yet we have another 4 years of this shitshow to go.

'Immigration' isn't the elephant in the room. It's the government's inability to actually deliver on what it says it will deliver on. It's also its inability to actually listen to what their own advisers tell them. The mess with housing is as a result of the government of 2011 to 2016's refusal to build homes to meet population growth. Now, nearly 10 years later, we're playing catch up.

Who was in government then? Oh yes, Fine Gael.

I'm personally of the opinion that a person should have a maximum of 28 days to exit the state after the issue of a deportation order after which all state benefits and accommodation should be ceased. I also would be in favour of a person subject to a deportation order having to sign on in a Garda station every 7 days as essentially they have been deemed as an illegal immigrant once the deportation order has been issued. Illegal immigrants wouldn't be long leaving if this was the case and this would go a long way to prevent heinous crimes like we saw in Dublin a few weeks back.

I was unaware of that attack at the time of posting, I've read about it now and it is reprehensible. The perpetrators should be brought to justice and spend time in jail for such an attack.

A lack of a properly functioning asylum system is creating anarchy like this. There's a cause and effect here.