Irish general election: 25 February 2011

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I notice that I missed out on the Government satisfaction rating in the Millward Browne Lansdowne poll: 5-94-1

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The 30th Dáil has been dissolved and a General Election will be held on Friday, 25 February.

Close of nominations will be Wednesday, 9 February.
The 31st Dáil will meet on Wednesday, 9 March.

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For reasons only known to the special folk in the Irish Independent, they commissioned another poll from Millward Browne Lansdowne, published this morning, 3 days after their Sunday edition did the same.

New numbers…

	2 Feb	30 Jan	30 Jan	2007
	MBL	MBL	RedC	Election
Fine Gael	30	34	33	27
Labour	24	24	21	10
Fianna Fáil	16	16	16	42
Sinn Féin	13	10	13	7
Green	1	1	2	5
Ind/Other	15	15	15	9

So FG -4, SF +3

On such numbers SF would not be far short of FF in overall seat numbers, if they got reasonable transfers.

The first poll of the campaign proper puts FG within the margin of error of where they were at the last General Election - well done Enda! lulz

Leader Satisfaction
46 Gilmore
44 Martin
31 Adams
27 Kenny
14 Gormley
10 Cowen

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Odd that it suggests FG are leading in Dublin, rather than Labour.
Anyway, rumours of anohter poll out this evening or tomorrow. Stay tuned...

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John Cregan (FF-Limerick W) became the 36th incumbent to decide not to seek re-election yesterday. His decision is directly related to Micheál Martin's reshuffle, when he made Cregan's constituency colleague Niall Collins spoksperson of Defence.

36 is a record in modern times. 21 of those are FF - more than the total number of retirements at the last election.

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Fianna Fail's dramatic loss of support has halted but the party is still in fifth place in the capital, with just 11pc support.

Wait... who else polls 12%? ULA? You'd think 12% in Dublin would translate to more than 1% nationally, so it can't be the Greens.

They don't specify, but I presume they're simply counting Inds/Other as equivalent to a party.

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Turns out that yes, there is another poll out today – and remarkably, it’s another RedC poll, who also released a poll on Sunday. (This time commissioned by Paddy Power rather than the Sunday Business Post.)

The numbers, with the other polls this week…

	2 Feb	2 Feb	30 Jan	30 Jan	2007
	RedC	MBL	MBL	RedC	Election
Fine Gael	37	30	34	33	27
Labour	19	24	24	21	10
Fianna Fáil	18	16	16	16	42
Sinn Féin	12	13	10	13	7
Green	3	1	1	2	5
Ind/Other	11	15	15	15	9

FG +4, Lab -2, FF +2, SF -1, Green +1, i/O -4
Completely different shifts than were in the MBL poll this morning.

FF's best poll since September.
FG's best poll since May 2009.
Labour's worst poll since last March.

Such a result could put FG fairly close to an overall majority, if the breaks fell their way.

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It feels wrong to steal Jas' thunder by posting this ()

Indeed - for shame!

Leadership Satisfaction
44 Gilmore
30 Kenny 
27 Adams
25 Martin
15 Gormley

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Similar detail for the other parties is in The Irish Times report.

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For the first time ever, Fianna Fáil is not running sufficient candidates such as they could form an overall majority (i.e. 83).

Candidates Selected

	2011	2007
Fine Gael	102	90
Fianna Fáil	74	106
Labour	68	50

Filing deadline is next Wednesday, so some changes will no doubt occur between now and then - but as it stands only FG could conceivably form a single party government.

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The schedule for what will be far the most extensive series of pre-election debates is coming together.

The first debate will be next Tuesday on TV3 to be moderated by the combative Vincent Browne. The leaders of FF, FG and Labour have been invited - Enda Kenny has yet to accept. TV3 say it will go ahead with or without him.

On Friday the 18th, a 5-way debate co-hosted by TV3 and Sky News to be moderated by Ursula Halligan (TV3) and Adam Boulton (Sky).

On Tuesday the 22nd, RTÉ plan a 3-way debate.

An RTÉ 5-way debate, and a TG4 Irish language 3-way debate have yet to be scheduled.

- Irish Times report

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According to RTÉ, Enda Kenny has decided that TV3's designated moderator for Tuesday's debate, Vincent Browne, is unacceptable.

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Browne's comment was made in the context of the last leadership challenge to Kenny. He subsequently issued an apology.

It might also be noted that Kenny has refused to appear on Browne's show for years, I presume due to Browne's combative nature (think Paxman+). He is though perfectly capable of fair moderation.

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There's not really much justification for a three-way debate instead of a five-way one, IMO. I mean, it's reasonable enough considering that they're the three biggest parties, etc, etc, but Martin's got as much hope of being Taoiseach as Gormley or Adams do.

Why stop at 5-way? Surely that the odds are Gormley will win 0/1 seats, whereas the ULA - excluded - are quite likely to win more than that.

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Fine Gael have announced that Enda Kenny will only debate on the following terms:
One 5-way debate on RTÉ on Monday the 15th.
One 3-way debate to be on shared transmission on the Tuesday the 22nd.

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Or perhaps I´m saying this because I still can´t comprehend the notion of Enda Kenny being taoiseach.

Which would be entirely understandable as it's not a nice thought.

Perhaps it´s a bit of urban snobbery on my part...

He's apparently now saying that his empty chair at the TV3 debate will "stand as a symbol to those forced to emigrate" - which is possibly the stupidest thing I've heard in this campaign so far.

What concerns me is that I think Noel Whelan is correct in his assessment:

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Find myself back in Dublin for the week - I've been surprised by the comparative lack of political littering postering compared to other recent elections.

Possibly reflecting the party's own changed economic situation, or possibly my memory is poor.

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Is any incumbent (or resigned since 2007) TD running in a different constituency from that which he or she served from in the 30th (2007-2011) Dáil, counting all constituencies with the same name pre- and post-2007 review the same and counting Kerry North Limerick West, Limerick and Limerick City as the same (for the purpose of this question) as Kerry North, Limerick West and Limerick East, respectively?  ...
Had someone been planning on jumping contituencies but changed their mind?

No, and not that I'm aware.
Pressure from FF HQ was placed on both their Dún Laoighaire candidates such that one or other would move to run in Dublin S - but both held firm and so both seats are in danger.

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Also, is Fine Gael really running four candidates (none of them incumbent TDs, in spite of Joe O'Reilly being in boldface) in Cavan-Monaghan and Galway West?  They might well win four in Mayo and I guess a "sweeper" in Galway East makes sense (four in Laoighis Offaly is pushing it, as their percentage there in 2007 was less than in Cavan-Monaghan, but with Fianna Fáil being the only other game in town there it may not be crazy), but with a viable opponent "3rd party" in Cavan-Monaghan (SF) and Galway West (Labour), and a viable incumbent independent TD (Noel Grealish) in the latter, why would they run four candidates when winning three seats will be tall order?

Running 4 in C-M is because they are chasing 3 seats (a quite realistic aim), but felt they had to run 2 from each county (same reasoning in Laois-Offaly). Humphreys and O'Reilly are to be favoured, I presume. I'd suggest Conlon will be closer than McVittie - Margaret Conlon's transfers (for surely she shall falter, rather than Smith) will likely stay in Monaghan thus preferring Humphreys and Conlon.

While quite a few tout C-M as an opportunity for a second SF seat, I don't see it happening. It looks like Ó Caoláin only allowed a weak second candidate. I can't see there being sufficient Cavan SF votes to get her really into contention - but I guess SF votes will transfer between the counties better than most other parties will manage, so who knows.

They should come close to 4 in Mayo - if they could (or would allow for) properly vote manage, then I'd favour them - but I suspect not.

Galway W is massive in terms of area and that's the main reason for the number of candidates - so parties tend to run more rather than less anyway just to increase the chances of getting face-to-face contact between the candidates and as many constituents as possible. (Note FF are running 3 here - even though they're only defending 2.) Most likely result here is probably a single FG gain from FF. Though I expect independents Catherine Connolly and Tom Welby to do better than last time. My inkling is that Connolly is in with a shout.

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Kildare South seems to have the opposite problem. Both Labour and FG are running only one candidate, which means they're effectively ceding a seat to FF. Seems like a very odd thing to do; it would be at least possible to see a 2 FG-1 Lab (or maybe even the reverse) result there. (Other candidates include a Shinner and two independents.)

Yeah, both the FG and Labour candidate have done well (from their personal career perspective) in managing to be the respective sole candidates, particularly Wall.

FF should be holding one seat here though anyway, but the independent Kenny should put up some reasonable numbers to maybe keep it interesting.

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Galway W is massive in terms of area and that's the main reason for the number of candidates - so parties tend to run more rather than less anyway just to increase the chances of getting face-to-face contact between the candidates and as many constituents as possible. (Note FF are running 3 here - even though they're only defending 2.) Most likely result here is probably a single FG gain from FF. Though I expect independents Catherine Connolly and Tom Welby to do better than last time. My inkling is that Connolly is in with a shout.

What about Grealish? Any chance he holds his seat, or is he finished?

The seat is definitely in danger, but he should be there at least until late into the count. I suspect it will be between him and Connolly for the final seat.

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By the by, first debate was last night - Martin v Gilmore.
Reportedly 410,000 viewers.

The consensus as to the result: Gilmore did fine, but Martin won. I only saw the second half, but somehow Martin managed to keep Gilmore on the back foot for most of that time.

Will be interesting to see whether or not that (and Enda's absence [unfortunately TV3 didn't actually have an empty chair there]) affects the weekend polls.


Also, nominations closed today.

Indications are that candidate figures are as follows:
104 Fine Gael
  75 Fianna Fáil
  68 Labour
  43 Green (1 in every constituency)
  41 Sinn Féin
170 Other

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Also, is Fine Gael really running four candidates (none of them incumbent TDs, in spite of Joe O'Reilly being in boldface) in Cavan-Monaghan and Galway West?  They might well win four in Mayo and I guess a "sweeper" in Galway East makes sense (four in Laoighis Offaly is pushing it, as their percentage there in 2007 was less than in Cavan-Monaghan, but with Fianna Fáil being the only other game in town there it may not be crazy), but with a viable opponent "3rd party" in Cavan-Monaghan (SF) and Galway West (Labour), and a viable incumbent independent TD (Noel Grealish) in the latter, why would they run four candidates when winning three seats will be tall order?

Running 4 in C-M is because they are chasing 3 seats (a quite realistic aim), but felt they had to run 2 from each county (same reasoning in Laois-Offaly). Humphreys and O'Reilly are to be favoured, I presume. I'd suggest Conlon will be closer than McVittie - Margaret Conlon's transfers (for surely she shall falter, rather than Smith) will likely stay in Monaghan thus preferring Humphreys and Conlon.

While quite a few tout C-M as an opportunity for a second SF seat, I don't see it happening. It looks like Ó Caoláin only allowed a weak second candidate. I can't see there being sufficient Cavan SF votes to get her really into contention - but I guess SF votes will transfer between the counties better than most other parties will manage, so who knows.

Paddypower and some commentators are calling for another SF pickup with Kathryn Reilly.
 I presume this would make her the baby of the dail.  Funny contrast seeing a cute, mousey 22 year old share the podium with the ex-provos.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0204/1224288986692.html
http://www.newstalk.ie/2011/news/review-of-cavan-monaghan-constituency-by-adrian-kavanagh/

Yeah, as I say I suspect most will have this down as a SF pick-up and they may be right. I'll reserve the right to change my mind later. I'm surprised PaddyPower regard a 3rd FG seat as so unlikely.

I'll hopefully get around to a full constituency prediction over the campaign.

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Some fun facts, which are all likely to need updating after this election:

1. Since 1932, the lowest vote FF have ever picked up in a general election was in 1992, when they received 39.1% of the vote.

2. The lowest number of seats FF have achieved was in 1954 when 65 FF TDs were returned.

3. Since 1927, FF have won at least one seat in every constituency in the country in every general election.

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Numbers from tomorrow's, Sunday Business Post commissioned, RedC poll are out.
Results below with the other recent comparitors...

	13 Feb	6 Feb	3 Feb	2 Feb	2 Feb	2007
	RedC	RedC	I-MRBI	RedC	MBL	Election
Fine Gael	38	35	33	37	30	27
Labour	20	22	24	19	24	10
Fianna Fáil	15	17	15	18	16	42
Sinn Féin	10	13	12	12	13	7
Green	3	2	1	3	1	5
Ind/Other	14	11	15	11	15	9

FG, Ind/Other (and Green) gains at everyone else's expense.
FG back to record heights.
Labour show no sign of regaining the momentum they lost a few months ago.
FF leadership change yet to evidently pay-off in these polls.

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The SF bump seems to be over?

Possibly. Possibly not.
More data required before calling that I think.

Even if seeing FF getting their due will be nice, I must confess to feeling disappointed with the Republic of Ireland. Are you really going to elect Enda Kenny Ireland?

Well, Mayo will.
If FG remain at around the 38% level in polls, then talk will be sustained about the possibility of FG governing alone, or with the support of agreeable independents. (Which no doubt Labour will then use as a scare tactic, much as the PDs did effectively back in 2002 with FF.)

Harry McGee's blog this morning made a number of interesting points, including:

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Might get traction, might not - but either way, one was surprised to hear that this morning Micheál Martin, recent Minister for Foreign Affairs no less, made comments within which he attempted to adopt a Chinese accent to convey a message he apparantly repeatedly picked up on a visit to China - "You Irish - very good at software".
Audio link

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WIN