Ireland 2009

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Any chance of one being done for the Far Left (PBP + SP + Other Trots)?

Yep, will do. Should get them up in the next day or two.

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When is the next national election?  I know when I was Ireland this past June, almost everyone I talked to seemed to be really mad at the current government especially considering how hard the government got hit.  Does anyone think Fianna Fail could win again or are they toast?  And what about the smaller parties, could this be good news for them?

Under current electoral law, a general election must be held by July 2012. However, the Government's majority has been steadily eroding for some time now and the conventional wisdom seems to be that a general election is more likely than not at some stage within the next 18 months.

If the polling we've been seeing is at all accurate, Fianna Fáil will be in for a drubbing. There's really no telling how bad it could get at this stage. It looks very possible to be their worst ever electoral perfromance.

The main beneficiaries should be the two larger opposition parties, Fine Gael and Labour. As for the smaller parties, Sinn Féin could make a few gains; the Greens are on the verge of electoral wipe-out; and the various far-left (Socialists, People Before Profit) could well win a few seats. I suspect at this stage Independents will also have a reasonably good election.

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What is it with SF and Tralee, anyways?

It seems to be largely a personal vote for Martin Ferris. It's only since Ferris became a SF candidate (after his release in 1994 - coinciding with SF developing a peace process electoral dividend), that they have had any success in Kerry. Up until that point SF's support in the Kerry North area had been marginal. You were more likely to find SF candidates on the ballot papers in local and general elections (outside of the border and Dublin areas, Kerry and Cork would have long had relatively strong pockets of strong support for militant republicanism) - though none of these candidates met with any significant degree of popular support.

SF are very worried that Ferris will retire at the next election and that his natural successor for the seat, his daughter Toiréasa (of the recent European election), is both not particularly keen to run for the seat and is not believed to view the current leadership very positively.

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Any chance of one being done for the Far Left (PBP + SP + Other Trots)?

The above map contains the combined totals for the Socialist Party, People Before Profit and the Workers' Party. The below table gives the details by party from strongest to weakest constituency for the combined far left. However, the figures should be taken with a nice big bucket load of salt as the lcoal electoral areas (particularly on the northside of Dublin) don't necessarily fit nicely into the Dáil constituencies.

	Socialist	PBP	Workers'
Dublin W	22.9%
Dublin SC		15.7%	0.9%
Dún Laoighaire		14.2%
Dublin N	13%
Cork NC	6.2%		3%
Dublin SW	5.7%	3.5%
Waterford		0.6%	5.9%
Dublin MW			4.1%
Dublin NW			4.1%
Dublin NE	2.7%
Dublin SE		2.4%
Dublin C		0.7%	1%
Louth			0.5%
Roscommon-Leitrim S		0.3%

There are various known Independent leftists who ran obviously, some of whom did rather well, see for example Séamus Healy and his posse in Clonmel.

For the sake of completion (not of the far-left obviously, but of parties generally), the Christian Solidarity Party polled 0.4% of the vote in Dublin SC, 0.2% in Laois-Offaly and 0.1% in Galway East.

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Probably a case of a dormant political tradition springing back to life in just the right circumstances, then?

There's certainly an element of that - but I don't think it alone really can explain it.

I'm a little surprised that one man's personal vote would extend to local elections, though, but I guess that's because it's a different country.

Yeah - personality politics is what it's about. In Tralee alone, for example, most of those elected are running on their family name/connections as their party label. The 2 FF candidates elected there have had a political rivalry going back generations, with various members of both families elected to the council and/or Dáil, often at the other's expense. The two Labour candidates elected are Arthur Spring, who is at least the third generation of his family running on the Labour ticket in Kerry N, and Terry O'Brien who was, IIRC, Dick Spring's (Arthur's father, former TD, Labour leader and Tánaiste) election agent for some years. And, of course, Ms Ferris we've already discussed.

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Could this backfire on the Irish PM? During the address to the UN of the President of Iran, the cameras panned across the people watching and showed a person in the Irish delegation's area and no one in the UK's area. Could the opposition say this shows that Ireland supports Iran?

The news coverage here noted the speech and that there was another walk out by the Americans, British and other European and western diplomats - but actually there was no specific reference to whether Irish diplomats walked out or not. IIRC, Irish diplomats did join the walk-out at the UN in Geneva last time - but judging by the remarks I've seen, I'd suggest that Ahmadinejad's speech this time was probably less inflamatory than before, though was obviously still completely OTT.

At any rate, a decision either way on a walk-out was/is unlikely to really mean anything of significance politically here. Any suggestion that Ireland supports or endorses Ahmadinejad would be ridiculous. Plus, Hashemite is right, the voters by-and-large don't care a great deal onee way or the other about such walk-outs.

At any rate, the opposition are not short of sticks to hit the Government with - there are more than enough domestic troubles and concerns (Lisbon II, NAMA, unemployment...) to debate. Finally, the current Government being less popular than swine flu, I'm not sure that if Ahmadinejad came and personally stumped for Fianna Fáil that they could actually fall any further in the polls.

Indeed, I note that RedC produced a poll for the Farmers' Journal here on who farmers (a key support group for FF) currently favour. Note the change since pre-economic apocalypse Ireland.

	Sep 09	May 08
Fine Gael	62	40
Fianna Fáil	25	46
Labour	3	2
Sinn Féin	3	3
Green	1	2
Others	6	7

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One week out...the latest Lisbon numbers from TNSmrbi/The Irish Times: 48-33-19 (+2, +4, -6 from last month).

It was only at this stage in Lisbon I when polling indicated that the No side had taken the lead (30-35-35).

Breakdown by gender, class and party support
Men: 51-34-15
Women: 45-33-22

AB: 62-18-20
DE: 33-48-19
F: 68-24-8

Fianna Fáil: 74-16-10
Fine Gael: 57-31-22
Labour: 46-34-20
Green: 52-35-13
Sinn Féin: 14-66-20
Indies: 46-38-16

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The "NO" campaign has been even more hysterical and laughably moronic than last time.

I'd submit that both sides have been more hysterical and moronic this time.

I love some of the spoof posters that have been doing the rounds though

Thankfully, the same guff wouldn't work twice. (For the record, I voted "NO" the last time around - obviously changing my vote this time.)

Though the numbers look more favourable for the Yes side this time - I'm not prepared to call it yet. It forced to guess, I'd suggest that Yes will win narrowly on a lower turnout than before. (Readers might now be well advised to place bets on a blow-out result with record turnout.)

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Following on from the Lisbon numbers, the TNSmrbi/Irish Times poll on party support has now been released. Below are those figures, the last comparable TNSmrbi poll from a few weeks ago, the last RedC poll, and the results of the 2007 General Election.

	TNSmrbi	TNSmrbi	RedC	General
	Sept 27	Sept 3	Sept 13	May 2007
Fine Gael	31	34	33	27.3
Fianna Fáil	20	17	24	41.6
Labour	25	24	19	10.1
Sinn Féin	9	10	8	6.9
Green	4	3	5	4.7
Other	11	12	11	6.6

The poll indicates a 3pt shift from FG to FF.
Notable also that there is clear disagreement with RedC on FF and Lab, but broad agreement on everyone else (something which has been the case for some time now).

Satisfaction
Government: 14-81 (Satisfieds: +3)
Taoiseach Brian Cowen (FF): 23-70 (+8)

Q: Should the Greens leave Government?
Overall: 43-34
Green supporters: 19-74

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Further to the TNSmrbi Lisbon poll the other day, tomorrow's Sunday Business Post/RedC poll gives the Yes side a more substantial lead: 55-27-18 (+1; +2; -3 respectively).

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That first "sandcastle" poster is one of the best things ever. I'm putting it in my sig.

I like determined toddler.

I know: he looks like a cross between a crybaby bully and a would-be fascist leader.

What's the kid in the back doing?

Crying over his destroyed sandcastle or prostrating himself in front of the leader, what else?

TBH, my impression was that the poster was satirising the racist overtones of elements of the No campaign. I figured it implied that the black kid had destroyed the white kid's sandcastle and the white kid was contemplating revenge! But maybe I'm over-reading it...

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Last full day of campaigning scaremongering today. (Silly broadcast restrictions prevent TV and radio broadcasting political campaign related stuff the day before polling.)

Also, the first polling has opened. Voting on the islands of Arranmore, Gola, Inishboffin, Inishfree and Tory (all in the Donegal SW constituency) occurs today - potentially around 800 votes. Voting on the islands often happens a day or two before elections in case the isalnds are effectively cut off by bad weather.

Clare Island, Inishbiggle and Inishturk (Mayo) vote tomorrow, along with the three Aran Islands and Inishbofin (Galway W). The various Cork islands will vote on Friday with everyone else.

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It will be a sad day for European democracy when Ireland votes yes this week. I never get why the Irish allow their democracy to be treated like this - if you vote something down the verdict should be respected. The practice of running referenda again till the people vote the way they're told shouldn't be rewarded.

Ireland did get concessions beforehand, so it's a slightly different treaty.

Technically we got clarifications (which are to be adopted as part of the next Accession Treaty) and a committment to essentially maintaining one Commissioner per Member State rather than the proposed redcution to a Commission of around 18 members rotating between Member States. The Treaty itself is unchanged, which was a red line issue for the British as the prospect of having to re-ratify the thing was not something the British Government was willing to countenance.

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May I be permitted to create an Ireland Referendum Results thread and start it off with a map showing the results from 2007 (via Google Earth) and a summary of the overall result in 2007?

I was going to work away in this thread, but I've no objection to your suggestion.

For info, our thread on the first referendum has all the results from last time as well as some nice maps by Gully and Hashemite.

The RTÉ website for the 2008 referendum results is still there and gives quick numbers for each constituency on the last 3 Euro-referenda.

And this document details the results of all Irish referenda since 1937.

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I've yet to ask (because of your damn neutralism)... but what way shall ye be voting tomorrow? Hide behind secret ballot if you wishes.

Reserving the right to change my mind, it's a tentative no from me atm.
Anyone out there interested in submitting arguments for or against and quite welcome btw!