Irish general election, 26th Feb 2016

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I looked up the Mae Sexton woman running as an indy, and she's apparantly a ProgDem turned Labour turned indy? Oh, Irish politics.

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Does anybody have a blank constituency map?

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If this is a good result for them, do you think Social Democrats might have room to grow in the future? Could they establish a durable presence in Irish politics?

Still interested in an answer on that.

Who knows? They did astonishingly well at mopping up a lot of Labour's base where they stood, managed to get a healthy share of the national vote despite not winning many Constituencies and only appearing in one debate and fill a healthy niche. This election established them as a brand - first order would be to consolidate other lefty Indies behind that brand and try increase their candidate numbers go become a national party. Luckily Labour's s dominated by its right, so maybe they'll sort of die.

Also this election made me think that 3-seater Constituencies are a big mistake tbh.

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So will Labour, AAAPBP, SD, Greens and all the Indies have to share a single technical group?

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To put simply, because they are the other side. And there is a lot of loathing between the constituencies of the opposing parties: the snobby Anglo-blooded South Dubliner vs the populist, boarish FF'er dislike each other intensely, even if practically they have no difference in ideology

They also really don't want to give the position of opposition to Sinn Fein and certainly don't wabt the electorate to coalace around idealogical grounds. That would be terrible.

In truth, I think FF will simply die out. Their electorate is very old, they've lost the bulk of the working-class and a lot of the patronage that kept the party a lucrative venture to join is less appealing nowadays.

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Oh yes, and the Seanad still needs to be elected. Former Progressive Democrat leader Michael McDowell is running for a university constituency! Fun!

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Could they just alter water charges progressively so rich people more, or, err, link the fee to water usage rather than being flat?