Ireland General Discussion

[Oakvale]

I had a post all prepared about the hunting bill hilarity, but BRTD convinced me that Ireland was fascist police state, so I reckon I'd probably be taken out and shot by the Swiss Guard if I expressed an opinion.

[Oakvale]

In other news, the Dáil passed the Civil Partnership Bill, legally recognising same-sex relationships. All of the parties supported it, although AFAIK a few individuals have criticised it.

[Oakvale]

In other news, the Dáil passed the Civil Partnership Bill, legally recognising same-sex relationships. All of the parties supported it, although AFAIK a few individuals have criticised it.

This could not possibly be. Ireland is a Catholic Conservative Fascist dictatorship.

All the TDs who expressed support of the bill were summarily executed by the Papal secret police shortly after.

[Oakvale]

This happened without controversy in Ireland of all places? Interesting.

Ireland's really not as "conservative", in the American sense, as people like BRTD would have you believe.

I mean, if this bill was about abortion, there'd be huge controversy, but no-one cares if people want to get married.

Of course, there was a gaggle of people from shrieking right-wing nutjob organisation Cóir protesting, but no-one takes them very seriously.

[Oakvale]

There's a Red C poll due out on Sunday, AFAIK, and I wouldn't be surprised if FF hit a new low - although I agree that they're probably close to their floor as is.

 The more interesting question is how Labour and Fine Gael are doing - I wouldn't expect a repeat of the Irish Times poll showing Labour in first place, but I wouldn't rule it out, either.

[Oakvale]

Just for the sake of it, TV3 did a poll yesterday. I'm not sure if they're especially reliable, but hey, it'll give us something to compare the Red C (and, apparently Irish Times) polls to.

Here's the results on sometimes-horrible-sometimes-half-decent site politics.ie -

http://www.politics.ie/current-affairs/138851-tv3-news-fianna-fail-22-fine-gael-30-labour-35-sf-4-grn-2-ind-8-a.html

Labour - 35,
Fine Gael - 30,
Fianna Fáil - 22,
Independent - 8,
Sinn Féin - 4,
Green - 2


Summary - Labour doing very well, still. Most noticeably, Gilmore holds a pretty impressive lead on the "preferred Taoiseach" question. The "garglegate" fiasco hasn't much changed people's opinion of Cowen. All somewhat predictable.

EDIT: More specifically, the interview controversy only bothered people who didn't like Cowen anyway. Mind you, that's most of the population so...

[Oakvale]

The Red C poll's out, with some depressing  results that are quite different from what other pollsters have been showing -


Fine Gael 31, (-2)
Fianna Fáil 24, (no change)
Labour 23, (-4)
Sinn Féin 10, (+2)
Green 3, (+1)
Others 9, (+3)

I'm fairly sceptical of this, to be honest - and that's not just because I'm a disheartened Labour supporter.

It's the first poll in a while showing FF out of third place, and, more to the point, contradicts fairly drastically with the TV3 poll released earlier this week.

Hopefully there'll be an Irish Times/MRBI poll soon which should clear up the confusion somewhat. AFAIK, they've got the best track record.

[Oakvale]

Oh, and South Tipperary's Mattie McGrath - who lost the FF whip over the stag-hunting bill - has  withdrawn his support over health cuts.

The government's now got a hilariously thin majority of 2.

[Oakvale]

If this was any other political party, I'd be certain that Kenny was doomed. But it's Fine Gael, and I've assumed Kenny was a goner after the George Lee resignation, and after the previous MRBI poll, and the powerful gombeen wing of Fine Gael seem intent on sticking with Kenny.

But still, this result really is disastrous for FG, so it might be what finally topples Enda.

More importantly, since MRBI have a sterling reputation this seems to confirm the results of the TV3/Lansdowne poll, and indicates that Red C results seem to have been something of a blip. Or a "rogue" poll, if you prefer.

Another thing about removing Kenny - who'd replace him? I don't know if Bruton would try again, and it's not like Fine Gael are going to go with Varadkar or someone else who's actually interesting...

[Oakvale]

BTW, if anyone wants a chuckle, check out Paul Gogarty's (he of "f*** you, Deputy Stagg" fame) Twitter, where he's currently having some kind of meltdown. I don't blame him, though, since presumably he knows he's going to lose his seat at the next election.

http://twitter.com/paulgogartytd

[Oakvale]

If this was any other political party, I'd be certain that Kenny was doomed. But it's Fine Gael, and I've assumed Kenny was a goner after the George Lee resignation, and after the previous MRBI poll, and the powerful gombeen wing of Fine Gael seem intent on sticking with Kenny.

But still, this result really is disastrous for FG, so it might be what finally topples Enda.

If wishing made it so.

I suspect Enda is saved by the fact that the poll is getting only a fraction of the attention it would normally get because of (i) the release of 2 other polls just days ago, but most importantly (ii) the much bigger story of the assessment of bank liabilities today - that's where the focus is.

You're probably right - Kenny's most likely safe for now, but if polls in the next few months are anything like this I'd imagine he'll be coaxed into 'stepping aside', as they say.

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Bruton or bust (i.e. keep Enda) methinks.
[/quote]

Brian Hayes occured to me, but... meh.

[Oakvale]

If this was any other political party, I'd be certain that Kenny was doomed. But it's Fine Gael, and I've assumed Kenny was a goner after the George Lee resignation, and after the previous MRBI poll, and the powerful gombeen wing of Fine Gael seem intent on sticking with Kenny.

Thanks, I learned a new word today!

Gombeen is a wonderful word.

[Oakvale]

The Government response is that they are studying the decision.

For those of you who haven't noticed, this is the government's response to everything.

[Oakvale]

FWIW, the first poll's out, by Red C, showing Sinn Féin's Doherty leading easily.

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To no-one's surprise, Labour's Eamon Gilmore is the most popular choice for Taoiseach, which is what national polling's been saying for ages now.

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Here's some of the commentary on the poll relating to a general election:

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EDIT: It's really impossible to stress enough how bad this result is for Fianna Fáil. If this is how they're polling in Donegal, they're going to get electorally curbstomped nationally.

It's obviously a great result for both Sinn Féin and Labour, too - the polling indicates that Doherty would easily retain the seat at a general election, and that Frank McBrearty would win a seat with 18%.

This might not seem hugely impressive, but Labour got 2.8% (!) in DSW last time around. Most hilariously, if the general elections figures are replicated next year, Mary Coughlan could quite possibly lose her seat.

[Oakvale]

I for one welcome our new EU/IMF overlords.

[Oakvale]

There's a Red C national poll coming out tomorrow which will apparently have FF support falling further.

Mind you, I don't put a whole lot of stock in Red C, as much as I'd like to believe that DSW poll. Wait for the Irish Times/MRBI - one's due soon, surely - which is really the gold standard as far as Irish polling goes.

EDIT: Not that Red C polls are bad, per se, but they were kind of outlier-y (...) earlier this year in comparison to the MRBI and Lansdowne polls.

[Oakvale]

Excuse my ignorance of Irish politics, but Fine Gael-Labour coalition post-election?

Or Labour-Fine Gael, quite possibly.

In a more unlikely scenario where things go really well for Gilmore et al you could have some kind of left-wing coalition of Labour+SF+Independents, but, yeah, either FG-LAB or vice versa.

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AFAIK there are rumours that Fine Gael or Labour will propose such tomorrow or in the next couple of days, but nothing's certain.

[Oakvale]

I'm inclined to blame Labour's relatively poor result on -

A) Uh, it's Frank McBrearty. Although to be fair I doubt the Labour bench is very strong in Donegal.

B) More "left"-leaning and ex-FF voters flocking to the stronger candidate (Doherty, obviously).

[/spin]


I notice that O' Neill's polling somewhat better than predicted, incidentally.

[Oakvale]

Someone (not me) threw together this handy chart:

[Oakvale]

The state of the nation summarised for your convenience:

[Oakvale]

The state of the nation summarised for your convenience:

Account for domain wheelspinninghamsterdead has been suspended.

Fixed.

[Oakvale]

New RedC poll...

FG 32, Labour 24, SF 16, FF 13

I wish Red C had waited a couple of weeks- the Sinn Féin surge is likely down to the massive good publicity they got from the DSW election. I don't see them holding at 16%.

That said, seeing Fianna Fáil in fourth place is hilarious.

[Oakvale]

If Paddy Power is to be believed, it looks like Ireland may elect a Gay president.


I'll get my coat.

[Oakvale]

This is great fun.

[Oakvale]

Really obscene news out of Galway. I'm hoping against hope that this might be the impetus for an Irish government to actually do something about our genuinely disgraceful abortion laws, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if they kick the can down the road, again.

"This is a Catholic country". There are no words.