Time for an election?

snollup

How much longer do you think the coalition can stay together?

Personally I cant see the Greens hanging around too much longer.

the groutch

I expect a late august general election

Dalfiatach

The Greens aren't going anywhere, they made that clear on Friday.

If Pat Gallagher wins a Euro seat then FF are down another vote and the Government starts to look pretty shaky. FF+PD+Green will be only 82.

It'll take another couple of by-elections or a couple of FF backbenchers defecting to SF, Labour or FG to finally bring this to an end. I'd say they'll try to cling on for the three years but they'll trip up and lose a Dáil vote eventually - probably not till the Spring of 2010 at the earliest though.

At this point my own personal favoured outcome would be for FG to win about 75 seats and SF to win about 10, resulting in an FG/SF coalition. Yeah, sounds mad, but if the post-election Dáil numbers support it it will happen, and I'd prefer that to FG/Lab.

irish_bob

Dalfiatach wrote: »

The Greens aren't going anywhere, they made that clear on Friday.

If Pat Gallagher wins a Euro seat then FF are down another vote and the Government starts to look pretty shaky. FF+PD+Green will be only 82.

It'll take another couple of by-elections or a couple of FF backbenchers defecting to SF, Labour or FG to finally bring this to an end. I'd say they'll try to cling on for the three years but they'll trip up and lose a Dáil vote eventually - probably not till the Spring of 2010 at the earliest though.

At this point my own personal favoured outcome would be for FG to win about 75 seats and SF to win about 10, resulting in an FG/SF coalition. Yeah, sounds mad, but if the post-election Dáil numbers support it it will happen, and I'd prefer that to FG/Lab.

id perfer anyone than labour in coalition with fine gael but i would perfer see the greens plus independants than the shinners , the shinners get a big vote from lifers on the dole and wellfare needs tackling by the next goverment as fianna fail have contary to their claims , dodged the hard descisions

the groutch

I don't see why FG-Labour would be so bad, an FG-SF or FG-Green coalition will be like all the FF coalitions, with essentially the main party calling all the shots, at least with FG-Labour there needs to be a consensus between the two parties

meglome

snollup wrote: »

How much longer do you think the coalition can stay together?

Personally I cant see the Greens hanging around too much longer.

Nice idea but they'll have to be forced out I'd say. They might redeem themselves if they take the right stance and get away from Fianna Fail quickly.

skelliser

the writings on the wall, the greens will walk the week following the local elections

Souljacker

Dalfiatach wrote: »

At this point my own personal favoured outcome would be for FG to win about 75 seats and SF to win about 10, resulting in an FG/SF coalition. Yeah, sounds mad, but if the post-election Dáil numbers support it will happen, and I'd prefer that to FG/Lab.

I'm sorry that will never never never happen. 1 FG and SF have a mutual hatred of each other unmatched in the Dail (since the PDs left) and 2. SF aren’t going to take 10 dail seats any time soon, they have their devotees but they don't attract transfers for a quite a few reasons.

If FG are able to take 70 + seats they'll go for the Greens with independents option, if it's below 70 they'll turn to labour, whatever way you see it FG are firmly in the driving seat.

If the Greens pull down the government (which I think is all but inevitable) they'll get a bounce for the electorate and the FG/Green government, IMHO will be the front runner for an alternative coalition.

Oh and to answer your question, God yes, as soon as humanly possible please.

Some are saying that FG don't want to be in government until after FFcall the next bludget but I don't think that's true, they've there policies ready to go and a clear idea of how they want to change things arround, so why not asap?

Seth Brundle

skelliser wrote: »

the writings on the wall, the greens will walk the week following the local elections

In another thread, I pointed to a link on breakingnews.ie where Enda said that he would not enter coalition with the greens so given this, I'd be surprised if Gormless jumped ship!