If the government called a general election tonight

Needs an "Other" Party option.

Enoch burke, assuming he runs as an independent.

I suspect that there will be a lot of spoiled votes, or non-votes, by people who have always voted FFG and now feel shafted as a result of the Great Nursing Homes Robbery.

The overall effect will be to reduce support for the current government parties (& probably Labour to some extent), and thus increase the vote sshare of the current opposition. Independents may do well out of it as well - people like Lowry have been impervious to all negative publicity down the years.

I guess that every TD who is long enough in the Dáil will have had cases on their hands and have told their constituents that "I'll do everything in my power to see you right".

Individual stories will get around such as "it's 5 years since that FFGucker XX told Johnny and Mary down the road that they'd get their money back, but they haven't had a smell of it". I think for most of them the independent route will not save their seat this time round.

I’ll be voting for none of the mainstream parties- FF FG lab SF PBP Greens SD etc all the same woke politically correct nauseating rubbish.

So hopefully some common sense Independents emerge or tbh will be looking at the right wing supposedly fringe parties - couldn’t care less anymore if that makes me racist fascist and everything else our woke social “betters” label us via their media script readers.

Im tired of the Irish being treated like garbage in our own country- eye watering taxes in return for non existent services. While billions are squandered on ungrateful “refugees” put up in hotels all at our expense. Time has come to say enough

I think they are worse. At least with FG there’s a faint hope of some economic sense- though I agree that’s mainly to the benefit of their own cronies and a few crumbs for the peasants

Isn't the editor of the Irish Daily Mail Group married to a Government TD or Senator.

Also wasn't the Ireland editor of Mediahuis married to a Senator. Was he also the editor of the Irish Independent at one stage?

I would actually vote for him because if he said he was going to do something he fooking well would.,

I would hope that all politicians in the Dail be harried throughout the campaign.

They are wrecking the country so they deserve no leeway.

Fook the lot of them.

Not one of them in the dail has come out against the lunacy so not one of them deserves respect or indeed peace.

Make it the campaign from hell.

Definitely not the Greens anyway. . . . . .

The media and politics is very interconnected. It can be hard keeping track. The Sindo/Indo used to be very pro-FG. The Sindo used to be almost a weekly rant against SF but after Barbara J. Pym (AKA Eoghan Harris) was fired, the management decided to try repositioning the newspaper towards the centre of the market and toned down some of the anti-SF stuff. Bertie Ahern made Harris a senator though he was not reappointed.

Regards...jmcc

You don’t have just one vote.

i totally get people looking for a FF/FG alternative, i really do… and Labour/Greens are about as useful a premise as throwing fish at a dartboard

considering the outright contempt that SF have consistently shown over decades for democracy, for the law, for life, for the will of the majority of people… a leopard doesn’t change its spots… it just now has a better PR machine and slightly less baggage at the top.

SF get in, they won’t have the back of Irish citizens, their first loyalty is to their narrow stubborn backwater ideals and supporters.

i say this most seriously, IF they get in, do people believe they’ll be satisfied to be beholden to democratic principles and the laws of our country ?

because I don’t believe for a millisecond they will…. They’ve shown nothing but contempt for law, for democracy and by proxy contempt for the citizens of Ireland.

Adrian Crevan Macken, who murdered Garda Tony Golden, actually who shot him in the back and then shot his own girlfriend…. was a member of Sinn Fein, in the IRA too….

SF were not very vociferous in condemning him, killing a Garda and shooting his girlfriend…

says ALL you require to know as to their relationship with democracy.

probably couldn’t vote them out, they’d just not facilitate an election or at least an unrigged one…

Always beware of the "well things couldn't get any worse" cohort. There were quiet lot of them who voted for Brexit.

Beware of the "sure it'll be worse under Sinn Fein"

Who has been in government for the past 80 years?

Not Sinn Fein.

Haughey, Bertie, Cowen, Inda, Leo, Meehole..

Boards posters predictions are just their own opinions.

Predictions are interesting but only that.

This started out as some sort of a poll on who would you vote for.

A strong possibility but the numbers will be very tight. SF/FF in some form looks the likeliest outcome to me

It’s so interesting how many are now “retiring” at fairly young ages- they are taking the money and running and easing themselves into cushy roles like that prat Brian Hayes where their connections can be cashed in on.

All the heart warming stories about “spending more time with family” are being wheeled out early- anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows the real reason.

It's not the fault of the platform.

It's just what you get with a self selecting group.

SF have been in government in NI for years now. What positive progressive thing have they done there? True it's not their fault that the current setup is dead, but they did kill the last assembly when it didn't suit them.

It's pretty depressing really for someone like me who will never vote SF, and who would be seen as a traditional FG voter. The current government have been abysmal. Think about it, how bad do you have to be to end up with multiple anti immigration protests on an almost daily basis in a country that has been to date fairly ambivalent about immigration. There is also a concentration on issues that don't really matter to the vast majority of people but are on trend to the detriment of real issues. You then have absolute chancers like Harris, O'Gorman, Ryan and McEntee in government making an absolute balls of their portfolio.

The more I think about it the more I think surely it can't get any worse with SF in power, and then I remember that that type of thinking gave rise to Brexit and Trump in power. The one hope is that SF don't get a majority at the next GE, otherwise we really are fcuked. I even think a FF/SF coalition might be ok, but that's really a reflection of how bad the current set up is. Let's face it, would you really want David Cullinane as Minister for Health and intellectual heavyweights like Kathleen Funchion in the cabinet? TBH if I wasn't so old I'd seriously consider if I wanted to stay in this country.

Unfortunately i have no doubt that SF will get in at the next election. The only reason they're not in there now is that they didn't run enough candidates at the last one.

They will probably last the full term too, because they will be blaming everything on the last government and there will be enough people with the attitude of "give them a chance" like they're letting their kids take the family car out for a drive....