If the government called a general election tonight

Listening to people the main parties all have a huge chunk of disaffected former supporters.

There is an increasing disconnect between politicians, the Irish media and ordinary people.

A lot of the current protests would be in areas that SF would have had as their original support base.

And they are doing nothing, saying nothing.

Then on the other side a lot of the old FG and FF support bases are getting mightly p**sed off with them.

Working class and middle classe voters of theirs suddenly see that their kids can't now afford to go away to college, can't now afford to move out even to rent nevermind buy a place of their own.

Recently having chat with few people and someone asked what is the Irish dream and a 30 odd year old piped up "to own your own home".

And this was from someone educated with reasonable job.

These people are looking at emigration not because the country hasn't employment, but because they can no longer afford to live here.

where have the shinners been in power to give you this fear?

What are SF up north?

Manifestos give enough fear!!

Party supporters (members) are a minority. Independents have 21 seats in the Dail. It is generally the floating vote that decides GEs. It is the movement of his vote that decides the fate of parties.The floating vote used to oscillate between FF/Labour and FG/Labour for decades. FF lost a lot of it in 2011 and it moved to Labour and FG. In 2016, some of it moved back to FF and away from FG and, obviously, Labour. The idea of "party voters" deciding the government is far too simplistic for a PR-STV system.

There may be an Ireland Thinks/Sindo poll due this weekend so the effects of the recent scandals on FFG might be visible.

Regards...jmcc

Last election I felt it was difficult to find someone to vote for. I did vote though.

imo there is sadly no alternative to what's there at the moment. A new party badly needed I think

Look at what Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng did to the UK economy in a hour :).

The long term project for SF is a United Ireland and SF need to control government for that process to start. Despite the hot air from MLM they will only enter government when it suits their long term objective (and when their controlling entity allows them) and they won’t do anything too drastic when in government for the first time and end up like labour having to wait another generation to enter government. They need to establish themselves as a serious party of government for the long term.

FF lost their way as a party when the cumann system was destroyed. Once the government decided to pay each party on the basis of the votes they received, it freed them (to a large extent) from the local Cumainn. In the medium term this means they lost their connection with the people on the ground, and then they began to lose those people's votes too. Now the three old parties - FF, FG Labour - are completely disconnected from the electorate, and the current system has passed its sell-by date.

I agree!

A nudge from the left, or a nudge from the right could bring this government down!

Scandal after scandal.

We all know there is a better government waiting in the wings to take over.

I don’t care about their policies, just get the current lot out!

We can take our time to deal with any mistakes from a new government.

Just get them in!

Thing is we “don’t know there is a better government “ in waiting. Show me the evidence of that? I absolutely do not see it anywhere. I despise the current administration but it’s not living in reality to think SF are any better. The SF front bench is absolutely terrible and if that is the best they have. Rent-a-gobs like Matt Carty or pierce Doherty. Christ

For both FG and FF having to take on board the opinions and directions of ordinary peasants would be deeply embarrassing for them which is why they’ve no interest in ordinary members or branches. They much prefer take their cues from NGO grifters and their buddies in Brussels. Varadkar has nothing but contempt for people like that

And the FFG front bench is such a bastion of intellectuals? Apart from Paschal Donohoe, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill and Stephen Donnelly and perhaps Pippa Hackett, they are a collection of midwits at the best. How many of the FFG front bench are school teacher/TDs? That people are willing to give an untried and untested party a chance at government should really worry FFG.

Regards...jmcc

Lol Jennifer McNeill in the non-nitwit side?

It’s prob a good thing she isn’t there as it means she can do less harm. I know they say weak people surround themselves with useless people but Varadkar really takes that to the extreme