Zero political centre or centre right, solutions!

If ALL the major parties are left-leaning, which I disagree with in its over-simplicity but that's another post, surely the fact that an overwhleming amount of the voting public (last GE had 62.6% turnout) voted for them would suggest that most people want 'left-leaning' parties to lead the country.

Turnout for 2016 was around 65% and in 2011 it was nearly 70%. A brief glance at previous elections would suggest turnout seems to hover between 62% and 70%. There is a downward trend but even if the next election had 70% turnout, I don't see all that 8% voting for some new 'cente-right' option. Even if there was magically 100% turnout, do people really believe that 38% want to vote for 'centre-right' options? Even then, it still wouldn't change the make-up of the Government as 'left-leaning' parties would likely get.more votes, if previous elections are anything to go on.

There is room for new political movements in the country. FF and FG can see that civil war politics is dying as people see there's little different between them apart from their party colours. I think SF are targeting a protest vote and picking up lots of former/potential Labour votes. I'd argue that all parties are moving towards the centre as they try to be all things to all people. There are still a few hardcore left and right parties (all small) while the number of Independents seems to grow.

The downward trend in turnout could suggest that people are losing faith in political parties though its something that has happened previously and is within previous ranges of turnout. I think turnout will increase for the next election and people do seem to have less faith in the big two parties but I don't see where they are going to go. As there hasn't been an unprecedented drop in turnout and the biggest winner in the last election was a 'traditional' left party, I don't see a big group of people waiting to vote 'centre-right'. It would seem that people prefer to re-direct their votes around the current choices.

I would consider myself centre to right, Unfortunately what one of the posters above said is true, the vast majority of people vote FFG or SF so we will get left wing governments as that’s just how democracy works even if we disagree with them. Aontu are starting to look good for my vote in the next election depending on them not going farther to the left, I voted Renua no 1 the last time out but they just seem to be a bit of a non entity at the moment and not making any progress whatsoever.

Spoken like a true Stalinist comrade!

Who said anything about Far Right? We’re talking about Centre Right parties here.

Time to forget about all political entities. None of them should be your concern. Time to look after yourself, and anybody that still has their health intact has no real excuse not to. If your expecting any sort of politician to have a "solution" to any of your concerns you may as well head into the local Abrahamic church and expect the Middle eastern god who resides in there to give you the solution too.

The taoiseach and leader of the party that has been in government for over 10 years is 'testing the water' for a move to the right? Do you think he will try to introduce these policies in the 18 months or whatever is left of the current government or save them for the election campaign?

The right seeks market solutions to society issues and government solutions to business issues. The left proposes government solutions to society issues and market solutions to business issues.

Exemplars of this in the Irish context are housing and banking.

Is it, or is it just chucking out some palaver to propitiate right-leaning voters while having no intention of doing anything substantial to actualize it? Someting the same Leo has a bit of a history of, if you look back...

At some point does the following old saying not have to kick in for people looking for Leo to deliver on his right-wing posturing

I don't want to get too much sucked into this debate but just to point out that right-wing parties do not necessarily spend less public money.

Right-wing parties like to promise less spending but the evidence seems to point that if they do the effect is minimal.

Where right and left wing parties differ is more on what and how, they spend.

For evidence on why FFG are centre-right look at how they will almost always look to the private market for solutions.

Whether the private market can effectively deliver public solutions is open for debate, I'd say certainly in the case of housing and health they haven't.

And I think people often fail to factor in how small the Irish market is, in a lot of cases we we'll have little competition to deliver services.

Look at the disaster that is the home retrofit scheme. Only a handful of companies have signed up to be 'one-stop shops' and there appears to be massive gouging. Only 89 (sic) homes retrofitted in year one, against a target of approx 80,000 per year.

We dont have any left or right wing major parties. They all go with the wind, he will stand up for landlords and vulture funds with one hand and then give out record welfare with other.

We are nothing but a tax haven for big business. Golden handshakes and alms for the poor is their prerogative, anything to hold onto power. SF ever get a go, their left vote swaying ideology will be thrown in the bin too.

again, wealth is generally stored in the value of assets such as property and land, but parties such as fg have a refusal to implement polices and taxes to reduce this accumulation of wealth, and in fact continually implement polices that encourages it! this is the protection of wealth!

yes, in order to maintain an element of functionality of the country, since there is a strong resistance to the implementation of such, this means labour and consumption taxes take on the brunt of this need!

....since theres such an outrage towards welfare classes, maybe some boards members should try it, just for the craic, well it makes sense, so to also experience this 'easy life'!

Can he though? Significant policy changes would require buy-in from FF and the Greens. I suppose if Varadkar were fully committed to this approach he could engineer the fall of the government over it and fight the subsequent general election with restrictions on immigration as his main policy proposal but that would be very uncharacteristic edgelord behaviour from cautious, respectable FG...

But FG are not going to 'catch' SF no matter what they do. Pretty much everybody accepts SF will be the largest party by a distance after the next election. This begs the question, what would be an acceptable performance for FG? Based on recent polls, this guy is predicting 37 seats for them, slightly ahead of FF

Given that they will have been in power for nearly 15 years by the next election, I think most in FG would take that. If they can achieve this through a 'steady as she goes' approach (and presumably ramping up the anti-SF rhetoric as the election draws near), do they really need to take the massive gamble of a lurch to the right on immigration policy?

The main parties are not ideological IMO, they are opportunistic. If a significant percentage of the population wanting stuff like complete abortion bans, harsher punishment for drugs, etc. then FFG would change their tune pretty quickly but at the moment that's not the case. The electorate has moved to the left and the party's rhetoric and (some) policies have followed suit

Immigration may prove to be a different kettle of fish as anti-immigration sentiment becomes more common (it would also give them a a scapegoat for their abysmal housing policies), but for now the likes of Aontu are the only option for those wanting to vote right wing. The fact they only got one (already sitting) TD out of 26 candidates show how appealing they were

IMO it's the approval of Una Mullally and Justin Trudeau and the rest of the liberal elites Leo craves, not the protestors in East Wall, who'd never vote FG anyway. Reading Irish Times op-eds denouncing him as 'an intellectual version of Peter Casey' or 'Ireland's answer to Enoch Powell' would be more than he could bear.

At this stage there's a pretty lengthy record of a majority, or at least a very large chunk, of the Irish public having 'right-wing' convictions on various issues, and no party coming forward to speak for them, despite the apparent political payoff of doing so, and I firmly expect this to remain the case with immigration.

Conclusion

Compared to other OECD countries

• The level of direct tax paid in Ireland is low particularly for those below average earnings
• Employee PRSI in Ireland is less than half the OECD average2
• The Irish system is the most progressive in the EU
• The top marginal rate is not particularly high but it applies at a relatively low level of income

Source: Taxing Wages 2017, OECD 2017

I don't get you?

Two features of our income tax / PRSI / USC that a centre-right party should improve:

(1) all workers / earners should pay something, even a bit: I suggest abolishing the PRSI exemption and re-introducing the 100 PRSI allowance

(2) we need more rates, so that people don't reach the top rate at 40k