FF/FG/Green Government - Part 3 - Threadbanned User List in OP
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Well the opposition in this case are SF and they have shown zero actual realistic solutions to anything
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The biggest obstacle to the current government returning to power is the possibility that FG decide it is time for opposition. If they want to go back in, FF will choose them on an equal footing rather than being SF's mudguard. If Greens aren't quite enough, then SD/Independents/Labour (delete as appopriate will make up the difference).
If FG opt out, then SF/FF is the only game in town. FG may well bet on that government, expecting it to fall in chaos, giving them a path back to power.
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But other parties have said they can resolve the issue
Maybe I have picked this up wrong but are you saying you would vote for a party who have said they have no solutions to resolve the party adn then vote for them again because they need two cycles?
All the while ignoring the parties who say they have a plan to resolve the issue in one cycle?
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I find a lot of times people see stuff on twitter/social media and never fact check.
As you provided a quick search points out its not as rosy as you would think from the post
But my very very simple google search would have provided a guide to say that as well. I suppose it is easier just to regurgitate than check
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The biggest obstacle to the current government returning to power is the possibility that FG decide it is time for opposition...
If FG opt out, then SF/FF is the only game in town. FG may well bet on that government, expecting it to fall in chaos, giving them a path back to power.
I can't see FG taking that path. They would immediately be blowing all their credibility as the 'anti-SF' party by effectively pushing FF into the arms of SF.
Plus IMO the power of SF as a bogeyman for middle Ireland rests largely on their never having gone into government and made the compromises that entails. Your average FG-leaning probably wouldn't enjoy the experience of an SF-led government but it's never going to be the Götterdämmerung that FG scaremongering is conjuring up.
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I truly believe FG will get 20 or less seats in GE.Next. They are truly toxic and have alienated every cohort of society. They have also taken on the reputation for corruption and cronyism during 12 years of power. Two more years of angering the electorate too.
What are they doing in the Hyacinth House?
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Denmark is the country most comparable to Ireland in terms of income, population size, geographic size, political/economical position in the EU, and demographics. Its our 'nearest neighbour' under most metrics. If you know of any more statistically similar countries then feel free to compare them instead.
For someone complaining about the lack of links you don't seem to have provided any statistics yourself, just a subjective news article with no hard data. House prices are up in Denmark yes, but from a much lower base and still not to near as bad an extent as Ireland. Here are some concrete figures for you:
Copenhagen current average rental prices - 13000DKK [1750euro] for a 1-2 bedroom apartment, 2150euro for a 4-6 room apartment[1]. Dublin average rental - 2324euro [2]. Denmark median disposable income per person p.a. 32,788eur, Ireland 28,859eur[3].
Higher after tax income + lower rental prices in Denmark. The combination of which adds up to a far, far more livable housing market.
I see also that you've ignored the health system[4] and infrastructure[5], both of which again Denmark is faring much better than Ireland on. Despite suffering from exactly the same global influences.
Its either naive, idiotic, or dishonest to blame things like covid, the war in Ukraine, and climate change for the uniquely awful housing and health crises in Ireland when those macro factors have hit every country. Yet somehow things are nowhere near as bad in plenty of other comparable countries...
At the end of the day the blame for our current crises comes down to the people who make the decisions that have caused them. Which means the blame lies squarely with our party of government for the last twelve years, who had control over government policy in these areas and more for that time period - Fine Gael.
[1]https://international.kk.dk/live/housing/finding-a-place-to-live/average-renting-costs
[2]https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41069876.html
[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income
[4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_quality_of_healthcare
[5]https://lpi.worldbank.org/international/global?sort=asc&order=Infrastructure
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Another government "plan" not worth the paper it's printed on...
LDA on track to build fewer than 10,000 homes in next five years - Independent.ie
The Land Development Agency will only be able to deliver fewer than 10,000 homes in the next five years at best due to financial, capacity and development constraints, its new report on public land reveals.
The agency was capitalised with a five-year budget of €3.5bn in September 2021 under the Government's Housing For All plan.
Assuming a housing requirement of 30,000 homes annually for the next five years, the LDA would satisfy only 10pc of the total need if it builds every potential house
What are they doing in the Hyacinth House?
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This is the only bit of the article that I’m interested in
”However, the vast bulk of those landbanks are effectively ruled out for development for at least the next decade because they will require significant work, such as rezoning or major infrastructure upgrades, to be fit for residential use.
As many as 39,000 potential units are in this category, which are least likely to be developed.”
if such a large number of houses need huge investment to make the land even possible for housing then should we be looking at developing this land in the first place and if so can we maximise the land by building apartments instead of houses to get a better return on investment.
As you seem to pick bits and pieces out of article surprised you missed that part?
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Ah yes, excuses excuses are all the rage when it comes to the LDA. Interest rates, Covid, Inflation, Land suitability etc. Do you know what a "plan" is?
The LDA was set up in 2018. Last year this was the excuse...
June 2022
State agencies ‘dragging their feet’ in transferring land to LDA for development of new housing
Cabinet ministers raised serious concerns about the lack of urgency by State agencies in handing over land to the Land Development Agency (LDA).
There are concerns among ministers about the delay by the HSE, ESB and CIE giving land to the LDA which can be used to develop new housing.
The Government earmarked State-owned land owned by agencies cross the country which it is proposed can be used to construct 15,000 new homes over the coming years.
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December 2022.
Government housing body has not built one house on state lands | Business Post
Government housing body has not built one house on state lands
All 270 homes delivered by the Land Development Agency to date have been bought from private developers.
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Fail to prepare...
Fine Gael voters are blinkered excuse merchants at this point.
What are they doing in the Hyacinth House?
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SF's popularity is not down to their left wing policies, they are promising to fix housing and it's appealing to centrist voters (and how do we know this? Well in the North they are not a "true" left wing party...), the high mark for the left was 2011 with Labour, it's unlikely to be like that again.
This is the real politics at play, those who occupy the centre ground most successfully generally win elections, FF were masters at this (and called themselves socialist) until they blew the economy up, which allowed FG to hoover up their support.
If you're arguing that voters are moving left when SF's gains have been from moving to the right, it just doesn't hold any water. If they are successful they will lead a centre-left government with FF while the other leftist parties are left decimated by SF's gains.
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Reading this post this image springs to mind
Sorry I am trying to have a decent discussion about the housing crisis we have so will let you carry on.
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I saw that pic in another thread today. I bet you couldn't wait to use it, eh? You need some original ideas of your own.
I am afraid you got outplayed sunshine. My post was crystal clear. Hard luck.
Bonne nuit 😉
What are they doing in the Hyacinth House?
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It isn't quite that simple. The traditional AB-SF vote was spread over a number of parties and it tended to shift over the years. The "hardcore" anti-SF people would be more likely to vote FF. The opinion polls are portrayed by the media as providing clearly delineated support percentages for parties. They don't. And the people doing the analysis often haven't much of a clue about opinion polls and support. The floating vote, the undecideds, are the ones that decide elections because party support with this percentage included is often much lower. Labour, before it decided to become Middle Class Irish Times dinner party, didn't particularly like SF because it was moving in on the union vote. Labour has completely lost that now. SF's republicanism was a threat to the aged republicanism of FF. The hardcore anti-SF vote is a very small part of the AB-SF vote.
FG is toxic at the moment and FF seems to be doing every thing it can to let Varadkar make things worse for FG with the eviction ban decision. Without a script, Varadkar is likely to say something stupid that costs FG votes. FF needs to keep its options open rather than commit to FG. Martin is a wannabe FGer rather than a real FF leader and he has managed to turn the 2016 bounce in FF seats into a dead cat bounce for FF. In 2020, FF should have done a lot better in terms of seats but Martin's dithering and forelock tugging to FG cost FF seats. He's a weak leader and FF needs to remove him.
The electorate already considers FF and FG to be the same party and transfers in the last few elections are moving between them. That means that FF and FG candidates will be competing for the same seats in the next GE. That creates the problem of too many candidates from one "party" chasing too few seats. Without a joint candidate selection strategy, as well as the electoral pact, it creates a Fratricide Effect where votes get locked in over too many candidates over too many counts. When the candidates get eliminated the votes (transfers) come back into play but it may be too late to make a difference. The number of votes that the "party" would get might even be enough to get a smaller number of candidates elected earlier. This happened on a small scale in the 2020 GE. This Fratricide Effect would take out a lot of the backbencher TDs so FF and FG could end up with far fewer seats than the opinion polls suggest they should win. The opinion polls are also only first preference polling. They don't ask about transfers.
The current political model, started about 2013, has been the Big Three model where no two parties of the big three would have enough seats to form a government. Before that it was the 2.5 party model with Labour being the half-party that either FF or FG needed to form a government. Labour hasn't recovered from its obliteration in 2016. With the SocDems, there's a ready-made "Labourish" party for people who don't want to vote Labour because of its baggage and don't want to vote SF (or FF/FG/Greens). The SocDems could end up becoming a more centrist balance to SF while FF and FG decline. I haven't worked out the outcome of a change to the Big Three model yet but it seems to be drifting to a Left/Right axis. The wildcard is the effect of the eviction ban ending and a possible crystalisation of the votes from those protests.
Regards...jmcc
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first off the last election was a revolt vote as everyone knows, the “anyone but FF/FG” ended up with Sinn Fein getting a massive vote they could never predict only a few months earlier when Mary Lou was nearly kicked out after local elections, so trying to spin now that ireland has a “anyone but SF” is not questionable to say the least.
in terms of the electorate consider FF and FG the same, that’s been pushed hard by Sinn Fein supporters and only by Sinn Fein supporters. If you just want to push Sinn Fein propaganda that post is an excellent example of it. What goes on in the real world is different and should not be ignored
Post edited by redlough on2 -
Inaccurate facts can be dressed up in any language that people choose, but they remain inaccurate facts.
Fine Gael got 20.9% in the last general election and 35 seats.
It currently has a rolling polling average of 22.1%, above its general election performance.
So when someone posts the phrase "FG is toxic at the moment", it is gobbledy-gook.
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I'll take that lack of a reply to "have you read SF's manifesto" to mean no, so.
To argue they're not a left-wing party is ludicrous when their platform includes reductions in the inheritance tax threshold, increases to income tax for high earners, substantial increases to social welfare, building of 100,000+ social housing units, increasing the socialised nature of our healthcare system (bringing in free GP care for all etc), raising the minimum wage substantially etc.
They're a firmly left wing political party by any standard political science definition.
Left-wing parties got 33% of the vote in 2011, 43% in 2020 and are currently polling at 49% in 2023. Its still increasing every year on average, as it has been since the early 1980s. So the idea that 2011 was some sort of "high water mark" is rather out of touch with reality.
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The propaganda of SF would have you believe "FG are toxic". Not that I would vote for them but they still have voters.
The same people are trying to tell everyone that FF and FG are the same. Totally ignoring the core FF voters and FG voters who would never vote for either party. But it's good spin. It seems some people seem to think if they repeat the same incorrect information it suddenly becomes true.
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FF needs to keep its options open rather than commit to FG.
I'm not suggesting Martin should rule out a deal with SF I'm saying he should signal a preference for another one with FG (without necessarily saying it in so many words). I haven't done a deep dive into the political science but it just seems common sense to me that that would attract transfers from SF-phobic FG voters, whereas I don't see where the percentage is for FF in pretending to have 'no preference' between FG and SF...
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Martin won't be in control come next election. So I would suggest that is up to whoever is the new leader. I somehow suspect that FF want to stand out on their own and not get involved with another party.
From the outside, my opinion would be both both FF and FG they should look at staying out of joining SF in the next election if the election turns out like the polls. A term in opposition would quickly rebuild the voters outside the core supporters.
It's a lot easier for parties like SF, Soc Dems etc to throw mud when they don't have to deliver any of the promises they constantly make, based on what I can see if any of these parties control the government it will quickly crash and burn, then the parties can swoop into the rescue. Just look at how many years SF have been in Northern Ireland and the awful awful track record, yet we are been told that suddenly they will become an incredible party if they get into the Republic? questionable to say the least
For the Greens they don't have the option and if they keep the vote up they should consider joining a SF led government, they will never be a popular party with some and seem to get blamed for everything wrong in Ireland.
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The SF manifesto is highly unrealistic and vehemently populist, to take but one item, they are against wealth taxes, this is completely against leftist ideology but is a populist move (FF also substantially increased welfare, all parties want to socialise the healthcare system and are bringing in free GP care, all parties want to build more social housing units, the current government have already raised the minimum wage, itself brought in by FF). If you want to dissect their manifesto in depth, I would suggest the SF thread, but very few have wanted to go into that detail as it exposes multiple hypocrisies and a belief in fantasy economics.
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Martin won't be in control come next election. So I would suggest that is up to whoever is the new leader.
Next election may be only a year and a half away and he's given no sign AFAIK of any intention to quit...
FF want to stand out on their own and not get involved with another party.
And talk up the 'achievements' of the current government as though they were FF's alone? That would sound weird and artificial...
my opinion would be both both FF and FG they should look at staying out of joining SF in the next election if the election turns out like the polls.
May very well not be possible if SF do not have the numbers to form a government without either. If SF+FF is the only possible government it will have to happen regardless of FF reservations. Now if FF don't want to get too close to SF but don't want to be seen to be shirking their duty to the country, there's always the option of 'confidence & supply'...
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A revolt? :) FG was polling near 30% before Christmas 2019. Then the incompetent Varadkar left Charlie Flanagan off on his Black and Tans/RIC commemoration. That managed to horrify and alienate real FGers too. It might have been before your time but SF had been realigning towards the centre of Irish politics when MLMcD became leader of SF after Gerry Adams. The SF losses in the LEs seemed to be a natural readjustment after the gains of the previous LEs which were driven largely by the Water Tax scam. MLMcD wasn't "nearly kicked out". Unfortunately, the Irish media isn't blessed with the most sentient of political correspondents and most of them are institutionalised as they identify more with their friends in the Dail than they do with being journalists. One could hardly call them unbiased.
There is an AB-SF vote that will not vote SF under any conditions. It tends to float rather than remain static with any particular party. That's the political reality. The electorate consider FF and FG to be much the same party and in the previous GEs, the transfer patterns show lower preferences transferring well between FF and FG candidates. That's the problem for FF/FG. The poll toppers tend to get elected on earlier counts but the FF and FG candidates often cancel each other out allowing candidates from other parties to take the seats despite FF/FG having enough votes to take more seats if they ran fewer agreed candidates. This was also a major factor in FG's poor performance in 2020: too many candidates chasing too many seats and splitting the FG vote. SF's problem was quite the opposite in having too few candidates to take advantage of the number of votes. Consequently, Green candidates and others won seats that they would not otherwise have won. That wonderfully successful Varadkar lost seats for FG. He even managed to lose a seat in the FG heartland of Dublin Bay South through sheer incompetence and even with a weak FF candidate on just 5%.
FG now has another problem in the shape of the SocDems. They are outperforming FG's old comrades in the Labour party in the younger demographics. (SocDems on 9% to Labour's 2%). There is a strong chance that they will begin to eat into the younger, Middle Class floating "social liberal" vote that FG has tried to attract. FFG is now dependent on Independents to survive. Things are quite fascinating in the real world. You should visit it when you get the chance.
Regards...jmcc
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Sinn Fein are not a firmly left wing political party by any standard political science definition. They would not fit within any European social democratic party definition. Why? Because they are a populist nationalist party. A populist nationalist party can be left (Syriza) or right (National Rally) but they are defined by their nationalism and populism rather than their social or economic policy identity which is often confusing, contradictory and nonsensical. This can be clearly illustrated by SF opposition to water charges and local property tax, both of which would be first on the list for implementing for any decent European left-wing party.
Anyway, this is clearly off-topic, so going to leave it there.
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Fine Gael have consistently polled above their general election performance, sometimes significantly so, sometimes only be small margins. Describing them as toxic as a result is some sort of nonsensical spin. I tend to dismiss analysis based on false facts, as it is completely meaningless if the facts underlying them are completely wrong.
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Not quite. FF and FG are yesterday's news. Without that electoral pact and joint candidate selection strategy, their candidates will continue to act against each other while FF/FG voters waste their lower preferences on candidates who will fratricide. The real danger for FF/FG is that SF is now becoming like the old FF (a party with broad support across all demographics). FF support is beginning to concentrate in older demographics and a nasty spivishness is happening with FG under Varadkar. Both FF and FG have drifted to Right of centre and effectively surrendered the centre to SF.
The opinion polls can be qute misleading because they present the parties having much more support than they do in reality.The majority of voters are not party supporters. They vote on issues and interests rather than parties. The floating vote, the "don't knows" and undecided are the ones who decide elections. When that floating vote shifts, it destroys parties. The problem for FFG is that SF underperformed in 2020 but that vote did not vanish after the GE. Apart from the abnormal Covid period, its support has remained remarkably stable.
Nailing their colours to the mast before the outcome of a GE is known is a losing strategy where there is no chance of a single party majority government. The only logical outcomes are a coalition government or another GE.
Regards...jmcc
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Didn't Mary Lou say she would bring in Gerry Adams to negotiate for Sinn Fein if they wanted to form a government? plus roll him out on every occasion possible.
No their is not a AB-SF vote. They are called the core voters of parties, they have always existed for every party including Sinn Fein. Always have and always will.
SF didn't have enough candidates because of the horror show in the local elections when MLMD nearly got kicked out, plenty of information on that, they thought the 2020 election would be a car crash so reduced the candidates to make sure they didn't dilute the vote.
SF had no idea the electorate would turn it into a revolt election and just vote for SF to piss off the main parties who had been expected to do well. All of this is well established and struggling to see why I need to explain .
The Green party if you look at previous local and general election was on a course for the good result they got. This was all well established as well and expected to be a good election for the Green party which it was. Just for reference look at the comments from FG after the local elections the year before.
FG didn't lose Dublin Bay South in the election. They lost it after the election in a by-election at a time of huge bad feeling for government post covid. The biggest hammering in that election was FF who at the time had MM as Taoiseach.
Post edited by redlough on0 -
Core FF voters want him out. He won't make it.
What achievements can they refer to? people seem to want to ignore how we got out of covid. Any of the other implementations FF have made we are told daily are irrelevant. They are going to take a hammering outside of core voters and the worse situation for FF now would be to jump into bed with SF in my opinion.
SF could cobble together a government with Greens/Soc Dems/PBP etc depending on how the election goes. If they can convince the normal "relaxed" elements of the Dail to actually take on some jobs and try to deliver for the voters. The likes of Paul Murphy, can they convince him to actually take on the role of a Minister and have to do some work?
That would be y guess of what might happen
In that case if they can cobble together then FF/FG should stay away, as mentioned the Greens should join
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That is rather muddled. You don't seem to have a good understanding of events and may have been only reading the Indo and believing it to be balanced reporting.
It is quite clueless to insist that there is no such thing as an AB-SF vote. There is. The core support of a party is something completely different. That was something that opinion polls used to provide in the past to make it appear that they were more accurate than they were in reality.
You have not demonstrated any understanding of political matters. The candidates for the GE were selected months before the actual GE. That meant that the selections were based, in part, on the opinion polls at the time. SF's surge in support only occurred after Charlie Flanagan went off trying to commemorate the Black and Tans/RIC and in the last month of the GE campaign.
As for the rubbish about the Greens, the Greens benefited from the Greta Thunberg hysteria with gullible Leftist voters voting Green thinking that the Greens were not FG on bikes. Many of these water melon voters (Green on the outside and Red on the inside) would otherwise have voted for Labour previously or for PBP etc. They are not natural Green voters and some of these politicians split to form the Green Left party after the Greens went into government. It was the surplus of SF transfers that went all over the place that was responsible for getting many Green TDs elected. Based on the current polling, the Greens will be lucky to hold four seats.
The FF candidate on 5% in the DBS bye-election was an obvious reference to the DBS bye-election. Varadkar also managed to lose Kate O'Connell's seat in the GE through a lack of support for her campaign. (That was in Dublin Bay South too, in case you didn't realise) He also lost an FG seat in Wexford (Verona Murphy) to please the morons in the Dublin media. Varadkar has been a complete disaster for FG. FF ran a weak candidate in the DBS bye-election and even then FG couldn't win the seat. It went to Ivana Bacik and some of the former Kate O'Connell voters probably voted for her. FF wasn't even trying to win the bye-election because it knew that it hadn't a chance. Varadkar is more damaging to FG than Martin is to FF.
Regards...jmcc
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Hilarious stuff.
The predicted damp squib of a confidence vote (certainly predicted by me) has certainly seemed to have set things off, with everyone and anyone being accused of a lack of understanding of political matters.
About the only thing accurate in this post is that current polling does show the Greens only holding a small number of seats. However, the surplus of SF transfers weren't as big a factor in Green elections than in PBP elections. What they do portend is that SF are taking a huge risk with their anti-Green sentiment, opposing climate change actions at local and national level and without a coherent policy on the issue.
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