Is there any party or person worth voting for in modern-day Irish politics?

Social democrats?

Sounds like you have no interest in who runs the country.

Thats fine, but your subsequent complaints will amount to nothing more than shaking your fist at the sky.

You sound right-wing. You should just own it.

If you don't want to vote FG then there are plenty of right-wing independents around the country (any of the Rural Independent Group for example). Failing that you can vote for one of the far-right micro parties.

If kind of sounds like you're looking for some idyllic party who satisfy all of your demands. That's not really going to happen. So you can either choose the least worst option for you or you can just not vote.

I know how you feel.

Maybe the answer is to vote for the party that you dislike the least?

What do you think Sinn Fein will do differently, vs the current gov?

Yes, that's what FG should be.

I think they will attempt to sort out the housing crisis for once and cut down the price of accommodation. Not immediately of course, but I feel like Mary Lou is very genuine and actually wants to make a difference. I don't get that vibe off Leo Varadkar. On a personal level, Michaél Martin comes across like a nice person but FF have been in government on and off for years and just haven't made any kind of real change. Sinn Féin might be the same of course, but I'm curious to see how they would fare being in charge and if they can live up to their promises.

Not going to happen, unless they change tac on their support for tennants and evictions.

Their very pro tennant stance will drive smaller landlords out of the market.

Plus I doubt they will be giving any incentives to the building trade to make it worth their while to start building again.

Nobody wants "hardline" far-right parties, and as you say, they do very badly, yes.

A centre-right party would be nice though?

As BlueSkyDreams said:

You would think that a party that was serious on crime, housing, control of immigiration and prioritisation of working folks over non-working folks would go down a storm in the current climate.

That's what I'm looking for.

• Actually reform Judges and laws to actually deal with criminals
• massively increase the supply of housing
• bring bogus AS numbers to zero / reduce UKR refugees to be in line with norms across western EU
• don't have people on 40k, below median earnings, face 48.5% marginal tax rates

SF will get in for 1 period. If they even last 5 years will be interesting. They won't deliver any housing of note. And FG/FF will waltz back in at the following election.

People will speak of The Simpsons predicting the future...it will be a carbon copy of Homer becoming sanitation commissioner, only to be replaced by Ray Patterson after he royally screws things up.

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here and state that the big mistake that all of those failed/failing parties make is that they are populated with people who are obsessed with Abortion and other social issues. That's an electoral dead-end. The people who voted against the Same Sex Marriage and Abortion ferenda are mostly older voters whose votes are locked in to FF/FG/Rural Independents.

I don't actually know if there is an appetite for a newer iteration of the PDs out there. I do know though that those other parties weren't it. You're not going to get a new party off the ground in this country if you immediately alienate everyone under 45 which is what those parties did/have done.

Your list there is impossible

You are not going to find a party that delivers item 2 while also doing 3 or 4. Market intervention to get private builders building costs money so can't happen with 4, social housing won't happen with a party that's pushing for 3

You will not find a party offering 3 that isn't far-right; it is not something a centre right party will say.

And 1 is unconstitutional - the Government cannot influence the judiciary.

2, 3 and 4 are unrelated.

Take 2 - it is possible to reduce site costs without State exp, use taxes on land.

Remove regulatory delays, remove Uisce and ESBN delays.

There are lots of things that could be done to boost housing supply which don't involve direct State exp.

They can't control the judiciary, that was my point.

Removing those delays isn't free. If you can't realise that, you are only continuing to delude yourself that a party can come out of nowhere and promise you everything.

It takes one month to install an offshore wind turbine, it takes 6-7 years to get the permissions.

I feel it should be possible to reduce the 6-7 years.

You disagree.

Why?

If a pol party wants to reduce the number of UKR refugees to equal the ratio per person in DE and FR -- that is "far-right"?

I disagree.

The problem, as Lucinda Creighton discovered, is as soon you start pitching your party as in any sense conservative or right-wing, or even centrist, you automatically become a magnet for this sort of headbanger

and put off the mainstream right-of-centre voters. This guy has some sage advice for any aspiring centre-right candidates

I thought you emigrated? You had a big thread about it saying you had enough of the place or something. You may as well. Sounds like you hate the place.

Literally nobody will take a blind bit of notice spoiled votes.

By all means do it if it makes you feel better but that's about the only thing it will accomplish.

That's probably true, a huge increase in spoiled votes may well have some political impact.

But what does a huge increase mean? A ten-fold increase would probably be a reasonable figure to consider as "huge". In 2020, there were around 17,000 spoiled votes (which nobody took the slightest bit of notice of). If there was an organised protest movement that resulted in 170,000 spoiled votes in the next election, that would be noticed. For context, that's more votes than the Green Party got. It would make the "spoilers" the fourth biggest political group, after the big three of FG, FF and SF.

Of course, that begs the question: if you could put together a movement that could obtain 170,000 votes, why wouldn't you form a political party that would actually get elected from those votes?

And that's why no-one will pay any attention whatsoever to spoiled votes.