Is there a Labour Party?

Yes.

It's sad that the Labour Party no longer represent labourers.

A Stickie is, or was, a member of Official Sinn Fein, Sinn Fein the Workers Party, the Workers Party, Democratic Left. They got the name because they used stick-on Easter lilly badges while Provisional SF used pin-on badges.

The Water Tax idea was poorly handled and managed. Irish Water would probably have been set up for privatisation as well. You only have to look at the Eircom fiasco to see the dangers of privatisation of critical national infrastructure.

Taxpayers are already contributing to water charges.

Regards...jmcc

Various FF members wanted it, they were so convinced that Lenihan could turn things around imminently if only he was given another budget / easier votes to pass (numbers were extremely tight by the last budget, and they were holding on by refusing to hold Waterford and Dublin South by-elections)

Of course he was dead within four months of the election anyway, and any government other than FG-Labour was a fantasy that would have fallen apart within weeks.

You were asked to explain how they could force that. There wasn't any way possible to force FF in, Martin knew he needed to be outside pissing in to try rebuild the party - which, somehow, worked.

FG C&S would have had Labour slaughtered by the media for supporting significantly harsher austerity (have you read FGs 2011 manifesto, much of which they did not get to implement?) than actually happened.

You have an over-simplistic and, honestly, revisionist view of the politics of the time. FF wouldn't have done anything - they had to reposition themselves as the opponent to the cuts that were their fault. The media - and public - would have blamed whoever was supporting FG for doing so the same way the PDs, Greens, Independent Alliance and indeed Labour (82-87 Government) got blamed for supporting the big party before.

There is no outcome were Labour weren't going to be blamed for whatever happened. So the best option was to get in and stop FG enacting the worst of their cuts. Which is what happened.

You may have missed the way that the media initially lied about the size of the Water Tax protests.

The problem for Labour is that the public did blame it for supporting FG. The media in Ireland were all into that green jersey rubbish and its impact was far less than they would have people believe. The Water Tax protests were very much a grassroots movement.

By having the nuclear option of bringing down the government, Labour forcing a GE would probably have had a far greater impact on restraining FG without having been in coalition with FG. And it would have had Labour surviving as a major party.

It isn't a revisionist view. It is quite a cynical one. Labour's management was too busy chasing mercs and percs to realise what was going to happen to it as a party. Had Labour the ability to think strategically, SF would not be the most popular political party according to the opinion polls. FF didn't rehabilitate itself in 2016.

Most of the votes in Irish GEs are floating votes rather than party supporter votes. The floating votes that Labour got into 2011 were not Labour supporter votes. Some of those votes drifted to FF in 2016 but the 2.5 party model upon which Labour depended had started to break down by 2013 and change to a Big Three model (where no two parties would have enough seats to form a government). By 2016, that Big Three model was in effect and Labour was not one of the Big Three parties. All Labour had to do to be one of those Big Three parties was to stay out of government in 2011.

Regards...jmcc

Not going into government would have been the least worst option for Labour. You don't like that opinion and Labour supporters will probably not either. It doesn't matter. Labour did what you wanted and got obliterated in 2016.

That mercs and percs strategy also resulted in the rise of SF to become, in 2016, the smallest of the Big Three parties. Ironically, the opinion poll data suggested that was about to happen in 2016 but Labourites and media had, laughably, convinced themselves that Labour would return about 15 seats. No doubt Labour supporters will consider the 37 to 7 collapse to have been a noble sacrifice. In real political terms, it was the destruction of Labour as a major political party and it led to the rise of SF as a major political party.

Regards...jmcc

SF has to get into government first.

Regards...jmcc

She wants to microchip disabled children. She congratulated Viktor Orban. She tried to demand double payments from Meath CC.

Decent is not a word that can be used to describe her by anyone that's decent themselves.

It's a good historic insight.

However it's a hard discussion to have, even in today's terms.

Increased use of technology and less and less manual work, especially in production and more worker safety laws have shifted the balance as well.

Just take a look at Sir Kier Starmer in the UK. In comparison to history, he can hardly be seen on the left, maybe on the "soft left".

However these things depend on countries and economies and are often idividual.

The current British labour party seems under Starmer more "centre-left", they don't believe that the solution to everything is a tax or some other kind of penal tax. They are far from that "stonage left" of Jeremy Corbyn.

All out of necessity, because the problem is that the Tories have led the UK into isolation and are no longer the party for business and economy.

As for Ireland, I'd say the FG is more in the "centre left" however if someobody is really on the left, he or she would never accept that. Or the FG is more like the Liberal party in Canada, or maybe the Lib Dems in the UK? Not certain, and opinions on politics sure differ.

The question of course is how they would have achieved that.

What would have been much more likely is that FG would have gone into government with Independents. It was briefly mentioned as a possible alternative to the FG-Labour one. Go read Pat Leahy's book, "The Price of Power". It goes into detail about how the election went, and how negotiations for the 2011 government went.

Famously, Eamon Gilmore proposed that Labour have 8 Cabinet posts, to which Phil Hogan replied, "Maybe there are 8 Independents we can talk to to form a government". 8 was the number of votes FG needed to have a majority

No one and I mean no one talked or imagined an FG-FF government in 2011. To talk about it now, 12 years later is both stupid and idiots pie in the sky stuff better suited to the Fantasy Channel.

FF abstained from the vote for Enda Kenny to become Taoiseach, the first time they ever did that. They were trying to survive and there were serious questions being asked if the party could become extinct. They were in no way shape or form to be able to go back into government. Such a move by FG to get them back in would have been HUGELY unpopular by the public.

Again, why on earth would this have happened, apart from Walter Mitty-esque alternative history chit-chat?

The simple truth of the matter is, Labour actually did well in government. They got a lot of their policies through and curtailed a lot of the more harsher measures FG would have implemented. People forget that the country was more or less insolvent at that time and we were under the rule of the Troika.

People engage in alternative history these days and give Labour a bad name.

The thing Labour did do was promise too much to their base.

There was a time that Labour was doing so well in the Polls that 'Gilmore for Taoiseach' became a slogan and a real possability. However, FG overtook them and looked at one stage to be on the verge of an overall majority. Labout panicked about that and released attack ads against FG, the most famous one being the Tesco look-a-like ad about 'Every Little Hurts'

https://www.thejournal.ie/labour-tesco-ad-2635307-Mar2016/

Anyway, FG pulled back in the polls for a bit and the people decided more or less that it was to be FG and Labour to lead the next government. All polls showed that to be the most popular government.

However, in panicking, Labour undid themselves. They over-promised at a time when they knew deep down that there would have to be harsh measures given the economic situation at the time.

Also, Left-wing politics is notoriously fickle and ideological. Many adherents will die on the altar of ideological purity rather than go in, take power and make some changes for the better, without being perfect. Labour supporters forget that they were in a coalition with FG, they did not have an overall majority so there was give and take on both sides.

In summary, Labour did OK in government and got a lot of their manifesto through but they were up for a fall anyway because they over-promised and their naive supporters lapped it up, but when reality hit their naive supporters abandoned them

The same will happen to SF in government by the way.

The LP mistake in 2011 was over promising. Gilmore, Rabbit, Howlin etc all wanted one last hurrah to cement there place in political history.

FG was heading for an overall majority but Gilmore put out the '"Labour way or the Frankfurt way'' and that Labour would police FG.

The reality was it was always going to be the Frankfurt way. Then in Government they were more afraid of the Greed long-term than SF. Instead of going through the metering fiasco they should have imposed a set water charge of 100 euro similar to LPT. As well they decided that headline SW rate could not be touched. Instead of everyone get a 5 euro cut there was nasty cutback to carers a d in certain services.

Finally there was there promise before the election that there wound be no increase in college. This was a straw that broke the back of many parents in a certain subset that voted labour. They lost CA on children going to college between 18-21 years of age and got 1k/ student added in fees.

For a family with two in college this could have cost them 4-5k/ year. Labour could have stopped campaigning the last 5-8 days and left FG win the election or get with 1-2 seats where they could sit on there hands as the largest opposition party. They choose not to and then they split right down the middle while in Government.

SF will not go into government with the Snowflakes ( PBP, SD's or a selection of Independent TD's), as they know that shower will cut and run at the first hard decision. Labour will not support it and the Greens will be in opposition. If FF have a really bad election they will be caught between a rock and a hard place and may drive a bargain that will expose SF on its left.

This is not NI where they can make the excuse that they are only half in government and that lie is being exposed the time.

SF TD's will learn the reality of being on the Senior football team