Sinn Fein and how do they form a government dilemma

I don't think it is genuine fear of a SF government here, it is the fear that it might be shown that to be competent as a Minister isn't that hard.

Is there a job in the country that has the advisors and highly qualified civil servants backing up the principal office holder that a government ministry has?

I think there is very little difference between parties.

Certainly FF and FG have been kowtowing to the liberal left for the past decade, with little consideration to any values that they might once have held. This means on wider issues they are unable to argue with the far-left ... to which SF have aligned themselves.

Irish political parties are IMO mainly go from centre left to far left, weather you like how FG handles themselves in this regard is another matter, I'd argue that FG's minority government and this government are far more left wing than that of the FG/labour government from 2011 to 2016. (You can argue against this if you want but I don't think their is much point, it is just an observation).

I think many people don't want to see this, and many of the die hard FG / FF voter will continue to vote for them as the believe them to be the parties of old.

I don't see much change with an SF government, TBH nor do I see it with SD or LP. You might see the continued liberalization of things but large there's appoint when that becomes redundant (I'd have thought that would have happened at this point, but we come up with ever increase needs that are largely wants). That by the way is not to dismiss Education, Health, Housing, Employment and Social supports.

I think at this point FG/FF need to split. This will mean them deciding to join other parties.

There are clearly FG and FF politicians that would be more suited to SD or LP, while other more suited to SF and then others who should unite the two parties and potential offer a Centre Right alternative.

I am not really sure why Renua want to define themselves as the Centre Party, they would have been better rebranding as The Conservative Party of Ireland, I don't see why it would be such a problem TBH, other than this morbid fear the Irish have of being considered conservative!

Highway to hell if they get into government , for **** Mary lou has to go to shadow figures for every approval ! As for the snowflake generation being taken in , please Google Maria Cahill & Paul Quinn , that's recent , go further back to Jean mcconville , 10 children orphaned , mcguinness may have plamassed paisley , on a lighter note Alan partridge nailed mcguinness when he described him as a clown without makeup

Centre left by US standards perhaps , but I recall minister Noonan at the time of the 09 financial crisis saying vulture funds provide an essential service, I bet his kids didn't live through the terror of a vulture fund trying to repossess their home , Mr Richmond FG in phibsboro is cut from the same cloth ! Fair play to the Cork schoolteacher who travelled to Haugheys grave in Sutton to dance on it & call him all "C"s under the sun , it might still be on You Tube ,

Totally agree ! All their promises can only be fulfilled through massive hikes in taxation, but if you're Slab Murphy you can own multiple properties and drive a top ofthe range SUV, despite never having worked a day in his life , but who Mary Lou describes as a "GOOD REPUBLICAN " , despicable , and another thing , how on her salary and her husband who's a gas fitter buy that "villa" on the cabral road , wakeup people !

A year out from the last GE FF and FG were polling much higher. If the same thing happens in the run in to the next GE FF and FG would be in or around 5 to 6 points down on their current polling and SF 6 or 7 points up.

Genuinely curious as to what fine gael policies could be considered right wing?

Not saying it will happen Pere. Just saying that assessment was skewed. I have heard talk of ceilings for parties before (It was actually during the last election campaign) and that too turned out to be wrong.

There are votes floating around out there and the trend is that FF/FG's vote share is falling for a long time.

A risky strategy, it might play well to their traditional base but risks alienating the newly converted young middle class. I think a SF government with a C&S agreement with FF is probably the best option for FF and FG at this point. It would be madness to go into government with SF as they would blame you for everything.

FG would be significantly to the left of the pre-brexit conservatives. There is no economically right wing party in Ireland, certainly none that try to prioritise workers over long term welfare claimants. FG make a few noises about this sometimes (like having say a better jobseekers benefit with some relationship to what you were earning before), but we still have xmas bonuses for long term welfare.

True.

FG are the most "right wing" of the 3 main parties, but they are centre left by UK standards.

FG are basically Labour in the UK.

It's not quite the same data, but I did find online an earlier (2019) version of that survey from the same source (Chapel Hill Expert Survey). British and Irish political parties are scored on the left-right economic scale as follows (Irish parties in bold):

PBP/S: 0.4

UK Lab: 1.94

UK Greens: 2.12

SF: 2.14

SD: 2.33

I4C: 2.75

Greens:3.14

Plaid: 3.36

SNP: 3.44

Lab:3.57

Lib Dems: 4.47

FF: 5.42

FG: 6.42

Brexit: 6.89

Cons: 7.05

Renua: 7.6

UKIP: 7.73

Bear in mind that this is 2019; we're talking UK Labour under Corbyn and the Tories under May, and both parties have shifted since then. From the FT chart it seems that UK Lab was about 3.8 and the Tories (after the Truss shift well over 9. I don't think there have been similar shifts with the Irish parties, at least not on anything like that scale.

For what it's worth, the FF and FG scores here put both parties in the centre-right by comparison with European parties as a whole. For comparison, FG lies up almost exactly with La Republique En Marche, and a little to right of the German Christian Democrats. FF is a little to the left of the German Christian Democrats and is pretty much lined up with the Flemish Christian Democrats.