Irish GE 2024: - Middle Ireland vs Rural Ireland vs United Ireland

FF 21% not 31%

Independents at 17% and growing is an interesting one.

That's traditionally been either a "None of the above" or a "I like my specific local independent" option.

I'm wondering now, with everything that's happened so far this year, with regards to migrant protests, does it also include an Anti migrant element. With all of the main parties having the same stance on the matter there is no political home for that vote currently so I think it will end up with whatever independent shouts the loudest about it in their constituency.

I think we will learn a lot about whether that is the case or not at next years local elections.

Politicians are unlikely to be explicitly anti-migrant (apart from the National Party no-hoper types). Instead it'll be more of a NIMBY type message where they'll say they've no issues with migrants but also make it known that they will oppose resettling migrants absolutely anywhere in their constituency/local area.

The dilapidated grants seem to be making a difference. A lot of old buildings in villages and rural areas are finally viable to buy and renovate.

So much housing stock not being used

Will SF find enough candidates? They have an exceptionally low number of Councillors, a reasonable number are co-options after the 2020 GE so have never faced the public at all; and they either need to replace (Wynne) or really, really should (Ryan, Cronin, maybe more) some of the 2020 winners too.

I wouldn't have the confidence of the Government making it to after that election, and certainly it will only have a few months of council actions to look at at best.

Cronin went out *on the first count as a sitting councillor* which is exceptionally rare anyway, and then became a TD 9 months later.

8th, and his running mate who was not a sitting councillor got in. Nowhere near as embarrassing

Cronin did absolutely zero as a councillor and that's why she lost her seat. She's even more absent locally as a TD and it's not cause of doing great works in the Dáil, but she's probably safe unless deselected. Which they really should do as they have a free go at that seat and surely have to have someone better?

He's right thought as regards that demographic and their difficulties. I'd pull it back further though - to 20 to 45 yr olds. We have them at home ourselves - were renting and had to give it up to try and save. Students crippled with long commutes from rural area. They talk about the failure of recent governments and want a fresh start. And it's not just them that will turn from the present lot but also parents and relatives.

...i think this really is the turning point, we have a growing number of older generations. i.e. parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts etc, now starting to realise their off spring are in serious trouble, ffg are in real trouble, but unfortunately irelands response is gonna be sf, yippee!

....we were in the depths of a global credit bubble, that had been in the making for years, we bought into it, all of us, in particular our political classes, we truly believed in our own bullsh1t, and we learned, or did we, that driving your economy primarily via bank created credit(including irish bank created!), and using this credit to simply inflate a property bubble, will never end well!

...we were knee deep in this, no wonder we fell hard!

...but thank god we learned our lessons, thank god we havent re-inflated our property markets, thank god!

....Italian economist mariana mazzucato talks about this in her work, we have infantilised our political processes, completed depowered the whole process, to the point, we simply dont have the resources to makes the changes that need to be made, this is also instilling fear of getting things wrong, as mazzucato says, we almost celebrate failure in the private domain, but demonise it in the public, we wont move forward if we dont embrace failures within the public domain to....we re paralyzed by this fear!

...we think we have insulated ourselves, but have we really! the issues of asset bubbles has now become far more complex since 08, we now seem to have bubbles in many other asset markets, including share markets and property markets, and other markets, so have we actually insulated ourselves, really!

yes we clearly do have a major divide occurring between asset owners, and non asset owners, its time to take a good look at ourselves again, we have to stop thinking the creation of asset bubbles is the solution to our problems, cause we all eventually lose in this game!

Well that is the dilemma isn't it. And of course SF are happy to surf the wave, even if they'll likely do little to fix these problems. Their numero uno desire is a crack at a border poll etc. with very unpredictable results. Historians in the future may well look back of this period of negligent government and see it as the catalyst for what is to come.

"we bought into it, all of us"

No we all didn't.

I think it is too simplistic to link our financial crash in 2008- and the current housing crisis. Admittedly one has affected the other but not caused it. After decades of high interest rates, our access to cheap money, had us borrowing way beyond our means. Of course Banks pushed it, for their own reasons, profits, but Government did not want to regulate either. Light touch regulation saw some people I know add a €70,000 car onto their mortgage ,'because the bank thought it a good idea to get a new car with their new house'. They weren't the only couple borrowing way beyond their needs or ability to repay.

In 2010 I left Dublin and at the time the apartment I was renting was going to be vacant. The landlord expected to be burdened with a property where there was little or now demand. Around us there were a number of new apartment buildings and work had stopped on most of them. I saw the same in Galway. The feeling at that time was there would be little demand for rental property.

However later, as the economy began to improve audit became clear that there was a need , FG decided that that demand would be delivered by 'market forces' . Not just SF, but many commentators and builders said that the delivery of housing needed to be driven by government of local authorities with direct investment. There should have been no problem borrowing for such investment. This country built thousands of houses in the 50s , 60's and 70s when we had little money and the cost of borrowing was much higher. It was an ideological decision for FG and later FG/FF to leave this vital need to 'market forces' rather than state intervention. Only SF and the parties of the left, as far as I can see, are advocating direct state intervention to address the housing crisis. I have no doubt that if FF were to adopt similar policies, which they championed in the 50s-70s, they would take a large share of the centre vote. But , like FG, they are wedded to a Thatcherite/Reagonomic ideology and wont change that now. It is not in the interests of vulture funds to address the housing needs of people, it is their remit to maintain their profits. I am aware of one developer who have paused build starts early next year because they believe property is coming on to the market too fast and might cause a downward trend in prices.

As someone who now lives in rural Ireland I don't see any difference in views or worries between urban and rural. Housing is still seen as the biggest issue facing young people today. And many older voters ( and I count myself in that number) will vote to address that issue even if they are not directly affected. The current policy of the FF/FG government , relying of foreign vulture funds cannot fix the problem so more or the same has little attraction for many .