The accelerating fall in Sinn Féin support

Far right of you maybe. Which is wholly fine. But we've lost all perspective if asking for reduced levels of inward migration is far right.

I would need to see the breakdown of class support and trends in support to draw conclusions about the reasons.

My opinion is that Immigration is one of the reasons in working class areas.

If there is a decline in better off areas, it might be that the FG scaremongering about SF wanting to bring down house prices to $300,000 in Dublin might have been a factor in this group.

SF's support among the better off was never that high though in actual elections, though it had been increasing.

While support for immigration is higher among the better off ABC1 group in the Irish Times poll, 52% in this group still say they want a more closed system than we have now. In the entire sample the figure is 59%, rising to 70% among SF voters. Interestingly its 58% among Independents, They are not necessarily a uniform group as one would expect with Independents. Even so its clear that in the Dail and Seanad, most of the criticism of the open borders policies are coming from Independents.

I was always sceptical of SF. I am still concerned about its MEP Sean McManus voting against criminalising those who evade sanctions on Russia. It seems out of step with the party in the Dail voting in favour of such a measure at home. While Mary Lou has condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have occasionally heard echoes of the earlier pro-Russian position, including Reada Cronin at an Oireachtas Committee suggesting Ukraine should cede territory. Also when the war started, there was a purge of pro-Russian stuff from SF's website. Have they really abandoned their previous views so thoroughly? Possible but my reading is there are still elements in the party who are applying a "England's difficult is Ireland's opportunity" approach to this, and that is wrong because the conflict is in Ukraine,. But it affects the West through inflation.

I also have concern that a SF led government will harm our vital relationship with the United States by their position on the war in Gaza. I actually agree with what SF has said on Gaza, but I think vital national economic interests, and those concerning Northern Ireland, should be a priority.

The country cannot handle the numbers regardless of 'will'.

We are in the midst of a housing crisis and even with plenty of money to be made building houses, we simply cannot build enough. 30k a year currently and that isn't enough to address population growth, nevermind pent up demand.

We do not have the resources for current numbers of asylum seekers, nevermind future ones. The time to take action and tighten immigration rules is now, or else we will have an even worse crisis in a few years time.

That is a reasonable point but I recall back in 2009 when the false floor was inserted below plummeting property prices by insuring a particular tranche of houses belonging to the bailed out banks and when FG was borrowing at a rate of over 20 billion per year, - concern was expressed by developers about who was going to build houses in the future. Basically the government wanted houses to be expensive and developers knew people wouldn't be able to afford them.

We know the government could pop their own bubble by taxing existing housing more while exempting new builds. Instead they tax new builds even more than existing housing by adding on the cement levy. They make repossessions of defaulted properties nearly impossible in order to keep properties off the market. And the billions they threw at the banks enabled the banks to afford the losses, at least on paper.

So what will make properties find their true, unmanipulated value? I think what might do it would be a government in desperation. In recent weeks the speculation about interest rate cuts has increased. The ECB and the FED are both sending out information which is not very consistent. They want bond buyers to hold and continue buying but they don't want the equity markets to crash. But this year, they will lose control of either the equity or bond markets, with disastrous consequences either way. That is when true price discovery happens.

They probably are afraid of serious talks about a united Ireland so they decide to change parties. It is not often I agree with Joe Brolly but he was saying on Twitter about how the Irish media were painting the first nationalist first minister story as a bad thing. He said even the English were praising the situation. The southerners would rather things stayed like they were before the 90s as it means a united Ireland isn't on the cards.

FG wont partner with SF. They have already said so.

They will continue to partner with FF, so the most likley election outcome is another FFG govt.

But if the houses arent there, should the immigration still occur at uncapped levels?

And if immigration does continue, without the houses and infrastructure, are we not denying the rights to services and housing for everyone?

So by taking a liberal approach, we are perhaps producing a far right outcome, for everyone.

in the roscrea protest nearly all the local sinn fein branch are some of the main protesters

What have Sinn Fein ever done over the years?

In both booms and busts, asset prices tend to overshoot. This is why the true floor of the 2009 house price crash in Ireland was 20% below where they bottomed out. You see, a false floor was inserted to prevent house prices falling further. But, while FG wanted to stop house prices reaching their true bottom in 2009, today they want house prices to continue rising beyond their natural peak. This is why FG slackened lending standards when the ECB started raising interest rates. Of course no market can rise in perpetuity. A correction has to come eventually and when it comes, it will happen despite the best efforts of the government to prevent it. In other words, the government will not be able to stop it. Oh brother! What a correction that will be! Remember the overshoot? The true bottom of the market is below what it would have been if the government had let it fall all the way, in 2009.

These polls always mix skilled migrants with refugees (or those claiming to be). There’s a world of difference between a skilled migrant paying their own way and contributing taxes to some chancer turning up, dumping their documents then being housed and feed at the taxpayers expense while contributing nothing.