Forming the next Irish Government - policies and personalities

Best thing Labour & Soc Dems can do now is go into opposition and leave FF & FG at it. Any small left-wing party propping up a FF/FG government gets eviscerated at the next election. More fool them if they haven't learned that lesson by now.

Plenty of independents to choose from and there are so many of them available that FF & FG can keep all the ministries for themselves.

Irish times with a breakdown of all the independents. It's pay walled but people should be able to find it online.

What's the magic number where a rotating Taoiseach would be untenable? Nobody knows. It's only been done once before but also all of the other coalition governments had larger gaps between the two largest parties than 10 seats.

I reckon 1948 was the next closest when the gap was 17 seats and in that case the largest party ended up nominating someone who wasn't even their party leader for Taoiseach in an effort to appease their coalition partners.

At the end of the day FG can play hard ball because FF have already ruled out coalition with FF so they've nowhere else to go.

Yup, my bad. Silly typo.

Honestly I don't think the rest of the world is going to care that much. Quite a lot of them will just be glad that we don't have some extremist as our leader. As for the changeover - the parties are aligned with an agreed program for government so there's not going to be any radical change in direction and it also happens pretty quickly. Contrast that with the American handover where it's nearly 3 months and a radical change in personnel and policy.

It's not entirely unprecedented either. It looks like Israel successfully executed it once and the current Romanian government has successfully executed a switch for the first time. Plenty of examples on that referenced page where this was attempted but failed for one reason or another as well.

I would have thought the 'number' would be based on respect for the mandate given by the people under our system.
The electorate made FG the 3rd biggest party of choice in the election, yet will see the leader as Taoiseach.

Relative position doesn't matter now. Neither does first preference vote share. Those are just for bragging rights.

The only thing that matters is number of seats AND being able to form a working majority.

Between FF/FG the seat share is 48-38 (or 56%-44%) AND they both need each other to form that majority having both ruled out SF.

That pushes them both into finding a mutually beneficial agreement.

voting day is pretty much all the power the electorate have in forming governments, after that its up to elected officials, all parties, including the opposition, would take advantage of this privilege

The only thing that matters is whatever the Shinners have decided to tell their supporters to regurgitate online.

The new rules are FG came 3rd and can't rule because "something something mandates something something"

Voters don't vote for Taoiseach. That's not how it works. We only get to vote for a T.D.

Irish elections are a 2 step process. The first step happened last Friday. Now it's up to the elected representatives to come to an agreement to govern.

In 1948 FF got 41.9% pf FPVs and 68 seats. However the Taoiseach came from a party that had only gotten 19.8% FPVs and 31 seats. Eamon De Valera didn't get to be Taoiseach though because he couldn't get a majority of TDs to vote for him. Instead John A. Costello, who didn't even lead his party during the election campaign became the Taoiseach. He went on to declare the Republic.

Was he an illegitimate Taoiseach? After all he didn't even present himself as a potential Taoiseach before the electorate voted. No of course he wasn't - because the only electorate that matters when it comes to the Taoiseach's office are the members of the Dail.

"we will be stuck indefinitely with this rotating foolishness if it is agreed now"

No we won't.

And that answer requires no need for elaboration. It's a very simple no we won't be stuck with anything.

They elect TD's not mandates.

I'm talking about demands made before a coalition agreement and FG are out making them already.

😁 If the Shinners were 10 seats behind do you think they'd get it? They got the largest mandate in 2020 and the other two sulk in the corner and wouldn't even talk.

This rotating nonsense demand disrespects the electorate and devalues the office. It isn't at all surprising given the arrogance and entitlement we have seen from FG and the abject lack of self respect among FFers and the incompetence of MM in giving them the stick to beat him with. If you don't believe they are 'beating' him with it, look at the amount of FGers out of the traps threatening it is a redline as soon as the counts finished.

Part of me thinks FG should walk away and let FF and SF form a coalition.

Entertainment value.

The SDs aren't interested in governing, they are really an idealist party at present, just gaining traction and hoping for a bright future.

I'd say they'd actually love to see Labour in govt and hope to see a near wipeout of them again in the next election. That would suit them fine as they'd be hoping to pick up that left vote.

They are already trying to show they're not like labour, how'd that go in govt formation talks.

https://www.rte.ie/news/election-24/2024/1206/1484990-election-labour-social-democrats/

It's obvious both sides are hoping the other will go in and get "Greened". It'll be both or neither so I'de say definitely neither at this stage.