Ireland General Discussion

[ObserverIE]

Wow @ those numbers above.  The sharp drop jumps out at me too.  Is Noel Browne properly appreciated?  Seems almost forgotten rather than a national hero.

My guess is that the sharp drop (in both categories, but much sharper among "illegitimate") is due to the arrival of penicillin. Infectious childhood diseases were always going to hit harder in crowded institutions than amongst the general population, regardless of the level of care given.

Yes, but didnt the reforms Browne was able to briefly introduce lead to greater access to those lifesaving interventions?  From what I remember the whole Mother and Child scheme was tragic.

There were already reforms in the pipeline such as the Health Act of 1947 which introduced the concept of the Mother and Child scheme before the Inter-Party coalition was elected in 1948. Browne's initial focus for the first couple of years had been on the treatment of TB, which was a major cause of death at the time. The Mother and Child controversy with the Catholic Bishops (and the medical organisations behind the scenes) came later in 1950.

Browne was a visionary (and, unfortunately, we have still not achieved his vision of a public health system) but had the tragic flaw of making enemies easily.

[ObserverIE]

Millward Brown/IMS for tomorrow's Indo (changes since the pre-local election poll):

Ind/Oth 27 (-)
SF 26 (+3)
FF 20 (-1)
FG 20 (-)
Lab 5 (-1)
Green 2 (-)

I think Labour may have been this low in opinion polls in the mid 80s, but I wasn't paying it much attention at the time.

[ObserverIE]

It's happened, hasn't it?

*Gets up from keyboard*

*Walks to window*

*Opens curtains and stares into darkness*

*Sees no sign of asteroid strike/alien first contact/second coming*

[ObserverIE]

The poll result. People (by which I mean posters here) have been taking about the collapse of the present political system and with "other" at #1 and SF at #2 that seems to be happening.

It is - so far - a single poll.

The traditional party system went in 2011 with the collapse of FF. Or at least that was Act I of the drama.

What happened two weeks ago was that FG discovered that they, too, were mortal. (Labour had figured that out last year. What they haven't figured out is what to do about it.)

[ObserverIE]

Seems that Irish politics has gone the way of Greece.

With Sinn Fein as Syriza and Labour as Pasok it kinda makes sense. Still, they have two versions of ND.

FF are more PASOK (in terms of their position in the political ecosystem) than they are ND. FG are certainly ND, though.

[ObserverIE]

Seems that Irish politics has gone the way of Greece.

With Sinn Fein as Syriza and Labour as Pasok it kinda makes sense. Still, they have two versions of ND.

Not sure who would be ANEL and they, thankfully, have no Golden Dawn.

The new 'Independents Alliance' party would be ANEL. Although SF = SYRIZA is not a point I would emphasize too much.

Nah, SF = Syriza is a bit of light trolling.

How much of the 27% independents and others in that last poll would go to the Independents Alliance? And who are the rest?

Difficult to say. Won't be large. The rest of independents/others are a mixture of ex-political party politicos (from all parties), local interest trolls, soft left community activists/campaigners and various far left groupings.

The problem for the "Independent Alliance" is that social conservatives are not necessarily (or even usually) economic right-wingers or vice versa. Lucinda might be aiming for the union of the two sets but end up only with the intersection.

Denis Naughten (another member of the Reform Alliance who left over the closure of ER facilities at his local hospital when Kenny had explicitly promised during the election campaign to keep it open - Kenny then denied ever making the promise until the tape recording surfaced) was interviewed on Prime Time the other week and focused on the waste of public money on support for asylum seekers and on child benefit for "children who don't exist" (usually code for the children of EU-27 migrant workers). It's possible that the Tea Party may focus on the soft racist vote as a more fertile source of support than hard-right economics.

[ObserverIE]

Seems that Irish politics has gone the way of Greece.

With Sinn Fein as Syriza and Labour as Pasok it kinda makes sense. Still, they have two versions of ND.

Not sure who would be ANEL and they, thankfully, have no Golden Dawn.

Yet.  They have no Golden Dawn yet.

Thankfully we have no sign of one.

SF are able to appeal to nationalism and Euroscepticism (using the term as it should be used rather than as a euphemism for xenophobia) but position themselves as being left-of-centre and as being anti-racist (based on links with groups such as the ANC). The other main protest parties (SP, SWP) are well to the left of SF.

FG might, in other circumstances, make noises about immigrants and law-and-order to appeal to the racist vote, but are in government and are primarily associated with austerity measures that are hitting the working and middle classes hard.

That leaves a couple of micro groups and obvious loons without any credibility or obvious popular appeal or the capability to attract same.

[ObserverIE]

In Ireland Nazi officer is more sympathic character than the Brittish one (seen in one document).

Eh?

[ObserverIE]

New RedC poll and it's a doozy

FG: 22 (-3)
Lab: 4 (-7)
FF: 18 (-3)
SF: 22 (-4)
IND/OTH: 32 (+9)

Probably an outlier - but still LOL.

GP 2 (-1)

Note: The SF change figure should be +4

Well, it's the second outlier in a week or so.

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http://www.redcresearch.ie/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Paddy-Power-June-2014-Poll-Report-Final.pdf

The thing about RedC is that its methodology (assumptions about turnout and the likelihood of undecided voters to return to the parties whence they came) should be relatively friendly to unpopular governing parties and unfriendly to SF.

[ObserverIE]

A bookie is who's paying them for regular political polls? Lol Ireland.

Most of the newspapers are nearly broke... (although the Business Post has a monthly poll with RedC - the Paddy Power series is less regular).

I don't have a particularly high opinion of RedC (there's a lot of hot air about them being the "gold standard" of polling, but excluding what happened with the original gold standard, their main selling point is the frequency with which they produce results).

One point that's not getting attention in the focus on the Walking Dead is that 22% is as low as FG have ever been in a RedC poll (and it may also be as high as SF have ever been). Update: I tell a lie: they were on 21% in January 2007; other figures in the poll were FF 42, Lab 12, GP 7, SF 7, PD 3 and Ind/Oth 8.

Ipsos/MRBI are more reliable (and actually got the only reasonably good forecast of the local election vote) but they poll only intermittently for the Irish Times and don't release internals.

[ObserverIE]

I found something in my Myles na Gopaleen collection the other day that seems to fit the Ireland of today quite well.

The Begrudger's Guide to Irish Politics by Breandán Ó hEithir, if you haven't come across it already, is well worth reading in a somewhat similar vein. Written in the mid to late 80s, but most of the insights still hold.

[ObserverIE]

Ó hEithir had travelled a long, long way from Ailtirí na hAiséirghe by the time he wrote the book.

[ObserverIE]

From today's Irish Times, Labour party memberships per constituency (overall paid-up membership is down from 4,600 in 2007 to 3,265 now):

Dublin Bay South 240
Longford-Westmeath 198
Tipperary 195
Kerry 167
Dún Laoghaire 155
Dublin Bay North 148
Carlow-Kilkenny 134
Kildare North 130
Dublin Rathdown 124
Dublin Fingal 107
Waterford 99
Dublin West 96
Wexford 93
Dublin Central 92
Dublin Mid West 91
Cork North Central 90
Galway West 88
Cork South Central 85
Wicklow 83
Dublin South West 79
Limerick City 73
Dublin South Central 70
Louth 55
Meath East 50
Clare 44
Cork South West 44
Galway East 41
Cork East 40
Dublin North West 35
Laois 33
Cork North West 31
Sligo-Leitrim 28
Kildare South 25
Roscommon-Galway 22
Donegal 21
Meath West 20
Mayo 15
Cavan-Monaghan 9
Offaly 7
Limerick County 4

Head office 104

Those familiar with the social geography of Dublin will find the numbers instructive. Dublin North West and Dublin South Central stick out a mile.

Longford-Westmeath is the one where nobody wanted to stand as a candidate in the by-election.

[ObserverIE]

Kildare South is perhaps the most revealing one, given that they didn't do that badly in the locals there and have a TD to boot. Now why might that be....

Family franchise (although so are Kerry and - to a very large extent - Longford-Westmeath) where possible rivals to the succession have been pushed out. Cork East is also remarkably small - although there you had two competing family franchises in Mallow (Sherlock - Sticky) and Cóbh (Mulvihill - old Labour).

[ObserverIE]

Kildare South is perhaps the most revealing one, given that they didn't do that badly in the locals there and have a TD to boot. Now why might that be....

Family franchise (although so are Kerry and - to a very large extent - Longford-Westmeath) where possible rivals to the succession have been pushed out. Cork East is also remarkably small - although there you had two competing family franchises in Mallow (Sherlock - Sticky) and Cóbh (Mulvihill - old Labour).

That was a rhetorical question .

I suppose it was a rhetorical answer as well , but the lack of a membership base in some of the family fiefdoms but not in others is interesting (e.g. are there really 92 members of the extended Costello clan in Dublin Central and can they all be fitted up with appointments to the Senate, judiciary or state boards before the coalition finally expires?).

[ObserverIE]

More on the RedC poll here.

Assumption of Joan Burton into the Labour leadership expected within the next hour. Rumours going round Leinster House (and spread on Twitter by Shane Ross) that she will appoint Ivana Bacik to a senior Cabinet post. That would be a brave decision.

Presumably Ivana would then be the chief government spokesperson for next year's referendum on gay marriage. Which would be an even braver decision.

[ObserverIE]

More than 76-24:

Burton 2094 (77.5%)
White 607 (22.5%)

Deputy leader:

Kelly 1409 (51.5%)
Sherlock 467 (17.1%)
McCarthy 438 (16.0%)
Conway 421 (15.4%)

Burton currently talking about tackling low pay and the shortage of social housing, which sounds dangerously traditionally Labour-ish. It's unlikely to last.

[ObserverIE]

I think he means it in a strictly Sir Humphrey sense. But perhaps, even so, courageous would be better?

Quite.

Although watching Ivana trying to speak Earthling would have a certain grim fascination.

[ObserverIE]

Translation for those not from Ireland who know nothing about Bakic?

Briefly: Ivana is culture-warrior-in-chief of the Labour Party. A law professor in Trinity College with a condescending manner and a seeming inability to connect with the ordinary voter beyond the bourgeois bohemians of Ranelagh and Sandymount, who has stood for election for the European parliament (once) and the Dáil (twice) and failed every time. She is to the social liberal wing of the Labour Party what Gay Mitchell is/was to the traditional wing of Fine Gael - someone who embodies the group's own complete set of prejudices and assumptions, but who will progressively antagonise the general public the more they see of her.

Labour told people during the 2011 election that they needed to be elected to keep curbs on the economic slash-and-burners of Fine Gael. Instead, economic policy was almost fully conceded to FG (backed by the Troika) while Labour, under the leadership of the ex-Stickies, decided to concentrate on social liberalism: abortion, gay marriage and secularism; issues which excite a large part of their membership base in bo-bo land and in social media but go nowhere in the real world at the moment. At a time when most people are seeing their living standards decline due to wage cuts, flat charges for utilities and public service cuts, these were viewed as at best an irrelevance and at worst an irritation.

Burton has managed over the last couple of years to create a public perception that she was in the government but not of it; even though she presided over considerable cuts in social welfare payments and the introduction of workfare measures, she kept making it clear by judiciously-timed statements to the media that she disagreed with much of the strategy being decided by the inner cabinet (the Economic Management Council). This helped her to be seen as the internal opposition to Gilmore, Rabbitte, etc. and is likely to provide her with at least a temporary degree of public goodwill (I would expect Labour's opinion poll ratings to return to the low double digits rather than the middle single digits, for example). Her initial statements indicate a determination to refocus Labour on affecting the economic policy of the government and on things that matter to their traditional voters; appointing Bacik to Cabinet, on the other hand, would nullify that and would end up being presented as a doubling down on the social liberal agenda.

[ObserverIE]

Cabinet reshuffle originally expected on Wednesday, then on Thursday, then on Friday at midday, finally announced at 1.45, presumably after hissy fits in the background.

Charlie Flanagan (FG - Laois-Offaly), promoted from the backbenches to Children in the post-Shatter emergency reshuffle, promoted again to Foreign Affairs to replace Éamon Gilmore.
The accident-prone James Reilly (FG - Dublin North) downgraded to Chief Child Catcher Minister for Children.
The ambitious Leo Varadkar (FG - Dublin West) moved from Transport into the minefields of the Department of Health.
Mini-minister Paschal Donohoe (FG - Dublin Central) moved into Transport.
Jan O'Sullivan (Lab - Limerick City) promoted from Junior Minster for Housing into Education to replace Ruairí Quinn.
Newly-elected deputy leader Alan Kelly (Lab - Tipperary North) handed Environment and Local Government, along with the headaches of property taxes and water charges, in place of Phil Hogan, sent to delight Brussels with his peculiar charm.
Unsuccessful leadership candidate Alex White (Lab - Dublin South) given Communications and Natural Resources in place of Pat Rabbitte; isn't that the sort of thing that you do in a reshuffle?
Heather Humphreys (FG - Cavan-Monaghan) provides the one major surprise of the reshuffle by being appointed to Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht in place of Jimmy Deenihan.

Number of women in cabinet increases from 2 to 4. Dublin/non-Dublin balance shifts from 8/7 to 7/8 with the Labour contingent now being the less Dublin-centred of the two parties.

[ObserverIE]

Junior Ministers announced:

There were already five vacancies due to the election of Obnoxious Tory SquitBrian Hayes (FG) to the European Parliament and the promotion of Paschal Donohoe (FG), Alan Kelly (Lab), Jan O'Sullivan (Lab) and Alex White (Lab) to cabinet.

Other departures were:

Fergus O'Dowd (FG - Louth) - lugubrious ex-Labour councillor.
Ciarán Cannon (FG - Galway East) - a man whose only distinction was being the final leader-by-default of the PDs until he defected from his own party to FG.
John Perry (FG - Sligo-Leitrim) - Minister for Small Business who mainly attracted attention for the financial troubles of his own business and his attempts to pull rank with the banks in his dealings re same.
Dinny McGinley (FG - Donegal South West) - FG's elderly token native Irish speaker.
Joe Costello (Lab - Dublin Central) - another blow to the family finances following Mrs Costello's failure to hold on to her co-opted European Parliament seat in May (that's her on the far left of The Vision of Saint Joan below). A dig-out from one of the two sisters-in-law (the appointed Senator and the appointed judge) may be necessary to plug the hole.



New arrivals are:

Ged Nash (Lab - Louth) - balding Blairite trade union official appointed Minister for Jobs with a non-voting seat at cabinet.
Jimmy Deenihan (FG - Kerry North) - nondescript Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht kicked downstairs to a junior ministry dealing with emigrants.
Simon Harris (FG - Wicklow) - goody-goody 25-year-old who gets rewarded for a sacrificial lamb run for the European Parliament by being appointed Junior Minister in Finance.
Dara Murphy (FG - Cork North Central) - largely anonymous TD who's willing to put in the rounds on television and radio panel discussions and is appointed Minister for Europe for his troubles.
Damien English (FG - Meath West) - eager-beaver but largely incomprehensible youngish backbencher, again willing to appear on panel discussions.
Paudie Coffey (FG - Waterford) - see description of Murphy, English, etc. but more easily understood.
Joe McHugh (FG - Donegal North East) - as above.
Ann Phelan (Lab - Carlow-Kilkenny) - one of the few Labour TDs likely to hold their seat based on the local election results, appointed to a new position in charge of rural affairs.
Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Lab - Dublin North Central) - given a brief for equality within the Department of Justice as a nod to Labour's culture-warrior wing. Toned-down male version of Ivana who could still manage to inflict friendly fire on next year's SSM referendum if not careful.
Kevin Humphreys (Lab - Dublin South East) - represents the working-class end of Labour's safest (and the state's wealthiest) constituency. May put a spanner in Ivana's plans to replace Ruairí Quinn at the next election.

The two Stickies in the junior ranks (Seán Sherlock and Kathleen Lynch) were left alone in the reshuffle. Main discussion points in the aftermath are the failure of Kenny to appoint any women to the junior FG team and the appointment of McHugh as minister in charge of Irish language affairs despite not being a competent speaker of the language.

[ObserverIE]

Millward Brown/IMS poll for tomorrow's Sindo. Change figures quoted here don't match any previous IMS poll I've seen:

FG 25
SF 24
Ind/Oth 23
FF 20
Lab 7
GP 1

Burton Bounce not noticeably sweeping all before it.

[ObserverIE]

Behaviour and Attitudes for the Sunday Times shows some evidence of a Burton Bounce, but only once the figures have been adjusted for past stated voting intention and likelihood of turnout:

FG 24 (-2)
Ind/Oth 22 (-2)
SF 19 (-2)
FF 18 (-1)
Lab 14 (+7)
Green 2 (-)

Unadjusted figures, by comparison, are:

SF 27 (+7)
FG 22 (-5)
Ind/Oth 21 (-1)
FF 18 (-4)
Lab 9 (+2)
Green 2 (-)

[ObserverIE]

Former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds has died. Aged 81.

RIP. Long-term local TD and decent individual who worked to ensure that a generation of people in Northern Ireland and in the Republic have never experienced the numbing awfulness that characterised the 70s, 80s and early 90s.

[ObserverIE]

RedC for the Sunday Business Post:

FG 28 (+3)
SF 23 (+1)
Ind/Oth 21 (-5)
FF 18 (-)
Lab 8 (+1)
GP 2 (-)

Burton Bounce not evident. Uptick in FG support following a concentrated bout of doubleplusgood happytalk over the last few months from our totally independent media (prop. D. O'Brien). I still suspect that RedC are systematically overstating FG and understating FF through a mixture of Shy Tory Syndrome and overcooking their adjustments.