Irish general election, 26th Feb 2016

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Could they just alter water charges progressively so rich people more, or, err, link the fee to water usage rather than being flat?

[patrick1]

Could they just alter water charges progressively so rich people more, or, err, link the fee to water usage rather than being flat?

Because this is Fine Gael

[DC Al Fine]

Could they just alter water charges progressively so rich people more, or, err, link the fee to water usage rather than being flat?

Because this is Fine Gael

Wait, people don't pay their utilities based on usage in Ireland? Isn't that a massive moral hazard?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Could they just alter water charges progressively so rich people more, or, err, link the fee to water usage rather than being flat?

Because this is Fine Gael

Wait, people don't pay their utilities based on usage in Ireland? Isn't that a massive moral hazard?

Nope and yes.

Actually we didn't use to pay for our utilities at all and the water protesters want to return to that, without a plan of how to fix the water distribution system.

But this is Ireland - one of the biggest effects of making people pay for refuse has been a massive spike in illegal dumping, amid our romanticized green fields you can regularly find the sight and smell of other people's garbage.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Who do you think will have a government first? Spain or Ireland? I have no idea at this point.

[ObserverIE]

Five TDs lost their deposits (or more exactly, failed to clear a quarter of the quota in their constituencies):

Seán Conlan (FG -> Ind, Cavan-Monaghan)
Ciara Conway (Lab, Waterford)
Ciarán Lynch (Lab, Cork South Central)
Peter Mathews (FG -> Ind, Dublin Rathdown)
Éamonn Moloney (Lab -> Ind, Dublin South West)

[DavidB.]

Who do you think will have a government first? Spain or Ireland? I have no idea at this point.

Ireland, probably.

[Zinneke]

Who do you think will have a government first? Spain or Ireland? I have no idea at this point.

Ireland are used to coalitions now.

[RodPresident]

Who do you think will have a government first? Spain or Ireland? I have no idea at this point.

Ireland... FF+SF have many roads to win...

[DC Al Fine]

Some more random questions:

1) What does an FF/FG swing voter look like?
2) What voters is Sinn Fein appealing to exactly? How do their demographics look compared to Labour/Misc. Left wing parties?
3) Is FG & Labour's propensity to form coalitions almost entirely based around the fact that they are not FF?

[ObserverIE]

Some more random questions:

1) What does an FF/FG swing voter look like?
2) What voters is Sinn Fein appealing to exactly? How do their demographics look compared to Labour/Misc. Left wing parties?
3) Is FG & Labour's propensity to form coalitions almost entirely based around the fact that they are not FF?

1) Nondescript. Middle-middle class, middle-of-the-road or slightly right-of-centre ideologically.
2) Disenchanted. Former FF and Labour voters, working or lower-middle class, primarily urban rather than rural. Labour at this stage are more middle-class urban secular professionals than working-class, but ironically they are largely dependent on rural working-class votes in order to still exist. The Alphabet Left's voters are probably more strongly semi-skilled or unskilled working-class than SF's (and entirely urban) but their support base is more localised where the Trots have put in the groundwork at local level.
3) Originally yes (FF didn't do coalitions until 1989), but as Labour have shed working-class votes and become more middle-class (certainly in terms of their activist cadre) then it's become a more natural marriage.

[DC Al Fine]

Thanks much appreciated.

[Хahar 🤔]

My understanding is that the Labour demographics in this election resembled the electorates of fellow small liberal parties in other European countries.

[ObserverIE]

Box tallies for Longford-Westmeath in the 2016 elections:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tBKVpx-vlHEV4Ikd50sdnlRDtUECn4yHsgrb_9zgJgg/edit?usp=sharing

2011 for comparison:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IPftxHNgGjCyYI5wTeFgvUWHwD6J2WGHpEzFXkSf2SI/edit?usp=sharing

[ObserverIE]

Seemingly unfazed by having massively overpolled FG and underpolled FF (even compared to other pollsters) all through the election campaign, RedC are back with another poll for the Sunday Business Post. I'm giving the figures, along with the change from the last poll of theirs before the election:

FG 27 (-3)
FF 25 (+5)
SF 15 (-)
Ind/Oth 15 (-1)
SD 5 (+1)
Lab 4 (-3)
SP/SWP 4 (+1)
GP 3 (-)
Renua 2 (-)

[Tetro Kornbluth]

My understanding is that the Labour demographics in this election resembled the electorates of fellow small liberal parties in other European countries.

Actually in this election the liberals - Jan O'Sullivan apart - who got wiped out. It's its more small town base around long Labour traditions or personal voting where it survived (Penrose in L-W, Sherlock in Cork East, Wexford, Nenagh...)

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Seemingly unfazed by having massively overpolled FG and underpolled FF (even compared to other pollsters) all through the election campaign, RedC are back with another poll for the Sunday Business Post. I'm giving the figures, along with the change from the last poll of theirs before the election:

FG 27 (-3)
FF 25 (+5)
SF 15 (-)
Ind/Oth 15 (-1)
SD 5 (+1)
Lab 4 (-3)
SP/SWP 4 (+1)
GP 3 (-)
Renua 2 (-)

Any idea whether they changed their methodology?

[ObserverIE]

Seemingly unfazed by having massively overpolled FG and underpolled FF (even compared to other pollsters) all through the election campaign, RedC are back with another poll for the Sunday Business Post. I'm giving the figures, along with the change from the last poll of theirs before the election:

FG 27 (-3)
FF 25 (+5)
SF 15 (-)
Ind/Oth 15 (-1)
SD 5 (+1)
Lab 4 (-3)
SP/SWP 4 (+1)
GP 3 (-)
Renua 2 (-)

Any idea whether they changed their methodology?

Their argument seems to be that they're now adjusting to the 2016 election levels and therefore the problem solves itself. So there.

[ObserverIE]

My understanding is that the Labour demographics in this election resembled the electorates of fellow small liberal parties in other European countries.

Actually in this election the liberals - Jan O'Sullivan apart - who got wiped out. It's its more small town base around long Labour traditions or personal voting where it survived (Penrose in L-W, Sherlock in Cork East, Wexford, Nenagh...)

When I was inputting the tallies for the spreadsheet yesterday, the remarkable thing was that Penrose managed to survive the implosion of his base (outpolled two-to-one by Troy of FF in his home village of Ballynacarrigy, a polling district like Mullingar East Urban 2 - covering the working-class estates on the Delvin Road - going from 58% Labour to 15%). It was that he did slightly less badly in the small villages around Mullingar that saved him (and even then, on the morning of the count, after tallying a box in Rochfortbridge where his vote had gone from 157 to 55, I texted a friend to say that he was gone). Having said that, I can't see him surviving another election and much the same could be said about a couple of the others.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Cross Post with AAD

The Excellent Tallyrific Maps has published some tallies on its website and FB page (although some are only accessible via a paywall    ) Anyway here are some highlights:

Poll Topper in Dublin Bay South


(Note: Andrews(SF), Humphries (LAB) O'Connor and Murphy (FG) and Ryan (Greens). Ryan, O'Connor, Murphy and Jim O'Callaghan (FF) were elected, the latter without leading in any electoral division despite being the third highest in the poll. This is obviously a class map with SF leading in the inner city sections of the constituency where voters are more likely to live in social housing (also a large number of young renters but they are less likely to vote or vote somewhere else). The inner suburbs of Ranelagh, Rathmines, and Ballsbridge were all led by the two Fine Gael candidates with seemingly excellent vote management. This is mostly a wealthy area. While Ranelagh has gentrified massively over the past 20-25 years (and has had a major influx of hipster, thus the Green vote), the areas by the coast where Eoin Murphy led have been among the wealthiest parts of the city (and thus Ireland) since the 19th Century. Tallyrific Maps notes:

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(No, I'm not sure how they define this).

Poll-toppers in Dublin Central


That's Burke (IND), Costello (LAB), McDonald (SF), Donohue (FG)... McDonald and Donohue were elected along with Maureen O'Sullivan (IND) who actually finished seventh on the first count but leapfrogged over everyone on the transfers. Basically a lot of what I said on Dublin Bay South applies here, the location of the Burke vote suggests to me that's where he lives or is from. Burke being a very old-fashioned sort of Irish left-wing working-class republican right down to his campaign slogan "One of our own" and his former membership of the IRA. Interesting that in both Bay South and here that Labour led in one electoral division, which suggests that what was left of the Labour was rather personal and geographical indeed (as you may have noticed from the Bay South map even in Dublin city geographical location can matter a lot).

And finally for now Kildare North



Durkan and Lawlor (FG), Lawless and O'Rourke (FF), Murphy (SD) and Stagg (LAB). Murphy, Durkan, Lawless and O'Rourke elected. There's a lot that could be said about this map but it seems to indicate that the Social Democrats did best in the more upmarket towns-now-turned-commuter-suburbs including Maynooth, which has a university in it (whose alumni include yours truly) and Leixlip, home of one of Ireland's biggest white-collar industrial employers, Intel. Meanwhile Fianna Fail did best in the more purpose built suburbs which grew massively from the 1980s onwards like Naas and Celbridge. While the rural areas of the constituency were divided between FF and FG. Although it is difficult to tell in detail without percentages.

[ObserverIE]

Cross Post with AAD

Poll Topper in Dublin Bay South

Online box-by-box tally here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MGha6XTIXwbFHk5sJ1NQd6qNC56hkmvzpWyy-49PEFE/htmlview?pli=1#gid=1660253863

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Bobos - I don't think hipsters could afford Ranelagh these days. Rathmines and the adjacent area across the canal around Portobello/South Circular Road are more manageable.

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(No, I'm not sure how they define this).
[/quote]

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Cross Post with AAD

Poll Topper in Dublin Bay South

Online box-by-box tally here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MGha6XTIXwbFHk5sJ1NQd6qNC56hkmvzpWyy-49PEFE/htmlview?pli=1#gid=1660253863

Thanks for that. Going through those results now, may produce maps later, anyway I wonder who was voting in Box 315 in Mansion House A, the results were:

Andrews (SF) 210 (54.7%)
Mooney (PBP) 36 (9.4%)
Humphries (LAB) 28 (7.3%)
O'Callaghan (FF) 24 (6.25%)
Flynn (IND) 22 (5.7%)

With Fine Gael's two candidates all together getting 11 votes, only one more vote than was spoiled.

[ObserverIE]

Cross Post with AAD

Poll Topper in Dublin Bay South

Online box-by-box tally here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MGha6XTIXwbFHk5sJ1NQd6qNC56hkmvzpWyy-49PEFE/htmlview?pli=1#gid=1660253863

Thanks for that. Going through those results now, may produce maps later, anyway I wonder who was voting in Box 315 in Mansion House A, the results were:

Andrews (SF) 210 (54.7%)
Mooney (PBP) 36 (9.4%)
Humphries (LAB) 28 (7.3%)
O'Callaghan (FF) 24 (6.25%)
Flynn (IND) 22 (5.7%)

With Fine Gael's two candidates all together getting 11 votes, only one more vote than was spoiled.

At a wild guess, it probably covers some of the Corporation housing blocks on Pearse Street.

List of streets in each polling district at http://www.dublincity.ie/sites/default/files/content/YourCouncil/CouncilPublications/Documents/Polling%20Scheme%202009%20final.pdf. It's from 2009 but there won't have been many new addresses generated since then,

[DavidB.]

My understanding is that the Labour demographics in this election resembled the electorates of fellow small liberal parties in other European countries.

Actually in this election the liberals - Jan O'Sullivan apart - who got wiped out. It's its more small town base around long Labour traditions or personal voting where it survived (Penrose in L-W, Sherlock in Cork East, Wexford, Nenagh...)

I think Xahar was talking about Labour's electorate, not about its MPs.

[Famous Mortimer]

So I take it final numbers are finally out now? What are they?

Also, can someone give a run down of who all the independents are?