Irish general election, 26th Feb 2016

[Tetro Kornbluth]

the new Social Democrats, a centre-left split of dissident Ex-labour TD's.

Does this 3 (wo)man band have any potential?

EDIT: I can see they advocate "the Nordic model". Is that sellable in Ireland? (

The Nordic Model has long been held up as something to aspire to in the more liberal parts of the Irish media and establishment (The Irish Times and elements of the Labour Party in particular). However the Nordic Model requires not just nationalized service free at use but also higher taxes and in particular here, indirect taxes and if there is one thing we have learnt in the last year is that Irish working class really don't like indirect taxes. Water charges in particular have become the issue in the Irish political landscape at the moment and the whole left - including the Soc Dems - wants to abolish them. It would be difficult to see how they could square both ambitions and how they would approach it. In short I expect them to run more on a platform of being the respectable left (i.e. not the shinners or the hard left) with some nods towards political reform.

On that note, I will also that one of the major blocking points towards any Nordic model would be the intense localism of Irish politics and the patronage system which the electoral system and the attitude of the electorate encourage. Welfare spending would have to be more rationalized. Nods in that direction are quite common these days but nobody really knows what to do about it, but expect the Soc Dems to run on this and transparency issues. As for their prospects, I would wait until they get to run along with the triumvirate but, while I would expect two of their three incumbents to hold on easily (Murphy and Donnelly... Shortall has a struggle probably), I wouldn't be that optimistic.

Oh I know the greens haven't polled well at all, I meant the minor parties as a collective. (I think the Greens could grab a seat or two - Ryan almost got into the European Parliament last year)

Ryan is running in Dublin Bay South (i.e. Dublin South East) and he has a good chance, I think, but it will be a squeeze with FG and Renua seemingly certain to make it leaving two others, one of which I would still back Labour to hold (if Labour don't hold a seat here they might not win any anywhere). However this was always one of FF's weakest seats even before 2011 and it's not good territory for Sinn Fein either, so it is certainly possible. As for any other seats, I would be skeptical quite frankly (the boundary changes really don't suit them), perhaps with the right candidate they could win a seat in Dublin Fingal but who is that candidate? and even then it wouldn't be certain. Here, however, I would like to remind you that it's a waste of time predicting Irish elections until you know who all the candidates are, and I really mean ALL.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Is there any particular reason as to why Fianna Fáil are polling a little bit better (and ahead of Sinn Fein) than they were a few months ago?

I think Sinn Feinn lost a little bit of its support after the furor over the water charges died down. They were riding high before then. Some of their support probably shifted back to FF, who was only half heartedly opposing the water charges.

Actually both Sinn Fein's and Fianna Fail's support is fairly stable and most of the movement within the margin of error. Ditto with Labour. It is Fine Gael and the Others who are seeing the most movement.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

In their infinite wisdom, Fianna Fáil are adding Sean Haughey back into the Dublin Bay North mix; in what looks like an explosive mixture of egos,nincluding (so far) Haughey, the FF councillor he was beaten by, tobacco loving commie Finian McGrath, jilted Fianna Fáil senator Averil Power, a sitting Labour Minister of State, ex-Labour TD Tommy Broughan, a former Fine Garl Lord Mayor of Dublin, Richard Bruton the FG minister who attempted to oust Enda Kenny in 2010 and a Renua TD. How do you fit all that lot in a five-seater?

You forgot Sinn Fein who should really win a seat here (if they don't, they've had a really bad election). Apart from SF, Bruton is the only other near certainty to win so who will get the other three will certainly be interesting

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Great to have you back Jas

However, I will say so far from your predictions I think you might be a bit optimistic for FF and a bit too pessimistic for FG. Fianna Fail are polling little better than in 2011 once the MoE is taken into account and their by-election record was atrocious. Even their supposed HISTORIC COMEBACK(tm) during the locals is imho exaggerated by the lack of non-FF/FG candidates in many rural counties and a stronger focus on local issues than they will be in the GE (plus a greater incumbency factor than there will be this time around). Fine Gael on the other hand have the advantage of the stability card and being the only possible government party after all is said and done and I would not underestimate that fact.

I'll do my predictions later when the date is announced and when the deadline for candidates to come forward has passed. At this point I will go for approximate figures: FG ~70 FF ~23 SF ~22 LAB ~8 IND/OTH ~35.

Also Jas, what do you think of John Wilson's chances on your turf? He strikes me as the sort of candidate who will (most likely) pick up a thousand or so votes and disappear in the middle counts or (far less likely) top the poll and get well over a quota on the first count.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Gully's Predictions for those seats (too lazy to go into detail):

Carlow-Kilkenny 3FG 1FF 1SF
Cavan-Monaghan 2FG 1FF 1SF
Clare 2FG 1FF 1IND
Cork East 2FG 1LAB 1SF
Cork North Central 1FG 1FF 1SF 1AAA
Cork North West 2FG 1IND
Cork South Central 2FG 1FF 1SF
Cork South West 2FG 1IND

EDIT now that you mention it:
Donegal 1FG 1FF 2SF 1IND

[Tetro Kornbluth]

But I will go into detail about my own constituency, Jas is of course still permitted to write on it later meanwhile I will steal his format :

Dublin Rathdown

Candidates
Fine Gael   Alan Shatter TD, Cllr. Josepha Madigan
Labour   Alex White TD
Fianna Fáil   Sen. Mary White
Sinn Féin   Cllr. Sorcha Nic Cormaic
AAA-PBP   -
Renua   -
SocDems   -
Green   Cllr. Catherine Martin
Indepenent Alliance     Shane Ross TD
Indepenents    Peter Matthews TD

Dublin Rathdown is a new constituency formed mostly from the old Dublin South. In Dublin one of the aims of the Constituency Commission when redrawing the map as to adjust to a 158 seat Dail was to make the constituencies correspond better to the boundaries of county councils. This is a somewhat odd decision as nobody considers themselves a 'Dun Laoghaire-Rathdownite' or a 'Fingallian'. Even more ridiculous is South Dublin county council as most of the area that is popularly referred to as 'South Dublin' is actually not in the county council area at all but rather in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown. Either way as the commission created four county agglomerations like the new Sligo-Leitrim(-South Donegal-East Cavan) constituencies in Dublin old constituency boundaries crossing county council boundaries were eliminated. In the case of the old Dublin South this meant the loss of the Rathfarnham Ward (which is in County South Dublin) with its more than 30,000 electorate to Dublin South West. While to balance the Dun Laoghaire constituency and make sure it had enough voters for 4 seats parts of Foxrock and Cabinteely in the east of the constituency were moved over to its neighbour. What remained of Dublin South was then for some reason renamed 'Dublin Rathdown' and reduced from 5 seats to 3.

This new constituency consists precisely of three wards of Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown county council: Dundrum, Stillorgan, and Glencullen-Sandyford (the other three wards of DLR: Blackrock, Dun Laoghaire, and Killiney-Shankill are what the Dun Laoghaire constituency consists of) showing the constituency commission's commitment to a nice correspondence between electoral wards and constituency boundaries, something they weren't so keen on elsewhere. In the 2014 local elections the three wards of Dublin Rathdown elected all together 5 Fine Gael councillors, 4 each for Fianna Fail, Labour, and Independents, 2 Sinn Feiners, and 1 Green. This was in comparison to the rest of the country a good result for Labour and in Glencullen-Sandyford (i.e. my ward) they found one of their two wards in the country where one of the candidates topped the poll. This however should give Labour despair rather than hope as this is one of the most middle class and suburban regions of the country with a history of great weakness for the left in elections, while also consistency voting for the more 'liberal' and pro-European side in referendums. Only twice in the history of Dublin South did its voters elect a Labour TD, in the party's banner years of 1992 and 2011. However, the Greens won their first seat ever here in 1989. It was also long strong constituency for the PDs, with a PD TD consistently from 1987 to 2007 except 1989-1992. Otherwise the other four seats usually went to Fine Gael and Fianna Fail equally although FG held the advantage in the Fitzgerald-Haughey era and Fianna Fail likewise in the Bertie era.

With this in mind it is noticeable therefore how very few candidates are running in this constituency, only eight in total, one of the lowest in the country (though not quite the lowest, only six are running in Laois!). Neither the Social Democrats nor Renua have put anyone forward for this constituency, even though both would have good prospects here relatively speaking. Meanwhile the People Before Profit Alliance did put forward Nicola Curry as their candidate here but she has since withdrew and the PBP have not nominated anyone else as a replacement.  Meanwhile there are only two independents running, both of whom - unusually - are incumbents. While the other six candidates are all also sitting politicians. There are overall 4 incumbent TDs, a senator, and three councillors fighting for these three seats. The other incumbent TD, Olivia Mitchell (FG), has retired.

Among analysts there is little doubt as to eventual location of two of the three available seats. While the final third one is seen as very much up in the air. I would share this analysis but with one caveat. There is little doubt that Shane Ross of the Independents Alliance is to be re-elected. In 2011 he nearly won 1.5 quotas as he was elected on the first count as has been since by far the most active and noticeable TD (at least in my neck of the woods). Despite the reputation that Dublin's Southside politics is somewhat 'different' to the rest of the country Ross has gained prominence doing the things all independent TDs do to get re-elected. That is to say, focus obsessively on local issues and campaigning for local interests. He has been particularly vocal on the closure of local police stations and amenities and is regularly found talking to locals about how to tackle crime which is apparently 'out of control' (when's it not?).

Unusually for such an independent TD though Ross has a national profile as a former stockbroker and business journalist, he is a commentator on banking issues and is perceived as keen as cutting down on what he sees as 'excessive' and 'wasteful' public spending by 'irresponsible' by public servants and unions (you know what that means). He is against flouridation of the water supply. Unusually for someone in the public domain in Ireland, he has a very strong Anglo-Irish accent. Recently he has come to notice for being the public face of the 'Independents Alliance' grouping a set of independents with no platform or goals other than getting Shane Ross into the cabinet who are running together to form a group in the Dail to promote 'independents' issues. Given that this grouping stretches from Ross to ex-Green TD Paul " you, Deputy Stagg" Gogarty to ex-Tankie and TD for Waterford John Halligan among many other local 'luminaries' it really is difficult to say how well it will hold together, especially if they, as is clearly an aim of Ross, make it into government.

The second seat will certainly go to Fine Gael. In 2011 in Dublin South they won 36% of the vote (i.e. in a three-seat constituency that's about 1.4 quotas) and were the largest party in 2014 locals in the three wards, which were fought under much more unfavourable circumstances for the government. Fine Gael are running two candidates, incumbent Alan Shatter, former Minister of Justice and TD since 1981 (except 2002-2007) and Stillorgan Councillor Josepha Madigan. Curiously both candidates afaik share the same background, lawyers who specialize in family law, which should probably tell you something about the local Fine Gael organization. It is widely assumed that Shatter will take this seat but while I think that is likely I would not be too sure of it. For a start, Shatter has lost out of his original voting base with the loss of the Rathfarnham ward to Dublin SW. Secondly, Shatter has never had much of personal vote with him usually trailing behind the now retired Olivia Mitchell at count time. A lot of that Mitchell vote (who did have a substantial personal vote) is now up for grabs and while it certainly would be strongly FG leaning obviously it doesn't follow it will fall into Alan Shatter's lap. It should here be noted that Alan Shatter only just won the FG nomination for the seat (there were gender quotas in force so there was to be one male and one female candidate, Shatter came up against a popular local councillor and only just won). Otoh, Councillor Madigan is a newbie on national issues and campaigning although in the Stillorgan region she has a much more solid base in the constituency. Fine Gael are pushing her presence hard (her posters are everywhere around here already) and her chances should not therefore be minimized.

The third seat is a bit more up in the air and many predictions, mostly bad ones, about what is seen as a very competitive race. For a start we can exclude any possibility of Sinn Fein or the Greens taking it. The Greens did hold a seat in Dublin South between 2002 and 2011 under the personage of Eamonn Ryan, now the leader of the Greens. But he has moved off to the greener(geddit?) more hopeful pastures of Dublin Bay South leaving their Deputy Leader and Dundrum councillor Catherine Martin to contest here instead. She is a good campaigner and charismatic but the Greens are still very much recovering from their 2011 wipeout and their experience of government with Fianna Fail and while they may make some impact they are basically out of the running in a seat where the quota will be so high and are unlikely to gain much from transfers. As for Sinn Fein, this is perhaps the seat least friendly to them in the whole country. In the 2011 Presidential election, Martin McGuinness recorded only 6.5% of the vote in Dublin South, his lowest in the country. I mention that as that map of McGuinness support is a good proxy for national Sinn Fein support (with a couple of caveats). Sinn Fein only elected their first councillors to Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown county council in 2014 and even still, unusually, trail Labour in number of councillors despite Labour's national whitewash at the last locals. I know little about their candidate, Dundrum Councillor Sorcha Nic Cormaic but the party has a lot of work to do to make any sort of impression here at the election. Most of their gains up to till have been in rough and depressed (and declining) working class areas and there is really little of those in this constituency. If Sinn Fein win the third seat here then they will have won about 60 nationally, and that isn't happening.


(cont)

[Tetro Kornbluth]

(cont)

That leaves the final seat between four possibilities: 1) Peter Matthews (IND), 2) Alex White (LAB), 3) Mary White (FF) and 4) Fine Gael winning two seats. I'll discuss these in turn. Peter Matthews was elected in 2011 for Fine Gael with the third first preference total in the entire count just behind Mitchell and Ross but was elected on the eighth and final count just under quota. However, in 2013 he was one of a bunch of TD who left Fine Gael over the abortion issue. He then, as was typical for that group, joined the Reform Alliance group of TD whose figurehead was Lucinda Creighton. However, he did not decide to sign up when the Reform Alliance transformed itself to Renua preferring to stick it out as an independent. Matthews is a former chartered accountant and commentator on business issues. He is also a strong Catholic as his position on abortion indicates but, unusually for that group, has shown sympathy to Catholic 'social justice' type rhetoric in the past and that might be possibly why he didn't join with Renua, a very openly neo-liberal project. Matthews is Dundrum based and is essentially fishing from the same pool of voters as Fine Gael and has the troublesome posters to show it. Compared to Shane Ross though he is fairly silent and at least in my neck of the woods, not very locally active. The prognosis on his chances is not positive and I would share this view, he's competing already with Shane Ross for the FG/conservative inclined independent vote and with Fine Gael with the 'party vote' and the 'government vote' and it is difficult to see what he particularly brings to the table. However, as 2011 proved, he does have some personal vote but he will need to improve upon it massively to be re-elected.

Second prospect is Labour's Alex White. I have already noted that Labour's position here is better than it is in many other constituencies however, as I also pointed out, Labour had a poor record in the old Dublin South and only won a seat in exceptionally good years for Labour. And while we can currently doubt many of the outcomes of the 2016 election, we can't doubt that 2016 is not going to be a good year for Labour. This is compounded by the fact that White had a Rathfarnham base, which is now outside the constituency. Because of this it was thought that White might move to Dublin South West to compete there but instead decided to stay put and move his constituency office not his seat from Rathfarnham to Dundrum. Alex White is from the more 'Social Justice' inclined element in the party and his biography plays to that stereotype: An ex-student Trot and leading Student Unionist who was later active in the trade unions while working for RTE (state broadcaster). When Eamonn Gilmore resigned the Labour leadership following the 2014 local election disaster he put himself forward as a potential replacement but offered nothing but 'continuity Gilmore-ism' (although he was never a stickie) and was defeated heavily by Joan Burton, a more 'Old Labour' sort of candidate. Since July, he has been minister of Communications, Energy, and Natural Resources but has a pretty middling profile. However even in 2011 he showed little sign of a personal vote with Labour recording only 17% between two candidates at the election, one of their worst results in Dublin (although nearly everywhere they would settle for that this election). He, like all other Labour candidates, will be short of transfers and so would probably need at least equal if not improve on that 17% to have a chance given that the quota is now 25%+1. I would say that given the circumstances of 2016 is rather unlikely. I suspect that unlike some Labour incumbents he won't be humiliated but his prospects of re-election are pretty poor none the same.

Third on this list is the Fianna Fail candidate and another White, Mary White. In 2011 Fianna Fail what was iirc their second worst result in the entire country when Maria Corrigan, who was also a sitting senator, got only 9.6% of first preferences. Therefore they have a lot to build upon to win again when the quota is going to be 25%+1. White is a former businesswoman, founder of a Chocolate production company, who has been a senator since the 2002 election. As her posters keep reminding us she is the only Fianna Fail representative in the whole Oireachtas on the Southside of Dublin, a technical non-truth as senators don't represent geography constituencies but advertising herself as 'Senator on the Industrial and Commercial panel' is not quite as attractive to local voters. White, while somewhat unknown nationally or even locally, has a big reputation within Fianna Fail and that reputation won her the party nomination for this constituency over some long standing and 'respected' councillors. She has been around a while and at 71 is considerably the oldest in the race (which isn't exactly full of young uns'). Notably she put herself forward for Fianna Fail's 2011 presidential election nomination hoping to make it a hattrick of Mary's who reached the presidency before Fianna Fail decided one national humiliation was enough for one year and decided not to run anyone at all in that race. White is being tipped by many to win the third seat and certainly Fianna Fail are pushing hard here with endless PUBLIC MEETING posters with her face on it to get around the law against putting up posters before the election is called. However I am skeptical and the reason I'm skeptical is simply maths. Fianna Fail are polling nationally only a bit better than they did in 2011 when they won 17% of the national first preference vote. In that election they had an appalling result in Dublin South winning no seats in a five seater (and Maria Corrigan was not by any means a terrible candidate). It is generally agreed that they will do worse in Dublin than in the rest of the country. Furthermore the party is still transfer toxic - as the by-elections proved - and is unlikely to pick up much beyond their First Preference Vote, which probably means White will need ~18-19% of the FPV to get elected. Unless she proves herself a phenomenal campaigner in the next month or Fianna Fail's polling position improves considerably I think that is unlikely. She has a chance but not I think a strong one

So that leaves the final option on my list and who I think will win the final seat, Fine Gael's second candidate whether Madigan or Shatter. Fine Gael have a couple of advantages here, demographically this is a good seat for them and is one of those where the recovery is better felt than in others. Furthermore, they will benefit from transfers from Labour, Matthews, and Shane Ross' surplus (as happened in 2011) unlike their rival candidates who will struggle for preferences. All of their rivals have obvious problems and limitations so for now I think this should be taken as the most likely option. As long as they run slightly under the 36% they got last time and are able to balance out their vote between both candidates (and FG's vote management skills are good) then they should be able to overtake Mary White in the final counts. So that's my prediction: 2FG 1IND and I hoped you enjoyed it because this has taken three hours to write .

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The Irish Postmasters' Union has decided to withdraw its four candidates

In the words of so many analysts here over the years, this changes everything.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The battle for my last preference has been BLOWN WIDE OPEN by the decision at the last minute for RENUA to run a candidate in my constituency. His name is Alan Daveron and is apparently "a solicitor [who] has represented a number of clients in mortgage arrears". The competition between him, the SF candidate, and Mary White is going to be intense.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

45 FG (Madigan)
37 Green
37 SF (lol)
35 Lab
34 Peter Matthews
29 FF
29 FG (Shatter)
4 Ross

Don't have the Renua candidate yet but I'm sure he would be close to Ross.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Speaking of my constituency incumbent independent TD (and candidate in this election) Peter Matthews has been diagnosed with cancer. He still intends to contest.

I wish him all the best in his recovery.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Fun test - did a few different Dublin constituencies and got the Green candidate on top each time. But I've got some questions.
What is the deal with Irish Water? '
What's NAMA and JobBridge?
That hospital question. Is that about private hospitals or am I just being ignorant about the Irish healthcare system?
And that water metering deal. Is that based on the, for a Scandinavian, totally bizarre left-wing resistance against water feeds?

Irish Water is a recently established (by the incumbent government) state-run company that is in charge of the water supplies throughout the entire country. Historically the management of water has left to the county councils, a situation which has regularly led to problems with the supplies, but has meant that water was and has been free at the point of use (i.e. for the overwhelming majority of consumers). As part of the government's financial restructuring following the 2010 'bailout' by the International Monetary Fund, charges on the use of water have been introduced and it is Irish Water that will collect them which according to themselves which allow them to modernize the water supply and end many of the issues surrounding it as well as raising money for the state. However, the company has been dogged with problems, senior management have all come from the traditional Irish semi-state pseudo-entrepreneurial management class with expectations of high very salaries and bonuses at taxpayers' expenses. The idea of charging for water is extremely controversial and has bought one of the biggest public resistance campaigns in Irish history with, at present, only half paying. This shortfall in funds has required it to get more and more state subsidies to stay afloat. Finally there are constant rumours often only half-heartily denied that the long-term objective of the government towards Irish Water is to privatize it and end the public provision of water supplies with all that that would entail.

Wrt water metering. Before the introduction of Irish Water there was nothing in place to monitor the level of water usage by the public. In order for this to rectified and thus relate water charges to water usage Irish Water has gone around Ireland trying to install water meters outside people's homes. It is here where a lot of the resistance to Water Charges has taken place with residents regularly blocking roads and preventing the installation of meters. This has sometimes gone as far as threats and harassment of those installing the meters.

NAMA stands for National Asset Management Agency. It was a body set up under the Previous Fianna Fail led administration to administer the assets from the 'bad loans' that had been created during the property bubble of the previous decade. In short as the government nationalized the banks (which it would eventually do for all Irish banks) it would move the failing assets from these banks to NAMA which would then control the property. This has made NAMA the largest landowner in Europe(!). Now that property prices are rising again and this is absolutely not a new bubble because it's absolutely not a new bubble NAMA is starting to offload its massive portfolio. However, there are still swathes of unused and unoccupied property throughout the country which is held by NAMA and nobody is quite sure what to do with it.

Jobbridge is a social welfare scheme set up by the current government in which companies (very much including the civil service and state-run companies) can apply to the Department of Social Welfare to set up internships for the unemployed whose salaries will be paid by the Department. However, these salaries are not bound by minimum wage laws but rather at the rate of unemployment benefit + €50 a week. For someone over the age of 25 that would mean being paid €238 a week for a job which might be the standard 35-40 hours (and for someone 25 or under it would be even less). It is widely seen as exploitative of the workers involved and is widely hated on the left and the far left. Its record of giving long-term employment to either first time job seekers or long term job seekers is mixed at best and it has allowed the government to claim that unemployment is lower than it actually is. Many companies have been found trying to downgrade part of its 'main jobs' off to Jobbridge as to cut costs.

No, the hospitals question refers to all hospitals, whether public or private although in the Irish healthcare system the distinction isn't as clear cut as it is in other places.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

That's pretty out there even for a constituency poll.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

So according to constituency polls Sinn Fein are going to gain a seat in Dublin Bay South but lose Martin Ferris in Kerry. Don't mind me if I take a whole bucket of salt with these polls.

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Not all of DBS is like Ballsbridge or Ranelagh, there's also Ringsend and the South East Inner City where I suspect a lot of these Shinner votes are coming from

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Allegations of a B&A poll (apparently there was a PDF up on the website which has now disappeared):

FG 30 (+2)
FF 22 (+2)
SF 15 (-2)
Ind/Oth 15 (+1)
SP/SWP 5 (+2)
Lab 4 (-4)
SD 3 (-1)
Renua 3 (+1)
GP 3 (+1)
WP 1 (-)

Even I doubt that Labour are as low as 4%.

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The Irish Independent on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

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RedC Poll for The Sunday Business Post

FG 30 (+2)
Ind/Oth 28 (+2)
FF 18 (-)
SF 16 (-4)
Lab 8 (-)

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At this point I think the Labour TDs who'll survive will basically be random and selected on personal votes.

A few weeks ago, I was pretty confident that the government would be re-elected, or at least close to being so with perhaps the IA added to the coalition, but now I think there's no chance of that unless the polls are massively wrong (they are likely to be a bit off given independents/candidate issues but not to that extent). Alas this might make me have to revise my 'Fianna Fail are going to make a very few gains' view. But before listing prediction I'll wait for the very last polls.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

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I wouldn't be anywhere near confident for half of those listed, Wall and O'Sullivan especially. I think though what I expect is for them to be hit the worst in working class areas (as we saw in the locals) so it's completely possible imo that Humphries will be only Dublin survivor with a few popular local TDs (Kelly? Howlin? Penrose?)

Worst of all for Labour is if Alan Kelly does survive he'll probably become leader and I don't think the party and possibly not the country can survive that level of testosterone.

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I increasingly suspect that the election outside Dublin will resemble the locals more than I had anticipated (I used the European elections as my previous model) but I wouldn't rule out at all 'surprise' Sinn Fein gains in many non-Dublin constituencies, in many places they will be the default non-'big party' choice and will gain from them significantly.

However, I still don't think FF can win 39 seats with just 23% of the vote. FG, after all, won just 31 with 22% in 2002 and that was with more a favourable transfer patterns than what FF will receive this time around. I still think FF will be doing well to get more than 2 seats in Dublin and any at all on the Southside.

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Prediction Time... stealing Jas' format however here I won't distinguish between the various groups of independents because I can never remember who is in who... Compared to a few weeks ago I'm much less positive about a surprise FG sweep and a bit more optimistic about FF's chances, at least outside Dublin.

Constituency	FG	FF	SF	Lab	Other
Carlow-Kilk	2	2	1
Cavan-Mon	2	1	1
Clare	1	1	1		1 Ind (Harty)
Cork E	2	1	1
Cork NC	1	1	1		1 AAA-PBP
Cork NW	1				2 Ind (O’Shea and Flynn)
Cork SC	1	2	1
Cork SW	2	1
Donegal	1	1	2		1 Ind (Shiels)
Dub Bay N	1		1	1	2 Inds (McGrath and Broughan)
Dub Bay S	1			1	1 Renua, 1 Green
Dub Central	1		1		1 Soc Dem
Dub Fingal	1	1	1	1	1 Ind (Daly)
Dub MW	1		1	1	1 AAA-PBP
Dub NW			1		1 Soc Dem, 1 AAA-PBP
Dub Rathdown	2				1 Ind (Ross)
Dub SC	1		1		1 AAA-PBP, 1 Ind (Collins)
Dub SW	2		2		1 AAA-PBP
Dub W	1	1	1		1 AAA-PBP
Dún Laoghaire	3				1 AAA-PBP
Galway E	1	1			1 Inds (Canney)
Galway W	1	1	1		2 Inds (Grealish, Connolly)
Kerry	1	1	1		2 Inds (M. Healy-Rae, D. Healy Rae)
Kildare N	2	1			1 SocDem
Kildare S	1	1	1
Laois	1	1	1
Limerick City	2	1	1
Limerick Co	2	1
L'ford-W'Meath	2	1			1 Ind (Moran)
Louth	2	1	2
Mayo	3	1
Meath E	2	1
Meath W	1	1	1
Offaly	1	1	1
Roscommon-Gal	1				2 Inds (Naughten, Fitzmaurice)
Sligo-Leitrim	1	1	1		1 Ind (Casserley)
Tipperary	2	1		1	1 Ind (Lowry)
Waterford	1	1	1		1 Ind (Halligan)
Wexford	2	1		1	1 Ind (Wallace)
Wicklow	2	1	1		1 SocDem
TOTAL	58	31	29	6	34

Totals
58 Fine Gael
31 Fianna Fáil
29 Sinn Féin
  6 Labour
  7 AAA-PBP
  4 Social Democrats
  1 Renua
  1 Green
21  Independents

Going a few long shots here, which I'm bound to get wrong (Cork NW, Donegal, Dublin Central) but there are always a few every GE where independents and others are a major force. Oh, and Jas you seem to have forgotten that Louth has five seats, not four.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

One thing should be noted. In the last locals there are quite a lot of people who preferenced independents 1, 2, 3 before going on to the 'party' candidates. That is to say, they voted for independents because they were such (regardless of ideology) and preferred them over non-Indos. If this happens again in the General today, we could have some freak results.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Polls are closed.

Turnout is estimated to be about 66%. Early tallies indicate that it seems to be higher than expected in more working class areas and lower in more middle class areas. Certain parts of Dublin in particular may have seen a higher turnout during the marriage referendum.

Now, we have to wait and see if this mythical Exit poll does indeed exist...

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The Exit Poll



Ummm.... yeah

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Polls are closed.

Turnout is estimated to be about 66%. Early tallies indicate that it seems to be higher than expected in more working class areas and lower in more middle class areas. Certain parts of Dublin in particular may have seen a higher turnout during the marriage referendum.

Now, we have to wait and see if this mythical Exit poll does indeed exist...

So, speaking very broadly, can we expect a Fine Gael underperformance and a Sinn Fein overperformance within Dublin? Or is that analysis too simplistic? And how reliable are these numbers, anyway?

Almost certainly Fianna Fail will underperform in Dublin and Sinn Fein will overperform there; FG are expected to be at about their national average... although in saying that I didn't see that exit poll.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Regional breakdowns of exit poll