Irish general election, 26th Feb 2016

[Oakvale]

The ad is great and it's a shame to see the wimp faction in Labour backpedal from it.

[Oakvale]

I'll do the same as Gully and rip off Jas's format shamelessly, although I'm far too lazy to even come close to the level of detail either of you have put into this.

Dublin Central

Candidates

Fine Gael   Paschal Donohoe TD
Labour   Joe Costello TD
Fianna Fáil   Mary Fitzpatrick
Sinn Féin   Mary Lou McDonald TD
AAA-PBP   Diana O'Dwyer
Renua ()      Jacqui Gilbourne (?)
SocDems    Cllr. Gary Gannon
Green ()     Ian Noel Smyth
DDI ()  Cormac McKay
Worker's Party () Cllr. Éilis Ryan

Independents     Maureen O'Sullivan TD
                         Cllr. Christy Burke, Lord Mayor of Dublin
                         Cllr. Cieran Perry
                         Andrew Kelly (Postmaster's candidate)
                         Catherine Maher (The Human Fund)

                        
 One of the most entertaining constituencies in the country, Dublin Central has been reduced to just three seats this time around, which means one of the sitting TDs is going to be booted out. Most likely this will be Labour's Joe Costello, who although with a long established history in the constituency and respectable personal popularity is exceedingly unlikely to be able to overcome the plunge in the Labour vote nationally.

Fine Gael's candidate is Paschal Donohoe, who's currently the Minister for Transport. On first glance it's tempting to suggest that he's going to face a scrap for the third seat given the constituency profile but I'm not so sure. He's probably the most visible incumbent (more on this in a moment) and I'd go as far as to say there's an outside chance he tops the poll again (with a reduced vote) due to the sheer number of opposition candidates running. That said, boundary changes hurt Donohoe's chances but I'm confident he has a seat - the question is just in what order he's elected.

Sinn Féin's candidate is Mary Lou McDonald, heir to the mantle of cult leader. Tragically, she is safe and if my ~crazy and counterintiutive~ suggestion of Donohoe topping the poll does not come to pass it will be McDonald who does so.

Fianna Fáil's candidate is Mary Fitzpatrick, a former councillor who was FF's candidate in the 2011 general election and for the European Parliament in 2014. In 2011, she surpassed expectations to lose the final seat to Mary Lou McDonald, largely due to the fact that she was famously loathed by Bertie Ahern's "Drumcondra Mafia". While Fitzpatrick may have some residual respect for her battles against that now-toxic brand it's unlikely to be enough to put her in contention given the still-dismal performance of FF in Dublin generally.

Boundary changes hurt Fitzpatrick here - the Navan Road, which was reliably FF in years past (less so in 2011 for obvious reasons) is now mostly in Dublin West. Home of said mafia, Drumcondra, is also no longer part of Dublin Central.

The Alphabet Soup Faction candidate is Diana O'Dwyer, a left-wing activist and academic. She will serve only to siphon off a few preferences from the more prominent anti-government candidates.

The Flat Taxes And Foetuses candidate is, possibly, Jacqui Gilbourne, a random woman off the street. I cannot confirm if she's actually standing or not but is a safe bet for tangling with the Freeman On The Land candidate for the wooden spoon.

The Be Like Denmark candidate is  Gary Gannon, a (young-ish)councillor since 2014. Gannon's candidacy is fascinating and is a fundamental part of what I think is the overlooked story of this constituency. I'll leave this until the end.

The Green candidate, Ian Noel Smyth, is an architect and businessman. He will make no impact.

The DDI - Direct Democracy Ireland, a "freeman on the land" cult, is running Cormac McKay, a random guy off the street. While he's apparently attempting to run on a more generic platform of "anti-austerity", the banks etc. rather than conspiracies about the Jews, he will likely finish dead last unless he can somehow get a few of the generic protest votes.

Hahaha, the Worker's Party, back from the dead, is running Councillor Éilis Ryan. This is incredible - she was elected in 2014 on the most utterly generic vaguely lefty platform imaginable - I think her main proposal was to have more trees and maybe a street market once a month. Bizarrely, she joined the undead Worker's Party last year.

Ryan is, in other words, pretty much the stereotypical Dublin Labour member but has presumably joined this tankie death cult in the hopes of capturing the lucrative anti-government vote. I hope she canvasses my house so I can ask if they're still friends with North Korea.

The Independents are Councillor Cieran Perry, (republican left-wing), Councillor Christie Burke, the Lord Mayor (republican left-wing), Maureen O'Sullivan, ('Gregory' left-wing), Catherine Maher, a left-winger running for "United People", which just reminds me of George Costanza's "The Human Fund - Money For People", and Andrew Kelly (running on the platform of keeping the local post office open).

The third seat will almost certain go to one of these (Kelly and Maher probably excepted). The Irish Times expects O'Sullivan to be re-elected, but I'm not so sure. She's largely invisible, except once every five years, and the fabled "Gregory" vote was declining even before the man himself died.

(For our foreign readers, Tony Gregory was a left-wing independent TD for the constituency from 1982 until his death in 2009, mostly famous for the "Gregory deal" in which he sold his vote for a lot of money for the deprived inner city from Charles Haughey in return for supporting the short-lived and disastrous seven month Fianna Fáil government of 1982. Upon his untimely death, his former election agent, Maureen O'Sullivan, a teacher, was comfortably elected in a by-election to take the seat as the "Gregory candidate".)

There's also, as I mentioned above, a split in said "Gregory vote" - there was some hilarious squabbling over Gary Gannon a, (you guessed it) left-wing independent, claiming the "Gregory" mantle in the local elections in 2014, and now he's running as the Soc Dem candidate, endorsed by the late TD's brother, Noel. I think it's unlikely that Gannon wins but I can see him doing enough damage to O'Sullivan to knock her out and let one of the other lefties (I'd expect Perry or Burke) to take the seat.

Read more about this bizarre split in the Gregory group here - http://www.thejournal.ie/gary-gannon-election-poster-1432219-Apr2014/. Great stuff!

It will probably be the Gannon-O'Sullivan fight that defines who grabs the third seat -- Cieran Perry (one of my neighbours!) could be in with a shot, as could Christy Burke, who didn't do particularly well last time but has a much increased profile as a result of serving as Lord Mayor.

One factor that will help O'Sullivan's chances is that she's the definition of transfer-friendly, so if the random left-wing independents are knocked out she'll be in with a good shot of taking the third seat. I have no idea what's going to happen here.


RTÉ prediction: 1 FG, 1 SF, 1 Ind.
Irish Times prediction:  1 FG, 1 SF, 1 Ind.
Oakvale's Brave Prediction: 1 FG (Donohoe), 1 SF (McDonald), 1 Ind. (Who the hell knows)

[Oakvale]

Hahaha, the Worker's Party, back from the dead, is running Councillor Éilis Ryan. This is incredible - she was elected in 2014 on the most utterly generic vaguely lefty platform imaginable - I think her main proposal was to have more trees and maybe a street market once a month. Bizarrely, she joined the undead Worker's Party last year.

Ryan is, in other words, pretty much the stereotypical Dublin Labour member but has presumably joined this tankie death cult in the hopes of capturing the lucrative anti-government vote. I hope she canvasses my house so I can ask if they're still friends with North Korea.

My understanding is that a group of leftish non-Trot activists (associated Marxists, anarchists, etc.) joined the moribund local franchise of the Workers' Party en masse with the knowledge of the party leadership. I think the candidate in Dublin North West may be another member of the group.

Ryan is not a tankie but she is probably well to the left of the platform she got elected on.

I suppose the retro air of 70s Stalinism may have an appeal in hipster-infested Stoneybatter.

Yeah it's fitting you say that since I'd pegged Ryan as basically the "Stoneybatter" candidate although frankly I'm annoyed at the vastly overblown narrative about the place. It's still pretty rough, regardless of how many Guardian pieces about "Williamsburg on the Liffey" get published.

I don't know her personal views of course but I do stand by saying she'd be a softest pink Labour candidate if this was five years ago.

[Oakvale]

[Oakvale]

FG: 41
Lab: 34
Green: 26
FF: 25
O'Sullivan: 24
Worker's (!) : 23
Soc Dem: 23
Alphabet Soup: 22
Perry: 22
SF: 20
Burke: 17
DDI: 12

Bizarrely, the only candidate I agreed with on rent controls "certainty" was the Postmaster's candidate, who's now dropped out.

[Oakvale]

Funnily enough, in actuality I would probably first-preference Ross if I was voting in Dublin Rathdown. They for some reason have recorded his stance as 'equivocal' on every issue.

That is not surprising.

[Oakvale]

That poll really highlights how terrible the Irish media is at analysing these things - almost any poster on this forum would do a better job. There's literally no reason for SF to have surged three points and immediately dropped back down, but that doesn't stop headlines about the, er, Green Party's momentum.

[Oakvale]

Can't wait for the scintillating analysis in the media on this reversion to the mean after a couple of outliers.

[Oakvale]

Brendan Howlin topping the poll for some reason.

[Oakvale]

Thanks for the answers. One other question just for fun: which politician/party is equivalent to Sanders/Paul? (i.e. They have a lot of young, loud supporters and do much better on the internet than in real life?)

In the last year the Social Democrats have sort of fit into that pattern.

I think SF fit that better actually since the Social Democrats actually did do very well whereas SF kind of deflated in the last few months.