Ireland General Discussion

[Kevinstat]

Does anyone know who Daniel Sullivan (@kingkane on Twitter) is and what his deal is?  He has an idea to change the constitutional minimum and maximum population per TD to be based on a percentage of the Republic's population rather than raw numbers, which I pointed out would be equivalent to simply setting a maximum and minimum size of the Dáil which I thought would be simpler, but he thinks his change is more likely to pass and is a simpler change to the constitution.

Also, does anyone here know Maynooth University Geography Lecturer (is that title equivalent to Professor in the U.S.?) Adrian Kavanagh?  Or could one of you Irish forum members be Adrian Kavanagh.  He seems to have me in the troll category right now (perhaps because he saw when I briefly changed the title last summer or fall of my thread on the current review to "Adrian Kavanagh is a tool" in response to him ignoring and not approving my comments on his elections blog; what's trollish about that? ), although he has responded a couple times to my tweets tagging him on Twitter.  He seems to expect that the Constituency Commission is going to go back to it's 2007 pattern of being very conservative with boundary changes, apparently considering the 2012 departure from that an aberration necessitated by the minimum 6-seat (8 seats in actuality) reduction in the total number of Dáil seats even though there was at least one instance where he himself postulated shortly before the commission's recommendations were announced that the reduction might cause one radical change (the division of Laois-Offaly) not to happen (it ended up happening anyway, although I'll admit he mentioned that as a possibility too).

Again, speculation as to what the Constituency Commission will do might be better suited to my thread on that topic, but comments on the people I've mentioned might be within the scope of this thread.

[ObserverIE]

Does anyone know who Daniel Sullivan (@kingkane on Twitter) is and what his deal is?  He has an idea to change the constitutional minimum and maximum population per TD to be based on a percentage of the Republic's population rather than raw numbers, which I pointed out would be equivalent to simply setting a maximum and minimum size of the Dáil which I thought would be simpler, but he thinks his change is more likely to pass and is a simpler change to the constitution.

Daniel Sullivan is a former Seanad candidate (university panel) and FG activist.

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Mar a chuirfeas tú a bhainfeas tú...

[ObserverIE]

Behaviour & Attitudes for the Sunday Times:

FG 29 (+7)
FF 28 (-)
SF 18 (-5)
Ind/Oth 15 (+1)
Lab 5 (-1)
SP/SWP 3 (+1)
GP 2 (-)
SD 2 (+1)
WP 0 (-1)
Renua 0 (-)

[ObserverIE]

RedC for the Sunday Business Post:

FF 28 (+2)
FG 24 (-)
SF 18 (+1)
Ind/Oth 12 (-4)
Lab 6 (-)
SP/SWP 4 (-)
SD 4 (+1)
GP 3 (-1)
Renua 1 (+1)

[ObserverIE]

Behaviour & Attitudes for the Sunday Times:

FG 28 (-1)
FF 27 (-1)
SF 18 (-)
Ind/Oth 16 (+1)
Lab 4 (-1)
SP/SWP 2 (-1)
GP 2 (-)
SD 1 (-1)
Renua 1 (+1)
WP 0 (-)

[Mike88]

Well, so Kenny resigned... Anyone knows why?

[ObserverIE]

He'd been on borrowed time for the last few months (ever since he was caught out in one of his fantasy conversations during the McCabe/Tusla scandal) and it always was a matter of how much longer he could string it out before one of the would-be successors lost patience and decided to strike.

[Mike88]

He'd been on borrowed time for the last few months (ever since he was caught out in one of his fantasy conversations during the McCabe/Tusla scandal) and it always was a matter of how much longer he could string it out before one of the would-be successors lost patience and decided to strike.

Hmmm... Interesting. What was the scandal about? Nonetheless, i have a somewhat positive view about Kenny, although i'm not very in tune of what's happening in Ireland. So, will there be early election or will FG pick someone else? Portuguese Expresso newspaper says Simon Coveney and Leo Varadkar are in the lead.

[Green Line]

I hope Leo gets it.  It's his turn.

I don't think there will be another election.  Fianna Fail could have brought the govt down back in March but chose not to.  Neither party wants another election right now, especially with the polls so mediocre for both FF and FG.  But hey, who knows.

[ObserverIE]

Ipsos/MRBI for the Irish Times:

FG 30 (+2)
FF 27 (-2)
SF 20 (-1)
Ind/Oth 11 (+1)
Lab 5 (+1)
SP/SWP 3 (-)
GP 2 (-1)
SD 1 (-)

Enda Kenny and the outgoing government receive their highest ever support levels from the public once they're sure he's gone.

Preference for FG leader/new Taoiseach:

All voters: Coveney 42, Varadkar 37
FG voters: Coveney 48, Varadkar 44

[ObserverIE]

RedC for the Sunday Business Post:

FG 29 (+5)
FF 21 (-7)
Ind/Oth 18 (+6)
SF 15 (-3)
Lab 6 (-)
SD 4 (-)
SP/SWP 3 (-1)
GP 3 (-)
Renua 1 (-)

[Tender Branson]

Gay Indian Prime Minister.

A lot has changed in arch-conservative, Catholic Ireland ...

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Dev must be pretty mad.

[DC Al Fine]

How are local campaigns organized in Ireland given the multimember constituencies? Like suppose I am one of thee Fine Gael candidates in a district where we only expect to win one or two seats. Are we all working together or competing hard against each other to be the top Fine Gael vote getter? Does district get divided up into sections for each candidate or something?

[ObserverIE]

Dev must be pretty mad.

Actually, given that Dev was regularly referred to as a "Spanish bastard" by the FG politicians of his day because of his own exotic parentage by the standards of the time, he might be highly amused (well, as highly amused as Dev would ever get).

I think people who are drawing comparisons with Justin Trudeau and Macron need to be aware that Varadkar is a horse of a different colour. For British posters, the correct analogy might be Michael Portillo in his "Who Dares Wins" phase if he'd been more open about his sexuality, but before he lost his seat and mellowed into a television commentator. Varadkar, from what I've seen and heard, is self-serving and narcissistic even by political standards and not a particularly nice individual.

[ObserverIE]

How are local campaigns organized in Ireland given the multimember constituencies? Like suppose I am one of thee Fine Gael candidates in a district where we only expect to win one or two seats.

If FG only expect to win one seat there are highly unlikely to be three candidates. The usual formula is (number of seats you're sure of + 1).

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In theory...

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In practice.

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Yes, especially so in rural constituencies.

[DC Al Fine]

How are local campaigns organized in Ireland given the multimember constituencies? Like suppose I am one of thee Fine Gael candidates in a district where we only expect to win one or two seats.

If FG only expect to win one seat there are highly unlikely to be three candidates. The usual formula is (number of seats you're sure of + 1).

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In theory...

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In practice.

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Yes, especially so in rural constituencies.

Ah that makes sense. What is there to stop candidates from sandbagging their teammates? I know if I was the odd one out in my seat I'd be tempted to attack my own team.

[Mr. Morden]

So wait, does having one Indian parent qualify him as the first head of government in a European country to be a racial minority?  Or have there been others that I'm not thinking of?

[argentarius]

How are local campaigns organized in Ireland given the multimember constituencies? Like suppose I am one of thee Fine Gael candidates in a district where we only expect to win one or two seats.

If FG only expect to win one seat there are highly unlikely to be three candidates. The usual formula is (number of seats you're sure of + 1).

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In theory...

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In practice.

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Yes, especially so in rural constituencies.

Ah that makes sense. What is there to stop candidates from sandbagging their teammates? I know if I was the odd one out in my seat I'd be tempted to attack my own team.

Doing so in public would be suicidal as the party would presumably punish that candidate, but things can get pretty heated in private meetings where they decide how to allocate their resources. I'm very familiar with the Fine Gael strategies for vote sharing, they make a huge effort to maximize their seats by splitting the vote equally. Take Dublin South (now Dublin Rathdown), my own constituency. They managed to squeeze 3 seats out of 36% in 2011 because they split the vote equally, whereas Fianna Fail only managed 2 with 41% in 2007 because they didn't seem to make the effort. Fine Gael do insider polling to help decide how they should campaign. They do also do a lot of district splitting, even here in Dublin. Door to door campaigning is huge here, and by splitting things up the actual candidates can appear at quite a large proportion of houses in the constituency.

[Mike88]

So wait, does having one Indian parent qualify him as the first head of government in a European country to be a racial minority?  Or have there been others that I'm not thinking of?

António Costa's father was Goan. Interesting that both Ireland and Portugal, countries who suffered, somewhat, similar economic problems, have currently PM's with Indian ancestry.

[ObserverIE]

How are local campaigns organized in Ireland given the multimember constituencies? Like suppose I am one of thee Fine Gael candidates in a district where we only expect to win one or two seats.

If FG only expect to win one seat there are highly unlikely to be three candidates. The usual formula is (number of seats you're sure of + 1).

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In theory...

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In practice.

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Yes, especially so in rural constituencies.

Ah that makes sense. What is there to stop candidates from sandbagging their teammates? I know if I was the odd one out in my seat I'd be tempted to attack my own team.

Depends on what you mean by sandbagging. Given that it's a preference-based system, the aim is to maximise first preferences, either by attracting personal votes from other parties' supporters or by getting your own party's supporters to place you ahead of your "team-mates". The usual technique is to minimise your own chances and to claim that your party rivals are sure of election, and therefore don't need additional preferences.

[ObserverIE]

Behaviour & Attitudes for the Sunday Times:

FG 29 (+1)
FF 29 (+2)
SF 18 (-)
Ind/Oth 14 (-2)
Lab 5 (+1)
GP 3 (+1)
SP/SWP 1 (-1)
SD 1 (-)
Renua 0 (-1)
WP 0 (-)

Leomania not yet taking hold of the nation.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

What's happening in stormont?

[ObserverIE]

What's happening in stormont?

If you mean the talks to get the Northern executive up and running again, they were meant to start next week, but noises off may now complicate things further.

Enda Kenny rang May today ostensibly as a farewell call but in reality as a polite reading of the Riot Act not to do anything that might endanger the GFA and to tell her to schedule a meeting with Leo ASAP after Leo's election as Taoiseach on Tuesday. Ireland, like every other European country, has run out of patience with the clown show that is British politics at the moment.

[ObserverIE]

Ireland Thinks  for the Irish Daily Mail:

FG 31 (+6)
FF 26 (-1)
SF 16 (-1)
Ind/Oth 11 (-4)
Lab 7 (+2)
GP 4 (+1)
SP/SWP 2 (-1)
SD 2 (-2)