The Official 2016 Irish General Election thread

[Maguire01]

Did Aodhan O Riordan get in?

No
Labour are still on 6
http://www.rte.ie/news/election-2016/

Some good TDs lost from Labour. They were always going to take a hit, but they got no recognition for bringing the marriage referendum, and the likes of the 8th amendment issue will now most likely continue to be ignored. There is a need for a party on the left who also have a bit of pragmatism and will go into government, even if they only get bits of what they want, rather than sit on the fence and get nothing.

[armaghniac]

I gave labour appropriate recognition for their role in the marriage referendum.

[muppet]

The last Dáil didn't just have one opposition, it had at least 4 oppositions. The media gave all of them lots of air and column time which I don't recall happening as much before. Think of how much we heard from Wallace, Daly, Murphy, Boyd-Barrett etc, not to mention the worthwhile contribution of Catherine Murphy. And that is before you mention Martin and Adams who at least had some TDs behind them.

Even though the Government had a large majority, the majority of news coverage seemed to be opposition based.

I think this undemocratic, unbalanced coverage in favour of the easy attacks is likely to continue, so I can't see anyone being eager to join a Government as a smaller party for a while.

[seafoid]

The last Dáil didn't just have one opposition, it had at least 4 oppositions. The media gave all of them lots of air and column time which I don't recall happening as much before. Think of how much we heard from Wallace, Daly, Murphy, Boyd-Barrett etc, not to mention the worthwhile contribution of Catherine Murphy. And that is before you mention Martin and Adams who at least had some TDs behind them.

Even though the Government had a large majority, the majority of news coverage seemed to be opposition based.

I think this undemocratic, unbalanced coverage in favour of the easy attacks is likely to continue, so I can't see anyone being eager to join a Government as a smaller party for a while.

The media are attentive to their audiences and after the bondholder surrender a lot of people would have dropped their support. The thing  that happens after an economic crash is the allocation of the losses and this makes politics volatile.

[rrhf]

Ireland were always itching to get ff back in. Culturally but particularly for that feeling of reckless wealth creation.  I think there's a strong chance ff will stay in opposition, sf will replace Adams when he has taken all the shit he can, Doherty / Mary Lou will take the party forward and both parties will sit together in government within 18 months.

[Declan]

Even though the Government had a large majority, the majority of news coverage seemed to be opposition based.

Jaysus Muppet for someone whose usually so exact and precise in your statements how in Gods name do you think the majority of news coverage seemed to be opposition based.

Biggest media outlets in the country  RTE and Sindo were ferociously pro Govt during the last 5 years. The other national radio stations are owned by the Maltese Falcon and NTs biggest rated show is fervently blue shirted.

The biggest story re Clare Daly was when the Gardaí and the media tried to stitch her up on the Drink Driving charge. Murphy did fantastic work on the siteserv stuff and I know Wallace is a serial tax evader but in terms of his work on NAMA he actually did some real public service work. And like it or not the anti water crew tapped into the public mood and generated large support for that campaign so it had to get coverage and I'm sure they'd argue that the coverage wasn't exactly even handed either.

Anyway With FG/FF receiving at least 94 seats - the Irish people overwhelming voted that they want ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to change

[Rossfan]

What would the change have been to?
Sinn Féin and loony left running wild for a year fighting the EU/ECB till reality would hit home.

[Bord na Mona man]

Did Aodhan O Riordan get in?

Thankfully not.
O'Riordan is the classic Irish pc nut. On the one hand he wanted to screen Catholics in the Irish civil service. On the other hand he wanted to bring in 20,000 unvetted migrants from the Middle East and North Africa.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/eamon-delaney-aodhan-is-a-victim-of-his-own-pc-crusades-29227753.html

[Hound]

Anyway With FG/FF receiving at least 94 seats - the Irish people overwhelming voted that they want ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to change

What would the change have been to?
Sinn Féin and loony left running wild for a year fighting the EU/ECB till reality would hit home.

The economy is moving very much in the right direction.

We are the fastest growing economy in the EU
Exports are up
FDI Investment into Ireland is up
Employment is up
Consumer spending is up

SF and AAA/PBP would put that at risk. They have managed to make being anti-business seem like a good thing to certain sections. And make people forget that it's business that creates jobs!

FF's stance on Irish Water is very disappointing. While there's been a plethora of mistakes, FF know that Irish Water is the right way to go. It needs to be centralised to improve the system and service, and charges need to be collected from the user. But they have to go against it to get votes and join the "let someone else pay for it" brigade.

[muppet]

Even though the Government had a large majority, the majority of news coverage seemed to be opposition based.

Jaysus Muppet for someone whose usually so exact and precise in your statements how in Gods name do you think the majority of news coverage seemed to be opposition based.

Biggest media outlets in the country  RTE and Sindo were ferociously pro Govt during the last 5 years. The other national radio stations are owned by the Maltese Falcon and NTs biggest rated show is fervently blue shirted.

The biggest story re Clare Daly was when the Gardaí and the media tried to stitch her up on the Drink Driving charge. Murphy did fantastic work on the siteserv stuff and I know Wallace is a serial tax evader but in terms of his work on NAMA he actually did some real public service work. And like it or not the anti water crew tapped into the public mood and generated large support for that campaign so it had to get coverage and I'm sure they'd argue that the coverage wasn't exactly even handed either.

Anyway With FG/FF receiving at least 94 seats - the Irish people overwhelming voted that they want ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to change

I'll rephrase, there appeared to be a disproportionate amount of coverage given to, for example, PBP even though they only had a few seats. Daly and Wallace also got massive coverage. That is not saying it was all positive coverage, it was the volume of coverage I was referring to.

One the one hand you had (some) positive coverage of the Government, on the other you had almost daily criticism from Martin and FF, from Adams and SF, from Joe Higgins, from Boyd-Barrett, from Paul Murphy, from Shane Ross etc. It gave the impression of a huge opposition in the Dáil, when in fact it was a small opposition.

Part of this was the Government's own fault for not putting out enough spokespeople to argue their case.

[mikehunt]

Anyway With FG/FF receiving at least 94 seats - the Irish people overwhelming voted that they want ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to change

What would the change have been to?
Sinn Féin and loony left running wild for a year fighting the EU/ECB till reality would hit home.

The economy is moving very much in the right direction.

We are the fastest growing economy in the EU
Exports are up
FDI Investment into Ireland is up
Employment is up
Consumer spending is up

SF and AAA/PBP would put that at risk. They have managed to make being anti-business seem like a good thing to certain sections. And make people forget that it's business that creates jobs!

FF's stance on Irish Water is very disappointing. While there's been a plethora of mistakes, FF know that Irish Water is the right way to go. It needs to be centralised to improve the system and service, and charges need to be collected from the user. But they have to go against it to get votes and join the "let someone else pay for it" brigade.

My dear Enda, they didn't swallow that guff on Feb 26th, nothing has changed since then. It was guff then and it's guff now.

[Main Street]

Anyway With FG/FF receiving at least 94 seats - the Irish people overwhelming voted that they want ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to change

What would the change have been to?
Sinn Féin and loony left running wild for a year fighting the EU/ECB till reality would hit home.

The economy is moving very much in the right direction.

We are the fastest growing economy in the EU
Exports are up
FDI Investment into Ireland is up
Employment is up
Consumer spending is up

SF and AAA/PBP would put that at risk. They have managed to make being anti-business seem like a good thing to certain sections. And make people forget that it's business that creates jobs!

FF's stance on Irish Water is very disappointing. While there's been a plethora of mistakes, FF know that Irish Water is the right way to go. It needs to be centralised to improve the system and service, and charges need to be collected from the user. But they have to go against it to get votes and join the "let someone else pay for it" brigade.

Growth figures do have something important to say but they need to widened.
Should also include,
corporate tax avoidance figures going up,
corporate tax receipts going down,
income inequality going up,
education expenditure still 60% of oecd average.
so on and so forth.

[seafoid]

What would the change have been to?
Sinn Féin and loony left running wild for a year fighting the EU/ECB till reality would hit home.

SF and LL  building 20 k social houses. Doing anything else would be loony. Neoliberalism is a waste of time.

[weareros]

Growth figures do have something important to say but they need to widened.
Should also include,
corporate tax avoidance figures going up,
corporate tax receipts going down,
income inequality going up,
education expenditure still 60% of oecd average.
so on and so forth.

Irish corporate tax receipts were way up in 2015 - almost 3 billion:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-ireland-economy-tax-idUKKBN0TL1XK20151202

Curious about OECD - every OECD reports shows we spend more per student than most countries. Even in 2015, we were ranked 10th amongst OECD countries.

[muppet]

What would the change have been to?
Sinn Féin and loony left running wild for a year fighting the EU/ECB till reality would hit home.

SF and LL  building 20 k social houses. Doing anything else would be loony. Neoliberalism is a waste of time.

Who would pay for these houses?