Irish general election 2016

[Deleted]

Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll from yesterday:
www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/new-irish-times-ipsos-mrbi-poll-brings-bad-news-for-coalition-1.2521723

Details:
www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/poll

Fine Gael 28 (-2)
Labour 7 (nc)
Fianna Fáil, 21 (+2)
Sinn Féin 19 (-2)
Independents/Others (+2)

[Ghyl Tarvoke]

I wrote a very long post on my own constituency in another place, I'm going to copy and paste here if anyone is interested. Caution: Long

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.

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 .

[Ghyl Tarvoke]

I should note that since writing that RENUA have put forward a candidate, Alan Daveron, a lawyer who specializes in clients with mortgages in arrears (and possibly a relative of their Galway West candidate Nicole Daveron? I see nothing online confirming this though). Needless to say having been nominated so far and being such an unknown, I don't rate his chances in getting a seat but I do rate his chances very highly of getting the coveted spot of my final preference.

[Sibboleth]

[Deleted]

RedC for the Sunday Business Post:

FG 31 (+2)
FF 17 (-)
SF 17 (-2)
Indies/Other 16 (-)
Labour 10 (-)
SP/SWP 3 (-)
SocDem 3 (+1)
Greens 2 (-1)
Renua 1 (-)

[Richard Allen]

All in all FG would probably be pretty happy with a result something like that.

[dizz]

Memorable Sinn Fein/Mary Lou leaflet

www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-35524004

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Great news.

[neilm]

Two caps! Our cup runneth over.

[iainbhx]

Feb 11, 2016 12:06:36 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Great news.

VOTE EARLY, VOTE OFTEN, VOTE GOMBEEN 1 AND 2

[Arthur Figgis]

Will they resurrect the Eternal Gombeen and have the Unholy Trinity?

[neilm]

Is Noel Grealish likely to get re-elected?

[greenhert]

It has been confirmed by RTE (Radio Telefis Eireann) that there will be a total of 551 candidates across the 40 multi-member Dail constituencies standing in this election: www.rte.ie/news/election-2016/2016/0211/767077-election-parties/

Fine Gael have 88 candidates, Labour have 36, Fianna Fail have 71, Sinn Fein have 50, AAA-PBP have 31, Renua Ireland have 26, the Social Democrats just 14.

There are also 160 independents (including 20 Independent Alliance candidates and 5 Independents for Change candidates), 40 Green Party candidates (1 per constituency), 19 from Direct Democracy Ireland (only 2 of whom are women, incidentally), 5 from the Workers' Party, 3 from the Catholic Democrats, 2 from, Fis Nua, and 1 each from the Communist Party, United People, and the Irish Democratic Party.

[dizz]

Keeping-up with the Healy-Raes:

bcove.me/j1g90d82

[Deleted]

Our Irish sister site (sort of). There appears to be threads for all the constituencies:

www.politics.ie/

[An Sionnach Flannbhuí]

We've had "the long term economic plan", can Fine Gael pay me £500k for another rip off of the Conservative campaign?

[Devil Wincarnate]

SF economic idea number one- move the Dail to Athlone and watch Ireland boom.

(yes,I I is they scrapped that in the end)

[greenhert]

The lists of candidates for all 40 Dail constituencies for this election have now been finalised. They can be found here: electionsireland.org/results/general/32dail.cfm

[Deleted]

[greenchristian]

Feb 15, 2016 20:29:56 GMT @odo said:

If these pictures were the genuine choices, I'd be torn between voting for Scorpio and voting for Flanders.