Matthew Wall
The government’s recently unveiled proposals on the forthcoming constitutional convention make for disappointing reading for those who, like this author, had hoped that such a body could facilitate profound political reform in Ireland.
The proposed convention, to be comprised of a chair, 66 members of the public and 33 elected politicians, is hobbled by a narrow and disjointed pre-set agenda, and limited to a strictly advisory role.
By Eoin O’Malley (15 February, 2012)
SIPO last night released details for candidate election expenses – set out here. They provide useful information as to what candidates spent their money on in the campaign and how much each spent. They are less useful, however, for disclosing where each candidate’s money came from. We can see, for instance, that Gay Mitchell spent €527, 152, making him the highest spending candidate, but still well below the spending limit of €750,000. But we have no idea where the money came from, as none of his donations exceeded €634.87. Martin McGuinness spent just over €300k, but received a bit over €4,000 in disclose-able donations. Much of the money from these candidates will have been raise in the form of donations of less than €634. A lot of it may have come from their parties, and donations to the parties will be disclosed separately (this may benefit parties as a donor can give to a party and to a candidate used for the same campaign but not disclosed as such). And some of the money spent may have come in the form of bank loans. Continue reading
Eoin O’Malley (26 October 2011)
We might be interested in betting markets as a rival to polling for measuring shifts in support, particularly in Ireland where polling is comparatively infrequent and irregular. The idea is that people putting real money on a result may know something, and that those who do have information will see value in odds, and the market will be efficient because bad offers will be exploited by those with information. I’ve tracked the Paddy Power election odds for over a month, and graphed what the market thinks the result will be, over time – it is a representation of the odds for ‘who will be the next Irish President?’. Continue reading
Adrian Kavanagh, 25th October 2011
The final series of opinion polls at the weekend saw Sean Gallagher maintain, and even widen somewhat, the lead he established over Michael D. Higgins and the other candidates in the previous weekend’s Sunday Business Post-Red C poll, although the sheer momentum he had built up over the previous few weeks has abated somewhat. Continue reading
Adrian Kavanagh, 17th October 2011
The Sunday Business Post-Red C poll shows momentum for Sean Gallagher continuing and now pushing him well ahead of Michael D. Higgins and other contenders and on these figures he could expect to enjoy a comfortable victory on the final count by more than 200,000 votes. Just as interesting is the degree to which this campaign is opening up, or rather intensifying, questions to do with politicial class divisions that exist within Irish society (rural, urban middle class, urban working class) and impact on parties, voters and various elements of the political commentariat. Continue reading
Adrian Kavanagh, 6th-9th October 2011
The two presidential election polls and the Irish Times-Ipsos MRBI and Sunday Times-Behaviour and Attitudes polls on party support intentions offers interesting trends. Sean Gallagher has emerged as the surprise package in the presidential election polls and poses a more serious threat to Michael D. Higgins than that which Martin McGuinness and David Norris were posing in last week’s Red C poll. While the gamble of the McGuinness candidature may not be translating into a likely win for Sinn Fein, it could be argued that the gamble is paying off in terms of the huge increase in support registered for the party in the Irish Times-Ipsos MRBI and Sunday Times-Behaviour and Attitudes poll, propelling the party past Labour and Fianna Fail into second place. Based on the Ipsos MRBI figures the party will need to take further support off Labour if Sinn Fein is to overtake Labour as the party with the second largest number of seats in Dail Eireann, but the poll figures in the Sunday Times-Behaviour and Attitudes poll suggests that Sinn Fein would exactly do that. Continue reading
paddypower.com has these odds for the presidential race up:
Adrian Kavanagh, Sunday 25th September 2011
The main message coming from the two Red C-Sunday Business Post opinion polls, published on 25th September, is that vote transfers would see Michael D Higgins win the presidency despite trailing David Norris in terms of first preference votes. In all, the polls offer mixed messages for the government parties, some cold comfort for Fianna Fáil in the wake of the previous week’s disastrous Millward Brown Lansdowne poll figures for that party, and very good news for Sinn Féin and the Others grouping. Transfer figures provided with the presidential election poll suggest that, in order to go on to win the contest, Davis Norris would need to almost ten percent ahead of Michael D Higgins on the first count, while Martin McGuinness would need to be eight percent ahead. Continue reading
By Michael Gallagher
FF has got itself into something of a tangle over the presidential election. Torn between a range of options that seems to proliferate all the time – run its own candidate, facilitate a FF member to run as an independent, facilitate any independent who requires signatures to secure a nomination, allow each of its Oireachtas members to do what they want, or refuse to allow any FF Oireachtas member to assist anyone to secure a nomination – the party seems to have ended up in a situation from which there is no simple way out and, moreover, to have stirred up the first speculation about a leadership heave or a full-scale split into the bargain. Continue reading
By Michael Gallagher
The first of these questions seems to have acquired ‘Is the Pope a Catholic?’ status, with apparent unanimity that the existing nomination requirements are too exacting. To recap, a would-be presidential candidate must secure the nominations of either (a) 20 members of the Houses of the Oireachtas (TDs and Senators), or (b) four city or county councils. Additionally, an incumbent or former president who has served one term may nominate herself or himself for a second term.
This issue has arisen during several previous campaigns, as the requirements tend to be discovered anew at the outset of each campaign. There is usually some kind of vague consensus that, while it is too late to change the rules for this campaign, it is something that ‘should be looked at’ before the next one. However, once the current contest is over, everything to do with the presidency immediately drops to the bottom of the political agenda – governments have other matters such as the economy to think about – and no more is heard of the idea for the next six and a half years, at which point the cycle begins again. Continue reading
