By Mel Farrell (Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) scholar, Department of History, NUI Maynooth Election 2011 carries the potential to realign Irish politics. As such, this electoral contest promises to take its place among the critical elections of Irish history in 1918, 1922 and 1932. Going on the opinion polls,…
Posted by Elaine Byrne An excellent collection of discussion papers on options to transform Governance and Leadership in the Irish Republic for the Better by the Dublin City Business Association can be found here The State We Are In – Mr Roderic O’Connor Planning for Problem and Solutions – Mr James Kelly Rebuilding the Economy – Mr…
Guest post by Johnny Fallon (loaded by David Farrell, February 8 2011) With the reform debate now all thrashed out by the parties I don’t think any of them has hit the spot for me. But rather than sit on the fence I will, as usual, pop my head up for some abuse. If I…
Fianna Fail has released their manifesto today. There is a large section on political reform, covering some 8 pages. In many ways these are radical proposals, the pity is that none were even considered over the past 13 years. Crucially, there appears to be some measure of joined up thinking. For example, the party only…
By Michael Gallagher In essence there are two ways of trying to convert opinion poll findings regarding voting intentions into seat totals for the political parties. One, employed in the earlier post by Adrian Kavanagh (5 Feb, two posts below this one), is to assume uniform swing across the country; apply this to the party…
Adrian Kavanagh, 5th February 2011 The Red-C poll to be published in the 6th February edition of the Sunday Business Post estimates party support as follows: Fianna Fail 17%, Fine Gael 35%, Labour 22%, Green Party 2%, Sinn Fein 13%, Others 11% – based on these poll figures, my constituency level analysis (as described in previous…
Eoin O’Malley(4th February, 2011) The national polls carried out by reputable agencies such as Red C or Ipsos-mrbi are reliable as guides of the likely percentages the parties would get if the election were held at that time. In the middle of a campaign they are even better guides of the eventual result because potential…
The editors and contributors behind polticalreform.ie have teamed with a large volunteer team of project managers, web designers and others to produce ReformCard a measurement tool to rank each party based on the quality of their policies on political reform. We hope this will prove a critical instrument in informing the election 2011 debate. It…
Liam Weeks* Micheál Martin recently suggested that the government should pay more attention to experts outside of the political process in formulating its strategy. But what about the paid experts already brought in from the ‘outside’ to advise the government? I am referring to the special advisers of every minister and minister of state. Who…
Adrian Kavanagh, 2nd February 2011 Today’s Red C-Paddy Power opinion poll estimates party support as follows: FF 18%, FG 37%, LAB 19%, GP 3%, SF 12%, OTH 11%. Based solely on these poll figures, my constituency level analysis estimates party seat levels as follows: Fianna Fail 32, Fine Gael 75, Labour 31, Green Party 0, Sinn Fein 13, Others…
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