Guest post by Prof R. K. Carty, University of British Columbia Some seem surprised by Fianna Fáil’s success in the February election. They shouldn’t be. Indeed there are so many reasons that help explain it that untangling their relative contribution will take some time.
John Devitt, 24 February 2016 The RTÉ Investigations Unit story on corruption in local government shocked the nation when it was broadcast way back in December 2015. It led Stephen Collins, political editor of the Irish Times to suggest that corruption would likely be an election issue. He couldn’t have been more wrong. With the…
David Farrell (UCD), Eoin O’Malley (DCU), Theresa Reidy (UCC) and Jane Suiter (DCU) Smaointe (meaning ‘Ideas’) has been founded by a group of political scientists to promote an agenda of political reform in Ireland. As part of our strategy to promote political reform, we have undertaken an assessment of the political reform proposals included in…
As we approach polling day and without any sign (so far?) of a last minute surge for the coalition parties the most likely outcome is a hung Dáil. Of course another outcome is possible – Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil could once and for all bury their civil war differences and form a Grand Coalition.…
Only a few days before the election, polls continue to indicate that this might be the election of the independent candidates and smaller parties. The group of Independents and others has improved their total score from about 22% early this year to 25% in the latest Irish Polling Indicator, which combines all opinion polls into…
Betting markets have consistently supported the idea that a Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil (not-so) ‘Grand Coalition’ is the most likely outcome of the 2016 election. This might be in part because it seems the only ideologically-coherent majority government that can be formed. There is an assumption that an election result must yield a government, and our…
Opposition parties rarely win elections, governments lose them. Yesterday’s RedC poll for the Irish Sun seems to shows Fine Gael on its way to losing one. It is trending downward during the campaign. By now we were supposed to see voters considering government formation and moving back to the government. According to one Fine Gael…
Monday night’s leaders’ debate should put in the ground the idea that the left-right dimension is the key one in politics. On Monday we saw parties such as Renua (the right) and Social Democrats (centre-left) taking aim at what they saw as the enemy, not each other, but the ‘Establishment’. Similarly Gerry Adams tried to distance…
By Michael Gallagher Election campaigns feature extensive, some would say excessive, discussion of the horse-race aspects: in short, how many seats will the parties win? Until the votes are cast and counted, all we have to go on are the findings from opinion polls, and the challenge is to make accurate seat predictions from these.…
Irish Politics Forum 