Liam Weeks The current government parties have 77 seats. The combined opposition of Fine Gael, Labour and Sinn Féin have 75 seats. The balance of power in the Dáil is thus held by the 10 independent TDs, who include 2 ex-PDs, 4 former FF TDs (one of whom has resigned from the party), one FF…
Adrian Kavanagh (11 June 2010) The Irish Times/Ispos MRBI poll, published in The Irish Times on Friday June 11th (also discussed here), rates Labour as the most popular political party in the state at present and also suggests that Sinn Féin will win that party’s highest share of the national vote since the 1920s. The…
Details of today’s Irish Times/Ipsos Mori poll can be seen here. Quite a shift since the last Red C poll, discussed in a previous posting. Even allowing for the usual issues of margins of error and different polling methodologies, this is a dramatic result for Labour and not the best of news for Fine Gael…
The clock is ticking on when the long-awaited by-elections will be held. Donegal South West has had a vacant Dail seat since Pat ‘the Cope’ Gallagher was elected MEP in June 2009, while Dublin South has been open since being vacated by George Lee in February 2010 and Waterford since Martin Cullen stepped down in…
From Colin Scott An international and interdisciplinary conference on regulatory governance is being held at UCD next week, 17-19 June, under the auspices of the European Consortium of Political Research Standing Group on Regulatory Governance.
Post by Michael Marsh In his Irish Times column today Vincent Browne once again called on the Labour Party to form an alliance with the forces of the left and create a real alternative to the centrist and right of centre governments we have seen in Ireland in the past. Analysis of the weakness of…
The ongoing debacle over expenses involving Fianna Fáil senators Callely and Butler is symbolic of a number of shortcomings in our political system – notably the lack of transparency and inadequate regulatory controls over all aspects of party finance (about which, see the previous posting here). The Oireachtas website helpfully sets out the details of…
In a forthcoming article on the relationship between candidate gender and electoral success in the British Journal of Political Science, Schwindt-Bayer, Malecki, and Crisp look at how gender affects candidate performance in three contexts where PR-STV systems are employed: the lower houses of Malta and Ireland, and the Australian Senate.
In the various debates on the media, on twitter and on blogs like this there has been much call for specifics, for real practical suggestions on reforms that could be implemented without the need for full scale referendum debates over constitutional reform. To that end, those of us involved in making regular contributions to this…
Few could argue that the regime of political finance has not had an impact on Irish politics and policy. It was the famous Tent at Ballybrit each year which symbolised the symbiotic relationship between Fianna Fáil and the property industry. Thanks to Elaine Byrne we know that the property industry accounted for more donations than…
Irish Politics Forum 