Looking at Labour in Dublin the surefire bets would appear to be:
Mrs Patrick Carroll (Dublin West): should be dragged in on Doc Leoās surplus and Catherine Nooneās votes. The big plus is that the FG threat of swiping a Lab seat through the back door is less likely here
Brendan Ryan (Dublin Fingal): His brother was a shock loser in 1997 but even on a bad day hard to see lightning striking twice. Thereās an extra seat in the constituency too. FG are the likelier losers if thereās a government casualty here.
Eric Byrne (Dublin SC): Heās been written off in some quarters after boundary changes, coupled with a lot of leftist challengers. This is very strong Labour territory though and he should be okay.
Seats they will probably take:
Joanna Tuffy (Dublin MW): Thereās a lot of competition here for the āleft of Labourā vote, I also wouldnāt write off FG but ultimately enough voters here who will have a preference for Labour over FG. Also despite a lot of hype around John Curran I donāt see FF at the races here.
Pamela Kearns (Dublin SW): This is another place theyāve been written off in. This is a new constituency though with 39,000 voters being transferred in from Dublin South. By rights FG should be taking two out of five here but with no sitting TD will struggle. Nevertheless theyāll likely have enough votes to drag Kearns (who is based in the old seat but close to the extended section) in with Anne-Marie Dermody. FF should be taking a seat here too but some talk of John Lahart struggling; if he doesnāt make it then Kearns is an even safer bet.
Kevin Humphreys (Dublin Bay South): This guy is underestimated. He has a good base in the often overlooked inner city end of the constituency. Provided he stays ahead of Kate OāConnell he should be ok. Eamonn Ryan will eat into Labourās vote but the likely strong showing of Mrs Paul Bradford reduces the threat of a FG ambush ā on a really good (or lucky) day for FG though they could conceivably oust him.
There are a couple of 50/50s:
Aodhan O Riordain (Dublin Bay North): Most pundits have him down as a hold, I think partly on the basis that heās seen off the other two Labour TDs and will have the ticket to himself. DBN though is a very convoluted constituency and I just wouldnāt like to call it. A lot could depend here on whoās ahead in the other parties, e.g. Heney or Haughey, Finian or Tom Broughan etc. On balance, I'd take Aodhan to lose out.
John Lyons (Dublin NW): On one reading heās up against it with Shortall taking a lot of ex-party votes. On the flip side though, this constituency as it stands is no-go zone for FG, although the boundary changes will help them. A lot of hype around this Noel Rock guy but heāll have his work cut out for him and if Lyons can stay ahead of him heāll likely make it off his transfers.
Joe Costello (Dublin Central): You could repeat the comments on Dublin NW here, except that boundary changes are bad for FG here but that the the FG candidate Paschal won't lack in name recognition.
This leaves just Dublin Rathdown and Dun Laoghaire. The Labour vote here actually held up well enough in parts in the locals. This strikes you as the sort of place weāll see a pro-government swing; it also strikes you though as the sort of place where FG will be the beneficiaries. Essentially in both seats you have a sure fire FG seat and an independent seat with the last seat probably between FF, FG and Labour. Youād probably make these less than 50/50 bets for Labour, especially in DL where the non-aligned seat is very much to the left; Minister White though might scrape back in Rathdown.
Iām shocked that lads are questioning OāRiordainās ability to get himself elected.
He already had to move constituency for the last General Election, and got elected with some space to spare. Since then heās continued a meteoric rise to be appointed as Junior Minister, be seen as the figurehead (from a political point of view) in the Marriage Equality referendum and has somehow managed to steer clear of the stench that is associated with most Labour Ministers like Burton, Kelly, etc.
Iām calling it now, not only will he be elected but heāll be the elected leader of Labour during the life of the next DĆ”il.
This is the chap who was bullied relentlessly at school by a number of forumites and labelled Gaydawn O Queerdawn by them. Heās overcome tougher challenges than being elected to Dublin Bay North and I concur with your prediction that he will lead the Labour Party.
He is the Irish version of Jeremy Corbyn. Wildly liberal and if he became leader it would likely be the final nail in whatās left of the labour coffin.
Laois Offaly doesnāt have a Labour TD. Laois and Offaly will be separate constituencies next year. I predict Laois will remain one FF one FG and one SF. Offaly has an extra seat which is very hard to call. Theyāll have one FF one FG and last seat could be any of Renua, SF, FF or independent (recently FF, see man with beard see 1.09 below).
Ya I was listening to it. It was kind of a wow moment. You couldnāt have much faith in a candidate that doesnāt even know her partyās position on a matter as prominent as this. Although the type of person that sees fit to award their no 1 to this candidate most propably wasnāt old enough to understand the callousness of the murder at the time and therefore it wonāt register to highly with them. She sounded like a poor candidate up to that point anyway and a quick check of her Twitter profile would confirm this.
I wonder would McGuinness (John) have been so bullish about a SF coalition if she had refused to condemn the murder earlier in the programme rather than at the very end. I though Claire Byrne let her off the hook too.
true, FF ruined the country, FG were given options on how to fix it and choose to hit the weakest in society rather than the richest, labour agreed with them and their only interest was feathering their nests yet somehow a girl that was a child has to answer about some cop getting killed decades ago
classic