Leo giving Martin an ultimatum either vote with or against the government no more abstaining.
No idea. OāBrien is a clown anyway.
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NEWS REVIEW
Political predictions for Ireland in 2020
This is an election year, that much we know. But what shape will the next government take and what other challenges will emerge on the road to Brexit?
Stephen OāBrien, Political Editor
January 5 2020, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
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January: The new year is upon us and thereās barely time to draw breath because January brings forth a flurry of political activity.
January 13 is the deadline for agreement between the political parties in Northern Ireland to restore the Stormont and Good Friday institutions. Like Cinderellaās coach and ball gown, legal powers allowing the civil service to run Northern Ireland will expire at midnight. Fresh assembly elections will be held in the absence of political agreement to put a new executive into office.
Northern Ireland has been without its own government for a few weeks shy of three years. Voters in last monthās Westminster elections arguably punished the parties responsible for bringing down Stormont ā Sinn Fein and the DUP. Sinn Fein lost Foyle to the SDLP by a three to one margin. The DUP lost Belfast South and North to the SDLP and Sinn Fein respectively, and Alliance stole the vacant Sylvia Hermon seat in North Down. The Northern Ireland electorate will not tolerate failure this week.
Varadkar is set to do battle in an election predicted to be contested in either April or MayEAMONN FARRELL
Speaking of political tension, Leo Varadkar and MicheƔl Martin parted company before Christmas on frosty terms. They are expected to meet this week or next to contemplate the fate of the 32nd Dail.
Martin wants āan orderly wind downā to April 9 (Holy Thursday). The taoiseach fears a wind down will lead to a three-month election campaign, and he wants an assurance that Martin can whip all his troops ā including John McGuinness ā to vote, or at least abstain, whenever needed. Failure to bridge the gap between the two could plunge us into a winter election few will welcome.
January 25: The citizensā assembly on gender equality will hold an inaugural meeting in Dublin Castle. The assembly has been tasked by the Oireachtas with issuing proposals that challenge gender discrimination, tackle pay differentials based on gender and reassess the value of work traditionally held by women.
It will examine the balance of childcare responsibilities within families and seek to facilitate greater work and life balance. Chaired by Catherine Day, former secretary-general of the European Commission, the assembly is expected to finish its public hearings by July and formally report by September.
January 31: Britain gets Brexit done? Well, sort of. Britain will leave the EU on the last day of the month and enter a transition period, which is due to end on December 31, and which British prime minister Boris Johnson insists he will not extend.
February 1: The minimum wage will increase by 30c to ā¬10.10 per hour, giving the government a platform to remind us how well the economy is performing and that a record number of people are working in Ireland.
The opposition will concentrate on the stubbornly high homeless figures and the number of patients who spent time on a trolley instead of a hospital bed in the new year.
Later in the month, Britain will begin negotiations on its future relationship with the EU, including the terms of a new trade deal. The Brussels trade talks will be led by Michel Barnier, reporting to Phil Hogan, the Irish commissioner for trade, who is on record with his claim that the December 2020 deadline is unrealistic.
At home, three possible dates for opposition āno confidenceā motions arise. If a motion is tabled and succeeds, a general election would take place in February. Simon Harris, the health minister, appears more likely than any other minister to face a confidence motion, but McGuinness, the rebel Fianna Fail TD, has said he will only support a motion of āno confidenceā in the government, not in an individual minister.
March: The US Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump should be long over and heavily defeated by the time the taoiseach leads the annual St Patrickās Day exodus to America and other parts of the globe.
The taoiseach has established an odd rapport with both Trump and the vice-president Mike Pence, and must relish the prospect for some further international limelight on a big stage. The prospect of visiting a president becoming embroiled in escalating military conflict in the Middle East might take the gloss off the trip, however.
April: On balance, April appears the most likely month for the election to take place, though the government will surely have to navigate some rocky waters between now and then.
The next Dail term is due to open on January 15 and close on April 9; Martin has suggested that this is the natural conclusion to the 32nd Dail, while Varadkar has spoken about an election in May. Thereās not a lot between them; these seasoned leaders will likely find enough common ground over the next 10 days to stave off an unwanted winter election.
May: Let the haggling begin. Who has set the terms of the debate? Who has fought the smartest campaign? Did the voters decide āitās the economy stupidā, and reward Fine Gael for its economic management with enough seats to return to office?
Or did they judge that they could no longer condone the chaos on our hospital wards, the massive waiting lists and the rearing of more than 3,000 children in homelessness, and give Martin his shot at leading the country and increasing public spending?
Martin appears to have momentum in the polls but the timing of the election will be everything. Any indication of a turn in the homelessness figures could create a better narrative for Fine Gael.
It is possible, of course, that the next government could be a reverse of the current one ā Fine Gael putting Fianna Fail (and a few independents) into power with a confidence and supply agreement. Or that one or other of the two main parties will swallow hard and do a deal with Sinn Fein, which will likely have 20 or 25 seats to offer.
But the results of the mid-term elections last May suggest other options may be open to Varadkar and Martin. Could the Green Party double its three Dail seats to six? Itās a big ask and it is more likely to come at the expense of Fine Gael than other parties.
Could Labour cash in its strong local election performance and turn it into a few extra Dail seats? A Labour Party with 10 seats would have a powerful bargaining chip; it is a big ask, but likely gains in Louth and Dublin Bay North suggest it is not completely beyond reach. The arithmetic will dictate what alliances are formed, not any fancy political courtship by the rival leaders.
Where there are winners, there will be losers; Martin, if not taoiseach, could face a leadership challenge though that might not materialise in the immediate aftermath of an election defeat given the absence of an obvious successor.
Varadkar will face a mandatory vote on his leadership under party rules if Fine Gael is not returned to government, as will Brendan Howlin, the Labour Party leader. Keep a close eye on Alan Kelly.
May will also see another election to an unreformed Seanad. Many believe it is an affront to democracy that the membership of the upper house is decided exclusively by county councillors and Oireachtas members, the graduates of the NUI and Trinity, and the taoiseach of the day.
June: The nations of the world will vote on which two of three countries ā Ireland, Norway and Canada ā should be appointed to the United Nations security council for 2021 and 2022. Success for Ireland would be a significant achievement. The government has been campaigning strongly on this for several years and there appears to be quiet confidence around our prospects. Letās hope no one notices how we appoint our senators.
September: Special education will take a leap forward in primary and second-level schools with the appointment of 400 new teachers and 1,000 additional special needs assistants. A further 150 teachers will be hired just to meet the rising pupil population.
Also this month, the Dublin footballers under new manager Dessie Farrell may or may not be on track for six in a row, but 100 Dublin citizens will gather in Dublin Castle to begin deliberations on whether Dublin should have a directly elected mayor. If there is to be a directly elected mayor, what powers and what resources should devolve to his or her office? It might be easier to predict the winners of the All-Ireland.
October: Budget month; will Varadkarās finance minister (Simon Coveney?) return to the Fine Gael agenda of cutting the top rate of tax or will Michael McGrath reprioritise government spending in a Fianna Fail-led government?
Whoever is writing the budget may well be relying on the Green Party for support ā does that mean higher carbon taxes to fund more spending on retrofits and charging points and rooftop solar panels? And are we facing carbon credit charges for failing to reach our 2020 targets on reducing environmental emissions and producing energy from sustainable sources? Estimates of our exposure range from ā¬230m to more than ā¬1bn.
With no second order elections due this year, the government will give political junkies their fix with the prospect of two or more referendums in October.
The government is committed to holding a vote on whether to extend the franchise in presidential elections to Irish citizens living overseas. A referendum commission to oversee this poll has already been established so, in theory, this could take place in tandem with a general election in April or May, but is more likely to be held over to the autumn.
The second possible referendum will be to enshrine wording in the constitution to keep water in public ownership, but finding the language for this is proving something of a challenge. SĆ©amus Woulfe, the attorney-general, has ruled that a 2016 referendum bill from Joan Collins, an Independents 4 Change TD, is unconstitutional.
The wrong wording in the constitution could jeopardise the status of group water schemes and private wells, for example, so the risk of unintended consequences is high.
Eoghan Murphy, the housing and local government minister, told the Dail last month the government was firmly committed to keeping public water services in public ownership, as reflected in the Water Services Acts and in the water services policy statement 2018-25, but the attorney-general is continuing to work on an amended version of Collinsās bill.
John Paul Phelan, the local government minister, told the Dail last month the government had also agreed in principle to hold a referendum on reducing the voting age from 18 to 16, but no decision had been made on when to put this question to the people.
While the proposal flowed from a citizensā assembly that sat in 2018, it could be kept off the ballot paper by another recommendation from the same assembly ā that no more than two referendums should be held at the same time.
October 25 is the 100th anniversary of the death of Terence MacSwiney, mayor of Cork, on hunger strike in Brixton jail, and it will be one of three sensitive centenary dates from the War of Independence falling within a six-week period.
On November 28, 1920, an IRA unit led by Tom Barry killed 16 British auxiliaries in the Kilmichael ambush in Co Cork. On December 12, entire sections of the commercial heart of Cork city around Patrick Street were razed to the ground by auxiliaries, Black and Tans and British Army troops in the infamous Burning of Cork.
December: The minister for finance, whoever he or she may be, will be forced to approve a supplementary budget estimate of ā¬500m for the Department of Health . . . because some things never change.
Oh, is Brexit done yet? Boris Johnson is to include a clause in legislation ruling out an extension of the transition period beyond the end of 2020, tying his own hands so to speak. So what will Jools Holland be counting down on December 31 . . . the dawn of 2021 or Britainās no-deal exit from the EU?
Miriam Lord should have her own thread, sheās fucking brilliant.
Of course, it has to be about the future, going forward. Although, in the space-time continuum, there are endless possibilities.
A future to look forward to.
A present to look away from.
A past to make a bags of.
Listened to rte politics show there. It made for very disappointing listening from the perspective of anyone approaching the future of Irish politics with hope. Verona Murphy shitting all over the prospects of green party aims like reducing Co2 emissions because theyāre completely unrealistic. Michael McGrath agreeing that you should do something and that something should definitely be ambitious but sure you couldnāt put a number or target on it. Colm Brophy Fg went all Jim Gavin, sure I couldnāt even tell you anything about our aims and beliefs and views because thereās a process in place that we need to stick to. Marie Sherlock of Labour says the the government we donāt yet have needs strong opposition and Labour are the ones to be that. Roderick o Gorman was decent. He actually said something, which was highly unusual, about how and why Ireland should try to reduce emissions. He also landed a beauty on Verona pointing out how pro science she is for Corona but anti science for climate change. Verona doesnāt care though because sheās roooral, as she repeated ad nauseam.
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Esteemed political hack Pat Leahy mooted in his column today that greens are screwed in election regardless ,so they might as well go into govt and get as much as they can implemented now
A second election this year favour SF as the public would not relish a second election? Or Leo sweep to power based on his poetry based addresses to the nation
A bump for both SF and FG for me. Losses for independents, PBP, labour and FF. Leo would love it now but cant be seen to push for it and will settle for a government with FF as the minority.
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There will be no election for a least 12 months .
more losses for labour = wipe out
Green bashing is the new SF bashing for the establishment
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FTGs
FF are gone.
They backed themselves into a corner, or got stuck in the middle trying to be the party for all, which used to work, not anymore.
They will lose a certain amount of support going in with FG.
SF are the main opposition now. The young people joining en masse will ensure they keep growing. They are joining a party with a goal, no self serving.
SF will just wait. A United Ireland is the ultimate goal. Not like Mickey Martin quest for Taoiseach.
Just like the old quote;
When asked about the influence of the French Revolution, the late premier Zhou Enlai is reputed to have said: āToo early to say.ā
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Leo will settle for anything that leaves Leo as taoiseach.
The end.
If the gov is formed itās likely that Martin will be Taoiseach
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Itās practically guaranteed
Not disagreeing with you but would it not be better to let leo, simon h and possibly Pascal in place until weāre over the hump of this thing?
I canāt see Leo staying on for another term of government or being Taoiseach unless he goes first. I canāt see him getting to the mid point and then retiring to some cushy number outside politics.
Martin is the same and will be gone after he served his term as Taoiseach. That is all he gives a fuck about, as far as he is concerned FF can be consumed by FG, SF or monster raving looney party as long as he gets his stint as Taoiseach
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Wouldnāt really agree with either point there, Iād say the opposite of both is true.
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Youāve an awful cynical outlook on life.