I don’t think O’Leary will get in. Kennedy has been a councillor for years and is a former cathaoirleach of Fingal Co Council. He’s moved his base to Swords for the past few years which is a huge population area so he has all the FF support there. O’Leary is taking Glennon’s old votes but Glennon wasn’t popular with HQ - he was publicly critical of Bertie’s integrity - and on top of that O’Leary has no standing with the party grass-roots.
Kennedy may well be the biggest fool in the Dil if he gets elected but I think he will.
He’s moved his base to Swords for the past few years which is a huge population area so he has all the FF support there. [/quote]
I know he moved to Swords for electorale reasons but has he really got support of all FF voters there? His posters with the slogan ‘make experience count’ are cringeworthy. I think O’Leary might do well because of the name factor and also because he has such a large area of support (Balbriggan, Skerries).
On the basis of the two opinion polls today it looks likely that both the ff, pd and fg labour coalitions will fall short of a majority. Even if you include the greens in the fg, labour equation it still looks to fall short. On the basis of the figures in the polls the only real option seems to be an ff/labour coalition. Rabitte has said over the weekend that he won’t go into government with ff. Howlin seems good value to be next Tanaiste at 7/1. It is hard to imagine the Labour party going into government with Ahern as Taoiseach so Cowen also seems good value at 9/1 to be next Taoiseach.
If that happens piper I expect Rabbitte to do a turnaround and go into government with FF. He’ll go on about having to do it because it’s in the national interest to form a government rather than having a hung Dail. Whatever happens I reckon he’ll be Tanaiste.
If he does go into government with ff though i’d imagine he’d demand a different taoiseach other than ahern. On the six one news last friday he said bertie should forget the idea of labour going into coalition with ff. He didn’t say ff should forget about it.
Irish Times MRBI poll tomorrow shows FF are up five with Labour down three and FG down one. This is hugely disappointing. How 41% of the electorate can vote FF with the state of the hospitals, schools, housing, not to mention corruption is beyond me. This is the same level of support that FF got in the last election. People might argue it says more about the ineptitude of Enda Kenny than anything else but even still how can we possibly re-elect this truely abysmal government.
I can’t see Rabbitte being any more welcoming of Cowan then Ahern. He doesn’t have personal relationship difficulties with Biffo but they’re miles apart on the economy.
Irish Times poll tomorrow shows big improvement for FF:
FF up five to 41. FG down one to 27. labour down three to 10. sf down one to 9. greens up one to 6. pds 2
That would be an absolute disaster for FG/Labour.
Greens/Labour/SF could all conceivably form a government with FF then.
Bertie clearly won the debate. All this talk about a knock out blow is rubbish. He has used the payments controversy to get people to feel sorry for him again. In addition I also suspect that people a few weeks out from an election say they will vote for a different party but when push comes to shove they revert back to family trends or have a fear of the unknown so go back to ff. I can think of one forum member actually who was convinced he wouldn’t vote ff a while back but has since back tracked despite the appalling ff candidates in his constituency.
A bit harsh Piper. We now have full employment, a decent economy and peace in the North which is a massive achievement for Bertie. Lest not forget that.
I don’t know. FF are masters at vote collecting and it just seems to be happening for them at the right time. That said the poll is out of synch with others recently so it may be a statistical anomaly.
The debate should have been reflected in the Sunday Business Post poll.
Piper - on the FF/Labour thing. I think there will be resignations from Labour if they’re asked to go into government with FF. I think Michael D Higgins won’t support the government and a few more as well. The grassroots would not be happy and I’m not sure how possible it is in that context.
They’ve done well on generating revenue and employment and Bertie has done well personally on the six counties.
What I judge them on is how they spend the money they earn. They’ve mismanaged our funds horribly and to be honest with us being part of the EU now that’s the part of the economy the government manages. The interest rates are dictated to us, corporation tax we discovered a long time ago (it was a Labour finance minister Ruairi Quinn who came up with the 12.5% thing). There’s been precious few changes to the economy implemented by FF/PDs.
What we have had is gross mismanagement of our spending on health, transport and national infrastructure. We have queues to get into schools, hospitals and onto motorways. We’ve done nothing at all that could be seen as anticipatory. Everything has been sluggish and reactive.
Agree on the economy and the north but the public services are a disgrace and this is fundamental to the country. Class sizes are second highest in Europe. Schools get their PE equipment by getting parents to collect tokens from Super Valu or Teso because government no longer give money to get equipment. Hospitals are widely regarded as being a disgrace. Public transport system is very poor. People now spend hours in their cars getting to and from work because we have no public transport system to cope with spralling city.Government’s decentrilisation plans have been very poor and hap hazard. Yes people are now employed but the quality of people’s lives has surely diminshed over last five years. To say this is all because more people are working is a lame excuse. This Govenment have been hugely inept with little or no vision.
It is not you. You will not be surprised to learn who the forum member is as he has been now to crack under pressure in the past (shooting from the half way line in a league decider etc.)