Campaign Diary - Day 0

In my real life I'm a C programmer and we count from zero. It's just the way we are, being obsessed with integral things rather than using the natural numbering scheme and starting from 1. Hence yesterday, when Brian Cowen finally went up to the Phoenix Park and got the President to dissolve the Dáil, counts as day zero in my world.

The big item was the dissolution and the speeches from each of the party leaders. Cowen was surprisingly statesmanlike but then again as he is retiring he probably didn't feel the need to stick in a very partisan speech. Kenny and Gilmore both got straight into the election mode outlining their plans for government and all the amazing things that would happen once the reins of power had been handed over. While Kenny focussed more on FG's own stance, Gilmore went on the attack against both FF and FG and their right-wing, conservative duality.

The two speeches that interested me most were the Green and Sinn Féin contributions. Gormley, acutely aware that there may be no Green voice in the next Dáil set out his party's main achievements and put down some challenges to the future Taoiseach and Tanaiste (Kenny and Gilmore) about reform. O'Caolain, for once brief and to the point, got a good parting dig in at the Greens and again highlighted SF's stance against the EU/IMF.

All in all it was a bit unsatisfactory. For a set piece that has been on the cards for ages and had been fixed for over a week there didn't seem to be much in the way of oratory. In a way you wish that someone like Michael D Higgins had been given one last hurrah to deliver a suitably profound, erudite and at times funny speech wrapping up what has been a fairly disastrous Dáil over the last 3.5 years.

On the media front, I still think RTE's new show The 11th Hour needs a fair bit of work. I watched the 1st episode on RTE player and then watched last night's up to the "comedy" bit before switching over to Vincent Browne. However, it is worth noting that their go live date was brought back a few weeks with the early election. Also worth noting that early editions of The Colbert Report were also ropey despite the host's previous experiences on the Daily Show. It took the guts of a year to settle into a pattern that was comfortable in its own skin.

Speaking of Vincenzo Castano, it was interesting to see his all female panel on last night's show. There was minimal haranguing between the candidates but you felt for a while as though SF's Kathleen Funchion was only there to make up the numbers as there were several 10 minute segments where she didn't get a word in. It was also very brave of Noirín Hegarty to appear on the show considering the news about the Tribune.

Confidence versus Finance

I've been abroad for a few days and have missed out on so much politics it's not funny. Between Brian Cowen resigning and then the Greens leaving government I should vow to never leave the country again. Then again, if my absence in any small way helped bring about these events I would have no problem in spending another extended weekend in Paris. (This might be a case of the correlation does not imply causation fallacy.)

The big thing this evening is the agreed timetable for the finance bill and an early election, now probably 25th February. This comes at the expense of Labour giving up on their motion of no confidence and all other Dáil business being suspended so the bill will be sent to the Seanad on Friday. Any amendments from the upper house will be passed either in an emergency Dáil session on Saturday or else first thing on Tuesday week before Cowen finally heads up to the Áras to dissolve the Dáil and officially start the election race.

It is important to note that while Fine Gael and Labour are agreeing to this timetable, neither party will be voting in favour of the provisions of the bill. This role will strictly be reserved for the Greens and the pair of independent TDs along with the remains of Fianna Fáil. If the motion of no confidence was debated tomorrow and Wednesday, it would be defeated as the Greens have said they want the finance bill passed. This would drag out the life of the Dáil for another few weeks up, on the 11th March election date timetable.

Nothing in the finance bill cannot be reversed or modified by the incoming government. In my view this compromise is better than another few weeks of farce in the Dáil allowing Fianna Fáil's new leader to settle in and get up a head of steam before the election. This timescale brings about an election as soon as possible and while it does leave a bit of a nasty taste to have this finance bill passed, the alternative is far, far worse.

Losing Ministers

So much for the motion of confidence in Brian Cowen stabilizing the country. Following on from Micheál Martin's resignation after his failed coup, the poor Taoiseach has lost another five of his ministers in the last day. There are now six departments with Cowen as acting minister to go along with his responsibilities as Taoiseach.

Of the remaining ministers it seems unlikely that Lenihan or Coughlan will depart nor the Green duo. Mary Hanafin, despite coming out against Cowen has hung on in Tourism and I don't see her bailing either. Dev Óg is needed to keep the FF flag flying in the west. This just leaves Brendan Smith who could go either way and Pat Carey who due to his allegiances to Hanafin may just stick it out despite being in serious danger of loosing his seat in Dublin North West.

Promoting backbenchers or current junior ministers to these positions would be the final act of cynicism of this Government. While they won't qualify for pensions for ministerial service, it is farcical to suggest that over a 3 month period (1 until the election, 1 during the campaign and 1 in caretaker mode until the new government is installed) these people could reform and rejuvenate their departments. Spreading the load amongst the remaining ministers is the only viable option.

Confidence tricks

This afternoon Labour announced that they were putting down a motion of no confidence in the government in their private members time on 25/26 of the month. This comes a few days after the Sinn Féin led Technical Group's motion of no confidence in the Taoiseach which would not be on the order of business until some time in March. This is a significant move for several reasons.

Firstly, in the normal course of events, a Government takes the motion on their time in the house, puts an amendment that turns it into a vote of confidence and then passes that. It does it as quickly as possible to stop the story from lingering on for ages. However, the Chief Whip, John Curran, has indicated that the motion will not be taken until Labour's private members time. This strongly suggests that he doesn't think he has the numbers to successfully amend the motion from a no confidence to confidence one.

Bear in mind that no matter what happens in the next week or so there will be an election in March or early April as the Greens are leaving once the Finance Bill is passed. There is a school of thought that the motion should have been held in reserve until the Finance Bill is passed and that would either force the Greens to leave before the Climate and Donations bills get passed or renege on their promise to depart. Even if they didn't leave the three by-elections have been promised for the 1st quarter 2011 anyway and once they have been won by opposition parties (1 each for FG, L and SF probably) the game is up.

The pressure is now heaped on the potential Fianna Fáil rebels as they have to decide soon what their course of action is. I am not sure what the procedures are for electing a new leader in FF but I'm assuming there is a period of time for nominations while the existing deputy leader takes charge in a temporary capacity. Now, as I said yesterday I actually don't care who is in charge of FF, but the timing of the coup and how it plays out makes for entertaining viewing. There are a few ways the next little while can play out. If I have missed some please post them in the comments section.

• Cowen goes up to the Áras over the weekend and dissolves the Dáil and we have a general election on 11th February or so. FF couldn't oust him in the middle of the campaign so Cowen would lead them into the election.
  
• FF circle the wagons, leave Cowen intact, and survive the motion. This forces the backbenchers such as Chris Andrews and John McGuinness, who have recently been distancing themselves from Government, to publicly back the Taoiseach.
  
• The heave proceeds but fails to oust Cowen. The Brutus character(s) (Martin, Hanafin or Lenihan) has to resign from Cabinet and this leaves a very damaged FF heading into the election. It also makes surviving the no confidence motion more difficult as the rebels may not vote to save Cowen.
  
• The heave succeeds and Coughlan becomes acting leader. Based on Lowry and JHR's statements about not supporting another FF Taoiseach, Cowen has to stay in the job. The motion of confidence then requires FF TDs who voted against Cowen being in charge of their party to vote in favour of him running the country.
  
• The heave succeeds and Cowen then heads to the Áras. The new leader is elected at the end of the first week of the election campaign and barely has time to prepare for the TV debates.
  

None of these outcomes are particularly good for the government parties and some are disastrous. On the other hand, they are all pretty positive for the opposition parties, especially Labour, who have to go on the offensive against both FG and SF to avoid being squeezed from both left and right. Therefore it comes as no surprise that Fine Gael have come out saying that this motion was badly timed and ill-advised. One only has to think back to the summer to see FG's track record on badly timed confidence motions though. During the run up to the motion of no confidence Richard Bruton made his ill-fated move against Enda Kenny. It seems unlikely that Joan Burton is going to launch a heave against Eamon Gilmore over the weekend but you never know - stranger things have happened.

Another call to patriotic duty?

Tomorrow afternoon we get to hear Brian Lenihan's final budget as Minister for Finance. Of course it's not really his budget anymore as the EU/IMF have effectively provided him with some figures to wrap up in English. We already know a reasonable amount of the contents of the Minister's speech, the details on tax credit reductions, tax bands, PRSI reform and some form of property tax are the items I will be most looking out for.

Depending on what Michael Lowry and Jackie Healy-Rae come out with this evening, the most important thing to look out for during the first round of speeches is who exactly is in the chamber. Were Mattie McGrath or John McGuinness to be absent then that sends a strong signal that the election has started. Similarly, Lucinda Creighton's absence can be taken as a sign that the vote will be carried.

It will also be good to hear Michael Noonan giving the budget riposte from the FG benches. One of my favourite memories as a young fella with only a passing interest in politics was Noonan's response to a budget during the 1st Gulf War where he described the various cuts as Scud Missiles fired at the poorest in society. His turn of phrase will be a marked improvement on the humming and hawing of Richard Bruton who despite always homing in on the important figures, never really managed to land proper blows on the Minister.

Finally I hope that RTE do the right thing and finally cover all four of the main speeches rather than cutting away to their panel as soon as Lenihan finishes. The people have a right to see the opposition spokespersons putting their point as one of them is likely to end up being the Minister for Finance in early 2011 who is going to have to implement the mess that the current government leave behind.

Insert coin to continue

I go away for a quick weekend trip to Cork and Galway and I come back to Dublin to discover the country has fallen apart at the seams. Well nothing like playing catchup on about 1000 blog posts, 10,000 tweets and 100,000 politics.ie posts. This is now the end of the end for this government. Gormley's statement this morning that he wants an election date in late January has given us all a target date to aim for. However, I'm still not convinced that we won't have an election this side of Christmas.

Somewhere around Enfield I switched over to the radio, having been listening to Grand Magus' awesome Hammer of the North up until then, to catch the end of the news and some of Liveline. Firstly Mammy O'Rourke, who's constituency I had just zipped through at 120km/h, was blathering on about the Fianna Fáil leadership issue and how they would take stock in the New Year after the budget had been passed. Talk about not getting it - the people don't care about internal FF shenanigans anymore and with the Greens having put a sunset clause on this Dáil sticking to her timetable would leave them dealing with a leadership heave right in the middle of an election campaign.

Then Sean Power came on Joe Duffy and suggested that Cowen resign with almost immediate effect, the parties all come together and pass a budget to appease the IMF and then we have our election next year. The problem with that is if Cowen is gone then so too will be support from Lowry and Healy-Rae. Thus after the by-election in DSE spells the game is up with 82 opposition (51FG, 20L, 5SF, McGrath, O'Sullivan, Behan, Grealish, Lowry, JHR) and only 80 government.

Later on this week I'll get around to the IMF issue but at the pace things are moving right now that will be very old news by then.

What a week

It really has been one of those weeks. Lets just take a minute to review

Monday

The week started with the dousing of Mary Harney with red paint at a sod-turning in West Dublin. I can't really condone Cllr Louise Minihan's shenanigans at the event, especially seeing as she was there in an official capacity representing the city council. However, considering most people wouldn't have heard of Minihan and Eirigí before this week, the publicity stunt seems to have worked and I am not sure that the Lord Mayor has any sanction he can impose on the unruly Councillor.

Tuesday

Tuesday saw the unexpected resignation of Dr Jim McDaid, FF deputy from Donegal North East. Having been an outspoken opponent of many of the policies of the current government and being long of the opinion that a general election was required, it was surprising to see him leave rather than vote against the budget and precipitate an election.

Wednesday

USI managed to organize their largest march in years with around 20,000 students taking to the streets protesting against education cut backs and the recently announced plans to increase registration charges by up to €1,500 from next year. The entire event was overshadowed by the occupation of the Dept of Finance by a small number of protesters and the heavy handed Garda response featuring the riot squad as well as mounted and canine units. This video on YouTube does not show the boys in blue in a terribly positive light. One wonders if they decided to use the students as practice in case a more aggressive protest against the budget happens in a few weeks.

Thursday

Thursday brought the passing of the DSW by-election writ while the other three vacancies were all voted down. All along the government have used the excuse that a by-election would distract from the current important business and had nothing at all to do with FF hanging on to power at all costs. Now with the distraction of having one by-election, what's the harm in having all of them at once? Oh yes, the spectre of the government falling and all the FF deputies having to face the music.

Friday

Like the main evening news, the week ended with a light hearted "and finally" story with the let them eat cheese fiasco. Considering that this is an event that happens every year under the radar it seems a bit stupid for a Minister to announce it in a Marie Antoinette moment. Brought a smile to my face and about a million bad puns to the Twitterverse.

I wonder if next week can match up to the excitement of the last few days. I hope not as there is almost too much going on to keep track of!

Passing the Budget

This is not a post on specific measure that may or may not be in the budget. That will happen shortly. What I want to think about today is the politics and numbers of getting the budget passed in December as any loss of supply on a finance bill requires immediate dissolution of the Dáil and a General Election.

At present things are finely balanced in the Dáil. Jim McDaid's resignation this morning means the government have an 82-79 majority which relies on the 3 un-whipped FFers (Devins, Scanlon and McGrath) and two independents (Lowry and Healy-Rae). When it comes to the budget none of these votes can be counted on by the government side. The two Sligo deputies are the most likely to back Lenihan as they are only outside the party on health issues. McGrath is a complete wild card and unless something specific is promised to Tipperary South in terms of health or investment he could well jump ship. Lowry, with his half billion Tipperary Venue green lighted, is now good to face the electorate. Only Healy-Rae is likely to cling to FF as his seat is seen as the most vulnerable to a Labour bounce in Kerry South.

From the opposition point of view they should all be voting against the budget on a matter of principle and to pile the pressure on the above named wobblers. But a small part of me wonders whether it is in the best interests of FG and Lab to have the budget fail. Say the first vote fails on 7th December then the last possible date for the subsequent general election is Thursday 6th January. With Christmas and the New Year intervening I'm pretty sure the public at large or the foot soldiers doing the canvassing won't thank them.

Secondly, and more importantly, if a harsh budget is pushed through, we then move into by-election mode where the government are going to loose at least 3 of them. If they were to loose all 4 then it is all over straight away as the maths moves to 82-83. So facing this possibility the government may just cut its losses in March before holding the by-elections. Having a spring general election would allow the opposition to campaign on the unfair cuts and taxes imposed by the outgoing government, propose alternatives and still benefit from the savings made for 2011, or at least a period in 2011 before an emergency budget was put in place by whatever grouping takes charge.

Of course, if the High Court come back tomorrow and order the by-elections before the budget then we could be facing an general election sooner than we think.

Fantasy All Ireland Dail

Seeing as the glorious twelfth has just passed, I thought it might be time to have a little cross-border shenanigans. At some point in the future, 10 years or maybe 100 years, the Good Friday agreement will bring about a united Ireland. When that happens we will have an all-island parliament in the Dáil in which parties from North and South will have to come to some sort of arrangement. So I thought I'd have a look at what a combined parliament would look like.

Firstly, the constitution states that there should be a TD for between every 20k and 30k people. With about 4.2M people in the Republic being represented by 166 TDs that gives a rate of just over 25k per TD, right in the middle of the required limits. Given there are about 1.8M people in the 6 counties, on that ratio there would be 72 northern TDs bringing the total Dáil size to 238 and meaning a coalition would need 119 deputies to take power.

Based on the results of the recent general election results in the north, the 72 seats might be distributed something like the following

• Sinn Fein, 25.5%, 19 seats
• DUP, 25%, 18 seats
• SDLP, 16.5%, 12 seats
• Conservatives/Unionists, 15.2%, 11 seats
• Alliance, 6.3%, 4 seats
• Traditional Unionists, 3.9%, 2 seats
• Others, 7.6%, 6 seats

Of course, in a unified Ireland it would be expected that the SF/SDLP vote would be higher as a majority would have voted for unification already. But lets just stick with these numbers.

The next question is with which southern parties would these groups align themselves? Sinn Fein are the most obvious as they would join their existing 4 deputies. SDLP are members of the PES like Labour and so would most likely join them, but at the same time they have had links with FF in the past and would be heavily courted. We'll place the Others (which might include an extra Green) with the existing independents and leave the Alliance as a stand alone unit for now.

That leaves the 31 seats representing the Unionist parties. All three would be somewhat aligned with FG on the christian democrat front, but are actually more hostile to each other than most of the other parties, therefore it is impossible to see a situation where they all join with one southern grouping. Therefore I'm going to add the Con/U to FG and then merge the Traditionals with the DUP and leave them as another new grouping. I'm also assigning the by-elections as 1FG, 1Lab, 1SF. This would leave the Dáil looking as follows

• Fianna Fáil - 72
• Fine Gael - 63
• Labour - 32
• Sinn Féin - 24
• DUP/TradU - 20
• Green - 6
• Alliance - 4
• Others - 17

Now to look at the horse-trading to form a coalition. Lets assume that FF and FG will still avoid each other and that the DUP will not join with SF (even though they work together in Stormont) but that any other combination is fair game. The simplest option for FF is to rope in Lab and SF and run with a 9 person majority. Alternatively swapping SF for DUP still gives a comfortable majority and has the benefit of being inclusive of the unionist community. FG on the other hand need to cobble together a rainbow of some sort. FG/Lab/SF scrapes in at 119 and so would need to rope in the Greens, Alliance or a smattering of Others to provide stable government. No other combinations get close to the magic figure.

It should be noted, of course, that on current opinion polls, the representation in the South would be drastically different to what is currently in place. Perhaps in another post I'll have a look at how a united Dáil in 2012 would look.

Whip it!

One of my best memories of watching Beavis and Butthead in the early 90's was when Devo's Whip It came on. The poor lads didn't know what to make of the song or the video and the term bumsnoidial buttsnoid was invented. Anyway the relevance of that useful snippet of nostalgia to this blog is the aftermath of the stag hunting bill last week.

The bill, which to my non-expert eye didn't really do that much, ended up being passed in the Dáil despite defections from various quarters. Mattie McGrath (FF) from South Tipperary voted against the bill in the electronic vote and then abstained from the walkthrough that was called. Tommy Broughan (Lab) from Dublin North-East refused to attend the session for either vote and Arthur Morgan (SF) from Louth managed to get himself suspended from the chamber so as not to have to vote against the bill. Then in the Seanad, Labour Senator Ivana Bacik also abstained from the vote on the bill.

After these events, both McGrath and Broughan lost the whip of their respective parties and Bacik found a strongly worded letter in her mail warning her of the consequences of any further non compliance with PLP wishes. Add to these the existing FF outcasts (Butler and Callely in the Seanad with Devins, Scanlon and McDaid in the Dáil) and potential future rebels (Máire Hoctor and Christy O'Sullivan downstairs and Senators Walsh, Hanafin and Ó Murchú upstairs) and all of a sudden there are quite a number of public reps operating outside the party system.

Having lost the whip, these members have to relocate their office to the independents penthouse floor and must resign any seats on committees that they held on behalf of the party. Most importantly, under the D´il Standing Orders they lose speaking rights in the Dáil as they are not a member of a party or technical group with 7 or more members. The goverment will not share time with its own rebels, but at the same time whipless FF TDs are unlikely to join forces with the "real" independents such as Jackie Healy Rae, Finian McGrath or Maureen O'Sullivan and give them a platform from which to attack their erstwhile colleagues in goverment.

The real problem stems from the strict enforcement of the whip system in the Dáil, due to our preference for a minimal sized coalition and lack of large majorities. In the UK there are three levels of whip along with free votes on certain issues. In the Dáil there is always a two line whip in operation with a three line enforced for votes of confidence, finance bills etc. This leads to the daft situation that occurred with the Stag Hunting bill where at least six FF back benchers spoke against the bill but only McGrath followed through on the threat of not supporting. For a bill of this nature that would not collapse the government, surely those who oppose it, whether for moral or political pressures, should be allowed to go with their conscience.

Women, women everywhere

Sometimes you have to wonder what planet people are living on. Take for example Fiona O'Malley's contribution to the Seanad debate on women's participation in politics. She proposed two ballot papers in each of 60 constituencies, one with men's names and one with women's. Yes it guarantees equality of the sexes in the parliament but it also pretty much guarantees a landslide victory for one party over the rest - it is most likely that both candidates returned from each constituency will be from the same party. It also throws out any idea of proportionality which is one of the major benefits of our current electoral system.

The concept of quotas also brings up the under-representation of lots of other groups in the Dáil. Why isn't there a requirement for the age profile of TDs to be in line with the results of the most recent census? Why don't we have to have a number of TDs representing the unemployed, the sick, atheists, left-handed people? Sure women as a group have gotten the short end of the stick since the dawn of time, but I don't think that stuffing the parliament with them for the sake of appearance will fix it.

All change or no change?

After several weeks of resignations and endless speculation about a mid-term Cabinet shake up, Brian Cowen yesterday announced the lamest reshuffle possible. In a way it should come as no surprise that he followed this course of action - any serious purge of deadwood would have been quickly followed by a heave against him and a May or June general election.

In terms of big cars, the shocker is putting Mary Coughlan in charge of Education. I had previously advocated moving her back to Agriculture or maybe Transport where she could cause minimal harm. But to make her responsible for the state of learning in the country is a very sick joke. The woman who thought Einstein had developed the theory of evolution should be kept as far away from learning as possible.

Mary Hanifan must really be wondering what she did in a previous life to deserve her treatment. To be initially bumped from Education to Social Welfare was bad but she did a good job of defending cut backs in allowances and changes to pensions. But now to be booted into the rejigged Tourism, Culture and Sport is pretty grim. You have to wonder with the reduction in the Dún Laoghaire constituency whether she will just pack up and go back to her teaching post in Sion Hill.

The other outrage, again involving a Mary, sees the Minister for Health stay exactly where she is. Eamon Gilmore took her to task in his speech on the reshuffle in the Dáil and I expect the heat to be turned up over the next few weeks. A motion of no confidence must be on the horizon and it will put some of the independents who are supporting the government in an awkward position if they have to vote in favour of her staying in post.

As for the Greens, their concept of rotating ministries seems to have been shelved with the senior positions staying as is. However, after campaigning hard on reducing the number of junior ministries from 18 to 15 as a token at cost saving, it is quite ironic to see them grab a second half car bumping the number back up to 16. With Ciarán Cuffe taking over Trevor Sargent's old job, Mary White gets herself the Equality and Human Rights role to occupy her time.

Minister on the move?

In the last week or so I have heard talk of Minister Mary Hanafin relocating her electoral base from Dún Laoghaire into Dublin South. At first I was extremely skeptical as she has steadily built her vote over the last three elections from just over 9% in 1997 to in excess of 20% in 2007. However, on further reflection it is not as far fetched as one might imagine.

The constituency boundaries were redrawn after the 2007 general election and Dún Laoghaire was reduced from 5 seats to 4 seats and about 11000 residents were moved into neighbouring Dublin South. The moved areas were mainly in Foxrock, Cabinteely and Leopardstown so the new boundary between the two constituencies is now the N11 Stillorgan Dual Carriageway.

Firstly let us consider the state of play in Dún Laoghaire. In 2007, both Fianna Fáil candidates headed the poll with over two quotas between them. After that, Eamon Gilmore of Labour was elected. Fine Gael's three candidate strategy failed miserably as with almost 1.5 quotas they should have been able to get two elected had only two candidates been run. The final seat was picked up by Ciaran Cuffe of the Green Party leaving Richard Boyd Barrett as the loser. If at the time the constituency had been a 4 seater, the most likely result would have been that 2FF, 1FG, 1Lab if the votes had been cast in the same proportions.

The 2009 local elections show a remarkable change in fortunes. Taking the results for the three main wards that make up the Dún Laoghaire Dáil constituency (Ballybrack, Dún Laoghaire and Blackrock - a small part of Stillorgan is also in DL) FG won 35% of the vote, Labour almost 24%, PBP 14% with FF back in 4th place on just shy of 13%. A repeat of these would result in 2FG, 1Lab and 1PBP being returned in the 4 seat Dáil constituency. Going from 2 TDs to none might seem extreme but remember that in 2002 no FG deputies were returned here, whereas only 10 years previously three were elected. A more realistic result might be 1FF, 1FG, 1Lab, 1PBP. But whatever happens there is no chance of both FF deputies being re-elected.

Looking at Dublin South, in 2007 FF won two seats through Seamus Brennan and Tom Kitt, with FG taking another two and the Greens wining the last seat with Eamon Ryan. Since then of course Brennan has passed away, Kitt announced his intention to retire at the next election, George Lee won the by-election with over 50% of the first preferences and then resigned. The bottom line is that going into the next election, FF will not have any sitting deputies looking for re-election. Of course Senator Maria Corrigan will look for a nomination, but her track record is poor having failed to be elected in 2 general elections and a Seanad election before being appointed to the Seanad by Bertie Ahern in 2007. Shay Brennan, late of Anglo Irish Bank, will also seek to run, but his outing in the by-election was less than impressive, failing to achieve even half the party's vote from the general election 2 years previous.

The local elections and the by-election both point to this constituency returning 1FF, 2FG, 1Lab and a big fight between FF, FG and Green for the final seat. So the solution to FF's problem seems pretty clear. They should move one of the two TDs from DL to DS. With only one candidate in DL they should be safe in winning one. To be in with a shout of the second in DS they need a heavy hitter and who better than the current minister, Mary Hanafin, to be the main vote getter on a two candidate ticket, or if they feel suicidal put all three on the ballot and hand the seat to FG or the Greens.

Thanks to Elections Ireland for the raw data and OpenOffice for doing the sums.

Democratic Deficit

On The Week in Politics last night, Minister Mary Hanifan stated that the byelection for Donegal South West would not be held until "the back end of the year". By this I am assuming she means sometime in October. She then proceeded to justify this further delay on the basis of a possible Mayoral election in Dublin, a possible constitutional amendment on Children's Rights and the need for another byelection in Dublin South.

It has been 8 months already since Pat Gallagher was elected as an MEP and had to vacate his seat in DSW. This is a constituency which with an electorate of 60,829 at the last election and according to the 2007 report of the Constituency Commission had a population of 73,390. With 3 TDs this is right in the middle of the constitutional requirement to have 1 TD for between 20,000 and 30,000 people. However with currently only 2 TDs, Mary Coughlan and Dinny McGinley, the area currently has a TD for every 36,695 inhabitants which is way outside the allowed tolerances. It is a disgrace that the government are allowed to sit on the writ to avoid the embarrassment of FF losing the seat when it is the Táiniste's constituency.

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I would propose a change to article 16.7.1 that would put a time limit on filling casual vacancies in the Dáil of three months. This would avoid the current situation where a government can indefinitely postpone a byelection just because it doesn't suit the numbers in the Dáil.

Where do we go from here?

As the world an its mother knows by this stage, George Lee has packed in the job of TD for Dublin South and left FG. There have been reasons given, accusations made, hours of talk radio and miles of column inches covering the story since it broke just before lunchtime yesterday. I'm not going to add anything here on the specifics of George Lee since I don't really have anything insightful to add.

On the other hand, I can totally speculate on the political fallout from his departure. It leaves Frank Flannery and the FG backroom boys with a lot of egg on their face. After all the hype about George's candidacy and subsequent election, they have badly let down the party. The handlers should have known that something wasn't right and tried to sort it out.

So the first question is, will there be a push against Enda Kenny? From the wagon circling that has been going on in FG in the last 24 hours that seems unlikely. Richard Bruton is the obvious candidate for the top job, but that leaves them without a strong voice on Finance - I just couldn't see Kieran O'Donnell or Leo Varadkar going toe to toe with Lenihan and Burton. Beyond that you're looking at either Simon Coveney or Brian Hayes but again it is hard to see either of them leading the heave to oust Kenny.

So assuming Kenny is safe, there will still be some flak and fallout from George's departure in FG. Would it be in Cowen's interest, with his recent bump in the polls to dash up to the Áras and cut his losses. After January's tax receipts, the Boston Scientific and Halifax job cuts announced recently and the impending report from the Tribunal, things are only going to start looking down again from the FF side of the house. We could be looking at an election on 5th or 12th March (or the days before if they want to exclude students from the electorate again). According to my back of the envelope calculation a snap general election would return about the following spread of TDs

• FF - 57
  
• FG - 68
  
• Lab - 29
  
• SF - 4
  
• Green - 1
  
• Other - 7
  

which wouldn't be too disastrous from an FF point of view. Labour seats won't break 30 due to lack of local organizations in some parts. This will give a comfortable majority to FG/Lab but will keep the relationship honest as Labour could always threaten to invite FF back into power at any stage. An election in 2012 would give a much different result with Lab and FG both increasing further and FF falling. The post election horse trading then is going to be very interesting.

However, I don't think that Cowen will bail in which case we're looking at two byelections, Donegal South West and Dublin South. Both of which will probably be held in late May or early June and neither will be won by the Government side of the house. I'll write about my predictions for these byelections in the near future.

Electoral Reform

A while back I posted some thoughts on our voting system and suggested a few changes that I would make to it. After last night's Oireachtas Committee meeting in TCD it seems like a good time to return to it. At the event, students gave a brief oral summary of a written submission they had made to the committee. Some of the presentations focused on the mechanics of elections such as using the Gregory method for transfer of surpluses or order of candidate names on ballot papers. Others focused on participation through extending voting to ex-pats, addressing the gender imbalance in politics and reducing the voting age to 16. Each of the presentations was the responded to by a member of the Oireachtas committee.

There followed a debate chaired by John Bowman with Noel Dempsey, Ivana Bacik, Justice Frank Clarke and Prof Ken Benoit joining Sean Ardagh and Jim O'Keefe on the panel. There were also contributions from the floor by Joanna Tuffy, Gemma Hussey, Prof David Farrell and many members of the public. A lot of the discussion centred around women's participation in politics and whether there should be gender quotas built into the system. Other topics covered included the method for reform and whether any modifications to the system by elected TDs and Senators could accepted by the public as honest efforts at improvements rather than a cynical exercise in protecting themselves.

Seeing as this was a meeting of the Committee on the Constitution focusing on the electoral system for members to Dáil Éireann, a lot of the issues raised were actually outside the scope. Most items such as gender quotas, ballot paper order and the franchise can all be changed using legislation without recourse to changing the constitution. So what items would I like to see modified in Article 16?

• 16.1.1 - Why do you need to be 21 to be a member of the Dáil?
• 16.1.2 - Reduce the voting age to 16. I have rolled back from my more extreme point of 15 (12 for locals)
  
• 16.1.5/6 - Introduce a list system to avoid elections being popularity contests. This system should retain multi-seat constituencies and PR-STV for about 100 members and then elect about 60 from the list.
  
• Add a subsection to 16.1.1 introducing time limits for membership of the Dáil, maybe 3 sessions or 12 years, which ever is longer
  
• 16.1.7 - Add a time limit for seats being kept vacant. 3 months should be sufficient.
  

Of course, these changes should only be part of a wider change in the system of politics in the country. We need a stronger separation of legislative and executive. We need more powers and responsibilities devolved to local government. We need to take a long, hard look at the role and composition of the Seanad. We need to have better engagement between politics and the public on matters of policy. We need the system to encourage participation from all walks of life. Will any of this be delivered in the near future? I doubt it but we can all keep chipping away.

The Lenihan story

Being out of the loop over the Christmas break I only heard the details of the Brian Lehihan story on the radio in the car yesterday. Over the course of a couple of interviews and reports I pieced together the story that TV3 broke a gentleman's agreement to not break the story of Lenihan's illness over the Christmas period. To be honest the only thing I find strange about this is the fact that FF and Lenihan hoped that commercial interests would take a back seat and that the media would sit on this story until they had the spin machine sorted.

While on a personal level, one can only feel bad for Brian Lehihan and wish him well, politics keeps on rolling and the pressure of being the most powerful person in the country will not help him on the road to recovery once treatment begins. There needs to be an orderly transition to a new regime in the Dept of Finance but unfortunately the range of options is extremely limited.

True Irish Wit

Ah Deputy Paul Gogarty, you've really raised the level of esteem in which politics is held in this country. With a simple 6 word refrain, you've joined the ranks of great Irish orators such as Emmet, Davitt, Parnell, Larkin. Now if only you could direct your anger at the right section of the Dáil, your bedfellows from FF.



With all due respect, you're a muppet.

Calm before the Storm

Tomorrow afternoon Brian Lenihan will give his budget address to the Dáil for 2010. At this stage a lot of the potential cutbacks have been leaked in one form or another but there is still scope for surprise. Remember back a few years when Charlie McCreevy stood up in the chamber and announced the decentralisation plan without having discussed it with Cabinet, without costings and with no regard for the spatial strategy that had been announced only a few months previous? I doubt that Lenihan will have a trick that big up his sleeve but it will be interesting to see what unleaked measures there are.

The main thing that I'm going to be looking out for is the reaction from FF back benchers during the speech and in the immediate aftermath. The early budget in October 08 was greeted with a standing ovation from the government benches after Lenihan's call to patriotic duty, yet within days TDs were scrambling to distance themselves from the medical card cuts. Having learned that lesson, the FF crew kept to their seats in the supplementary budgets in early 2009 where the increased income and pension levies were introduced.

It will also be interesting to watch the responses of the other parties. Richard Bruton's speeches have always been a bit disjointed compared to those of Joan Burton and even Arthur Morgan. Perhaps the others have the benefit of the time that Bruton is on his feet to plan out their thoughts a bit more carefully. However, it always seems as though Burton is the one landing the punches on the government both through cutting wit and hard facts and figures. Needless to say, RTE and the other media outlets will cut away from the Dáil before the opposition speeches are complete to allow the talking heads get in their tuppence worth. There are times you wish there was a CSPAN type broadcaster in the state. Luckily I'll have the whole "debate" streaming to the laptop so I won't miss a thing. Twitter won't know what hit it either.

Minority Government

As previously discussed the government has been leaking support like a sieve over the last few months. Just when I thought that they'd survive until after the budget before any further defections. But yesterday, Galway West's Noel Grealish, withdrew his support for the government. That reduces Cowen's support to 81 with 76 against and 7 floating votes so we're now in minority government territory.

So why has Grealish bailed now? Well firstly it is clear to see that there is no hope of three govt TDs being returned at the next election and with O'Cuiv and Fahey still in the Dail and O'Brolchain about the join them in the upper chamber Grealish has to make his move. It is also likely that he is going to demand a special Gregory-like deal for Galway before voting with the government again. With the recent flooding around the Claregalway area, it could be quite an expensive path for Cowen to have to take.