Originally Posted by gijoe

Alan Kelly has probably lost most in the revision plus with the Labour vote heading for a big fall I think Kelly will not make it.

Alan Kelly has worked extremely hard since being elected and has delivered on many of his promises. The same cannot be said for the other two , Lowry and Coonan !! They have gone into hibernation since being elected !!

Originally Posted by Keith-M

There's also a unified Donegal, a unified Tipperary (both 5 seaters) and a re-alignment of Limerick on the cards.

It is unfortunate that limerick city is now reverting back to include all of willie o deas old haunts, it was possible to get rid of this horrible little man in the next election with the collapse of FF in the city, now most of his old croneis are back to vote for him with the proposed changes to the constituency. Sad years ahead again for limerick

Originally Posted by the_law13

Irish governments are very trigger happy when it comes to having a referendum anyway so it was never going to be a big deal staging one. Especially one on reducing the number of TD's which could be held along with another referendum as it is a very straight forward argument.

A reduction of 8 is almost meaningless. Real reform would be either
-50 two seater constituencies
or
-33 three seater constituencies

This government hasn't the b@lls I taught it had on this issue.

Changing to small constituencies as you suggest would massively favour the bigger parties, and pretty much eliminate everyone else. Not sure that's an outcome anyone would want.

Originally Posted by Pangur Ban

Changing to small constituencies as you suggest would massively favour the bigger parties, and pretty much eliminate everyone else. Not sure that's an outcome anyone would want.

Well not quite - Shinners get elected in three seaters, as do Independents - two in South Kerry for example.

Originally Posted by making waves

Government may not last that long - and what impact do you think three and a half more years of severe austerity and economic depression will have on the election. If the government lasts to 2015 the political landscape will be unrecognisable from today (have a look at what has happened in Greece).

That would require Labour to leave government. I wouldn't be taking bets on that - given that they are also implementing austerity.

Originally Posted by hiding behind a poster

How was it a fluke? Last time I looked, they'd won enough votes for 3 seats, and managed them well.

The Blueshirts got around 28.5k first preferences and the quota was almost 12k, they did well to squeeze three seats considering everything was in their favour. I think they will get one seat next time around.

Originally Posted by Cai

Well not quite - Shinners get elected in three seaters, as do Independents - two in South Kerry for example.

Certainly smaller parties do get elected in smaller constituencies, but in general, larger constituencies are more representative than smaller ones. You don't really get the full benefit of PR in small constituencies.

Originally Posted by south tipp

Loooking at a five seater tipp without the north west part of d county lowry will still top the poll. next to be elected will be hayse fg. The last 3 seats will be a scrap between 5 candidates coonan, healy, kelly, mcgrath and a ffailer. ff will probaly run 2 candidates and this might help mattie if he gets more 1st preference votes than the south tipp ff candidate. coonan is a bad candidate and with parts of north tipp gone to biffo country he may come under pressure too. so 3 and a half years in advance i'll call it 1st lowry ind 2nd hayse fg 3rd healyula 4th ff ? north tipp 5th coonan
sadly the best candidate in tipp will loose out with the deserved destruction of labour if they stay full term.
The ff ? may very well be hogan in north tipp. has been close to getting on the ff ticket a few times and he's untarnished.

Lowry is a cert to top the poll. Hayes is safe. FF are guaranteed a seat. They will surely run three candidates one in the far north, one in mid Tipp and Siobhán Ambrose in Clonmel particularly with gender quotas. Mattie won't go back to FF and he will seriously struggle particularly with that bit of Clonmel gone to Waterford. His only chance is to stay on top of Healy and Ambrose. FF don't have a candidate in the north. Hoctor won't run and Smith Jnr isn't well placed, they could go for John Carroll. They will have to run someone in Lowry's area, so there's likely to be a third candidate. Hogan will struggle to keep his council seat with the rumoured boundary changes he will be squeezed. It will prob be Hanafin or they will go for a new face with Fogarty. They will only be sweepers, Ambrose will get the seat.

It will be a dog fight for last 2 seats. There will be one left seat and healy hasnt the base in the north. There will be enough of a labour vote in Tipp to get Kelly over the line particularly if he pulls the usual pr offensive and nenagh will want to keep their TD. Coonan will prob scrape in on the north west vote particularly if ff don't run smith. SF aren't at the races in Tipperary and Seamie Morris won't want to waste money on another failed general election, they'll prob run Doran. 2 fg, 1 lab, 1 ff, 1 ind.

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