Pre-budget general election?

[kerrynorth]

There's a scheduling problem to Collins' proposal.

The EU needs Lisbon in place by the end of October when a new commission must be appointed and it's not clear how to do that under Nice.
To avoid clashing with the budget, the referendum will have to held in early October.
To avoid clashing with the referendum, the Dáil can't be dissolved August-early October.
A GE in July would be very bad - too close to the disastrous locals and FG's no confidence motion.

The Taoiseach doesn't have any real opportunities to dissolve the Dáil until the week before the budget, which would also be very bad.
FF don't have a good alternative to clinging to power until the economy picks up.

If Cowen dissolved the Dail a week prior to the budget we would be going to the polls around Christmas Eve!

[Fr. Hank Tree]

There's a scheduling problem to Collins' proposal.

The EU needs Lisbon in place by the end of October when a new commission must be appointed and it's not clear how to do that under Nice.
To avoid clashing with the budget, the referendum will have to held in early October.
To avoid clashing with the referendum, the Dáil can't be dissolved August-early October.
A GE in July would be very bad - too close to the disastrous locals and FG's no confidence motion.

The Taoiseach doesn't have any real opportunities to dissolve the Dáil until the week before the budget, which would also be very bad.
FF don't have a good alternative to clinging to power until the economy picks up.

Why not just hold lisbon and the election together, or have a november election?

[Arcadius]

Why not just hold lisbon and the election together, or have a november election?

As FT pointed out to me on another thread, even holding the Donegal SW bye-election and the referendum on the same date would lead to all sorts of dangers of cross-contamination.
He's actually hoping they do something like that.

The whole point of Collins' proposal is to get the pain of a GE out of the way before the electorate see the budget.
If I'm right about the scheduling then the government can't set a date for the GE before 29/Oct - well after the budget date of 14/Oct.
So, the government can't avoid producing the full details of their budget - it's just a question of whether or not they want to hold a GE over all the cutbacks that will have to be in it.

I calculate that Cowen's last chance to hold a GE before the budget was 5/June.
I believe he's serious about trying to hold it off for as long as possible.

Edit: My mistake. They're moving the budget back to its usual December date, so a November election would work.

[Kitten1]

I don't think they'll have one until 2012 - it would be better from their point of view to stick it out until then and hope that the economy improves, even if there are multiple tough budgets in the interim that will (inevitably) be fiercely criticised by the opposition, the media and of course the public.