Irish Election - Coverage of Irish Politics, News and Current Affairs

As the headline says Breakingnews.ie is reporting Tony Gregory is tipping Labour to go in with FF. Would FF want to give up that many ministries? Not sure. But will Labour want to get in power to stop co-location? And what does that leave the green chances?

Psychologists today warned of the dire consequences if the near-toxic levels of schadenfreude caused by the PD’s demise continue.
For many socialists, liberals, libertarians and plain old democrats, the PD meltdown was a hidden diamond in the race to the centre-right that was election 07.
The removal from office of so many hubristic, egotistical demagogues in one [...]

Ireland’s Bertie Ahern triumphs, faces tough choices over next …
Chicago Sun-Times

(just a quick observation on the emerging result which can probably be filed under the “state the obvious” category)
This election’s campaign was laden with criticism from many who felt that there was no choice for voters. On issues like income tax, stamp duty, hospital beds and Gardaí numbers this was largely true but it is [...]

RTÉ seems overly keen on putting public money into the pocket of “pollster” Frank Luntz despite his abysmal performance on Week In Politics’ ‘Frank Opinion’ programme.
Luntz has been on RTÉ One and RTÉ Radio 1 over the course of the last 24 hours and has displayed an amazing lack of neutrality and intelligence in his comments, [...]

2. Higgins            8,384
3. Fahey              7,234
4. McCormack      7,068
5. Grealish           7,065
6. Crowe              6,117
7. Ó Brolchain      4,332
Ó Brolchain eliminated - 10th Count is distribution of his votes

If you were not listening to The Last (First?) Word this morning, then you missed a classic discussion between Matt Cooper, Fintan O’Toole and Eoghan Harris. Basically, Harris ranted on when asked questions, and accused Fintan O’Toole of being “sleazy”.
Matt attempted to allow Fintan reply to Harris’ hysterical rant, but Harris wasn’t done yet! [...]

Predictions  if the seats of FF 78 FG 51 Labour 21 Sinn Fein 3 Green Party 5 PD 2 Indo 5 come true. That would mean that FG/Lab/PD/Green 79 seats. Now there is 2 left-wing indo’s and 1 FG gene pool TD would bring the opposition up to 82 seats. One more indo would be [...]

There was an “appetite for change”, there was a platform for change but there were no votes for change. The fallout continues to baffle many from all around politics, the Fianna Fail vote share of 41.2% is a huge result for a government trying for a third term. The electorate seem to be prompting for [...]

Around the country with 21 or so seats left to fill. From RTE: ” 145 Dáil seats have been filled so far, leaving 21 to be decided in seven constituencies.
The state of the parties is: Fianna Fáil 72; Fine Gael 43; Labour 16; PDs 1; Green Party 5; Sinn Féin 3 and Others 5.”
At this [...]

It looks as though de Bert is back in.
In an earlier reply, to some speculation as to the result, I said that I hoped he would be returned - to clean up the mess he, and his associates in Fianna Fail, has made of the economy.

Ulick Burke in on Paul Connaughton’s surplus.

John O’Mahony and Beverly Flynn elected. FG 3, FF1, FF Gene Pool Independent waiting on a phone call 1

Returning officer announces that votes are missing so adjourns count until the morning, Liz McManus was due to be elected on the distribution of Deirdre de Burca’s votes.  All back to the desert at 10am.

Jim McDaid returns from retirement (remember that?) and is joined by the man who brought him out of retirement, Niall Blaney.
Update - McDaid says tension between himself and Blaney made it work - says if he had not come back FF would not have held seat.

As Mick notes in the comments here, we have three siblings to join the brother-in-law/sister-in-law, husband/wife combinations elected to Dáil Eireann. Tom Kitt, Michael Kitt and Aine Brady (nee Kitt) are all elected to the 30th Dáil.