Irish Election lies in stalemate.

When I was living in London and the Progressive Democrats were looking to be a new force in Irish Politics. A Irish friend claimed that Ireland wast the only country in Europe with three Conservative parties. and he added Irish Labour are not much  of a left party.

The two Major Parties Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have broadly similar Ideologies and the difference between them goes back to the Irish Civil War 90 years ago.


With 2 seats in dispute the result looks like this

Summary of 26 February 2016 Dáil Éireann election results^[73][74]

Party		Leader	First Pref votes	% FPv	Swing%	Candidates [75]	Elected 2011[75]	Outgoing [n 2]	Elected 2016 [76]	Change [n 3]	% of seats
	Fine Gael	Enda Kenny	544,140	25.5	10.6	88	76	66[n 4]	49[n 4]	17	31%
	Fianna Fáil	Micheál Martin	519,356	24.3	6.9	71	19[n 4]	21	44	23	28%
	Sinn Féin	Gerry Adams	295,319	13.8	3.9	50	14	14	23	9	14.5%
	Labour Party	Joan Burton	140,898	6.6	12.8	36	37	33	6	27	4%
	AAA–PBP	None	84,168	3.9	1.7[n 1]	31	4[n 1]	4	6	2	4%
	Social Democrats	Catherine Murphy Róisín Shortall Stephen Donnelly	64,094	3.0	3.0	14	N/A[n 5]	3	3	New	2%
	Green Party	Eamon Ryan	57,999	2.7	0.9	40	0	0	2	2	1%
	Renua Ireland	Lucinda Creighton	46,552	2.2	2.2	26	N/A[n 5]	3	0	New	0%
	Independents 4 Change[n 6]	None	31,365	1.5	1.5	5	N/A[n 5]	4	4	New	2.5%
	Workers and Unemployed Action	Séamus Healy	7,452	0.3	0.1	1	1	1	1	0	0.5%
	Direct Democracy	Pat Greene	6,481	0.3	0.3	19	N/A[n 5]	0	0	New	0%
	Workers' Party	Michael Donnelly	3,242	0.2	0.1	5	0.0	0	0	0	0%
	Catholic Democrats	Nora Bennis	2,013	0.1		3	0	0	0	0	0%
	Fís Nua	None	1,224	0.1	0.1	2	0	0	0	0	0%
	Irish Democratic Party	Ken Smollen	971	<0 .1="" font="">	0.0	1	N/A[n 5]	0	0	New	0%
	Communist Party	Lynda Walker	185	<0 .1="" font="">		1	0	0	0	0	0%
	Identity Ireland	Peter O'Loughlin	183	<0 .1="" font="">		1	N/A[n 5]	0	0	New	0%
	Independent Alliance[n 6]	None	88,930	4.2	4.2	21	N/A[n 5]	5	6	New	4%
	Independent[n 6]	—	241,833	11.3	0.9	136	14	10	13	3	8%
	Ceann Comhairle	Seán Barrett	N/A	N/A	N/A	1[n 4]	1	1[n 4]	1[n 4]	0	0.5%
Total			2,136,405	100%	—	552[75][n 7]	166	165[n 8]	158	8	100%

At the last General Election Fianna Fáil then in Government took the brunt of the blame for Economic collapse and a Fine Gael coalition took power.


Now Irish politics is in a flux and either a Fine Gael Fianna Fáil or a rainbow coalition that would include Sinn Féin .

For Irish Labour it was a disaster with 6 seats they are short of the 7 needed to get automatic speaking rights in the Dáil Éireann.

Its a lesson for Labour here  Corbyn may not be a winner , but going back to supporting Austerity could be a disater.


For the parties of the Left it is possible that AAA–PBP could increase their number by bringing in some of the Left Wing Independents  like Séamus Healy to give them the numbers they need.
Though the left in the Republic have an unfortunate tendency to fractional.

They did in the last Dáil and they should not miss an opportunity to outflank Labour.

For opponents of STV the Long weekend if counting vote after vote and PR can be be chaotic but at least it’s accurate and a party with less than 40% of the vote doers not find itself with a Majority and claiming a mandate as the Tories have here

With something like 83 seats needed for a majority government Ireland may face weeks of instability as politicians battle to form a government, small parties and independents have claimed almost a fifth of seats and the traditional power-players are losing their hold.

So even another election in a few months may not resolve anything.


Ultimately, however, the chaos is reflective of a European  deep public dissatisfaction with the politics of the last decade. A majority government for either of the largest parties would misrepresent the wishes of the people. Even of those who wish to see stable government.