Election 2024 . Not that one, though the Trump victory is sure to influence some of what we are threatened and promised. presumably we'll have a date soon.

[DeanElderberry]

Any wise thoughts?

As a DC constituent, MS is prominent and as also been vocal about his opposition to abortion. He was also very active in campaigning No/No in referendum.

But right now a more immediate concern a lot of inner city is the homeless situation.

The hostels, hotels, hubs within the inner city, Gardiner, Belvidere, Dorset Street areas are full of, what appears to be predominantly white Irish, judging by accents.

Rightly or wrongly this is an issue for locals.

A quick example is

This year Local flat complex reopened with 56 flats, 27 of which went to housing list long term, I mean years waiting and the balance to refugees which obviously has right to live here, but the optics are they are getting better treated.

I am not voicing an opinion one way or other, but stating what people are seeing.

As I have said, right now a good Tony Gregory type would do very well in North Inner City.

That was riling the crowds during riots last year.

He doesn't have a chance, even before the rape case.

He is always was a s**t stirrer.

Yes they are absoutley missing a Tony Gregory type candidate. They absoutley need somebody to stand up for them. The north inner city has been really let down.

Can I just pick a point that was made about Aontú & Independent Irelands "anti women's right to choose". Choose what exactly?!!

I am a woman & I am choosing to vote for candidates who will not to let males in my little girls spaces, sports teams, changing rooms & I am choosing not to want males in my female only toilets.
Aontu & the Independents are backing my choice as a female to choose as to who I want in my personal female spaces or does my preference as a female not matter over a males???
All the other parties have taken away my right as a female to my own designated female only spaces. No wonder teen girls are leaving sports in droves if there sports teams, changing rooms & toilets are no longer designated just for female teens.
Imagine being a poor pre teen or teen with a heavy period & not having your own personal female space any longer.

No he wouldn't have a hope, his entitlement is off the scales.

@Brownwitch

Right now, I think MS may be tapping into that sentiment.

I can remember him clearly during the referendum with the women telling us to respect our mammies and keep them in the constitution.

@DublinFemale what do you think can be done to help the north inner city? I would love to see this given more attention by the next government.
I really feel for all the homeless and crime and anti social behaviour is out of control.

@DublinFemale I think that Malachy Steenson works very hard for DC & is very popular so it will be a deserving seat if he gets elected.

It looks like the bookies are predicting a FF/FG/LAB coalition.

This would be positive in that it would give us a good chance of a stable government and hopefully Labour would keep the bigger parties on track on issues such as housing, disability, health, homelessness, climate which are so important to many of us.
However we have been seriously let down by Labour in the past but we can only hope they have learned lessons and Ivana Bacik comes across as an effective leader.

Not sure if I can see these three getting enough seats though.

There is a lot of poverty, low education, low pay employment which entices young people into gangland

There is also an embedded mindset of take which is being passed on from generation to generation.

I really don't know how to tackle that.

A real visual reminder in the area is the 10ft wall around the IFSC blocking it from the local area.

Highly visible reminder of the haves and have nots.

Another thing would be a local Garda station, the closest Garda station to the rioting, the school the children were hurt is part time, closest to majority of the shootings is open part time.

It open from 8am - 9pm and will under no circumstances open the doors between after 9pm.

That's dreadful about the garda station. Do you know why it's only part time? Is it a funding issue?
I do think we need to come down harder on crime.
Hopefully we get an effective justice minister this time.
Also trying to keep young people in education is important but the current system does not suit everyone.

I don't think it's funding. There are police in there 24 hours a day they just close up at 9pm even during the riots no police officer from that station was involved when it was an all hands on deck

It was opened up in 2022 to big fanfare.

If that's the case, it'll be important to keep the pressure on about repealing the Gender Recognition Act etc - as I've said before, I got the impression from the canvassers and candidates I spoke to that they are a lot less gung-ho about it, and the referendum results gave them a bit of a reality check about public opinion about women's rights. I was always sceptical about the grass roots and backbenchers buying into the gender ideology stuff anyway, they just didn't dare speak up.

It's been an interesting campaign, in that it was so uninteresting policy-wise. There's no really big difference between the established parties if you look at their manifestos closely, as I have, so it comes down to what individual policy are you going to vote on. And how many policies that are unacceptable to you are you willing to overlook in order to vote for your most important issue.

That's a far cry from the days when you knew in advance which party a family voted for by whether they read the Irish Press or the Irish Independent

We're lucky to be able to vote*, even if we're not exactly thrilled about the candidates on offer🙄 - millions around the world don't have the right to vote at all.

*as long as we can physically access the polling centre, of course - access is something else to keep reminding the future government about, and also full implementation of the Irish Sign Language Act - two of my own personal highlighted issues!

This might be useful re policies on disability:

Party-Manifestos-2024-GE.pdf

It's very focussed on care provision and allowances, not much on physical access or sign language for deaf people - either the people who drew it up weren't very focussed on those aspects of disability or none of the parties mentioned it.
The 'interaction' in Kanturk put the spotlight on people caring for disabled people, it would be good if there was more attention paid to the needs of disabled people themselves, many of us don't need carers, we just need our human rights respected in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

@MariedeGournay thanks for sharing that, it is a great document from Down Syndrome Ireland and great to see the policies of all the main parties side by side. And yes we absoutley need equal attention to the needs of the disabled person and the carer. It is extemely important that disabled people have a voice.
Thank you so much for highlighting this.

Marie as you quite rightly said it's very important that we vote for parties & strong independents committed to repealing the Gender Recognition Act & also saving our female only spaces & sports. My heart is literally breaking for teenage girls in sports at the moment, it's no wonder they are leaving in their droves.

The Social Democrats, Labour, People before Profit, the Greens (those small left parties) Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil & Fine Gael all agree that males should access girls, teens, pre teens, women & elderly women's private, female only personal spaces.

These very same parties tried (& very badly failed) to eradicate women from the state constitution on International Women's Day. Gender critical voters must have the same energy tomorrow as we had on March 8th.
I will not be giving those parties a single vote, the small left parties are screaming for a "left alliance" so again I hope gender critical voters will be be careful here.

I used this pledge from the countess at thd door & it served me very well.

I think it will be FF/FG plus a small party hopefully not Green. FF and FG look comfortable working together, two cheeks of the same arse.

Absolutely two cheeks of the same arse😂 I can see the Independents getting quite a few seats, Aontú will pick up a few too.

They may go in with Independent Ireland depending on how many seats they get. They got 22 in the locals & have Ciaran Mulooly in Europe too.
Michael Collins is hugely popular in his constituency, solid, no nonsense politics & he knows exactly what a woman is & the importance of maintaining female only spaces & sports teams.

He was very strong in the leaders debate especially compared to poor Social Democrats lad he was sitting next to who looked very uncomfortable speaking & being on TV. I could see Michael Collins & Michael Martin working well together.

One minor point in the overall scheme of things that particularly irks me is that all parties talk about supporting families that are struggling financially and childcare etc, yet they hold the election on a Friday on school premises. My kids school is closed and working parents are up in a heap over it. They have to either take a day's leave that they desperately need another time or lose money just to facilitate the election. Not to mention the knock on effect to employers and services who are down staff for the day. Our school runs a camp on non school days as does a local childcare facility but the school based care had to close also on election day, and the after school care in the other place can't open until after lunch when the pre schoolers have left the building.

It seems like a particularly stupid thing to do for the current government, making a huge chuck of the public angry before even arriving at a polling station.

💯 Tomorrow is the third day my kids school will have been closed this year to accommodate elections.

They missed two days last week due to the snow 😭. Surely a Saturday would be much easier, schools closed, more people of work.
Also with the amount of schooling lost during covid surely this should be factored in too.

Yes that's a really good point @Dontlletmedownbruce I wonder why it always has to be done this way? I've still had nobody call to my door! But if anyone calls this evening I'll ask them!

I live in a very nice middle class area that doesn't really have many social problems and feels very safe (lucky me!). People around here don't relate to many of the more serious issues in the country and the area has a very strong FF and FG support historically. Why on earth would you piss them off??!!

Tweedledum and tweedledee as ML said

@Trumped I do not know what to make of you at all. MM is unlikely to work well with MC. He has some extreme views. This is just a fact.

@Dontlletmedownbruce

Totally agree. The whole system is set up to make it difficult for working parents: I'm taking the day off tomorrow to mind my kids whose school will be closed.

I don't know why we put up with it.

Yes it should be on a Saturday.
Thankfully my kids school is not being used but I feel for those who are affected.