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?

Norma Foley has been just as bad as McEntee.

Two big ministries with two incompetent female ministers.

There has to be strong competent female TDs out there that could have shown how strong women are and can be.

Both of these women dropped the ball and made excuses every single time.

GP will be interesting one to watch, is Catherine Martin running again?

If ROG loses his seat that is a party with no leader. That will bring them into disarray.

I do think it wasn't the prudent choice of the party picking him as leader. Wildly unpopular and it could impact across the country for green candidates not getting votes.

Right now for me a win in this election would be McEntee gone and GP thrown back into the wilderness.

The GP could be such a great option but they have completely embraced issues which are no on majority agendas and made them front and centre

My prediction (whether I like it or not) is FF/FG/Labour. Back to the old days again.

I hope whoever is Taoiseach does a massive reshuffle of cabinet and puts any mad woke off the wall current Ministers out to grass, and replaces them with strong hard working ministers. I agree about the two women mentioned above, pity they are female, but that's no guarantee of success. Meritocracy is best.

We will have to wait and see who is elected for each party and then place bets on our fave choice for minister for this or that.

Having said that, I did at one point really like the Greens. You know, when they upheld their core principles of environmental stuff etc. But now they have hopped on every woke bandwagon in the country and have achieved nothing more than empty bicycle lanes everywhere. Well I know that's not all, but still....

All the parties adopted pro-gender-ideology policies, with the exception of Aontú, and they are all currently downplaying that in their campaigning.

My own experience [not universal, obvs] of canvassers for Labour, FF and FG is that they were very open my GC arguments, the tide seems to be turning for the major parties, looks like they're getting the message.

Aontú on the other hand is still 100% anti-choice re abortion, there's no downplaying at all.

So is it better to hold your nose and vote for parties that seem to be getting a bit of cop-on about genderwoo, or for a party which is the only one who takes climate change, public transport etc seriously but is still full-on genderwoo??
or for a party which clearly opposes gender ideology, but also campaigns to remove women's hard-won rights to control over our own bodies?

It could be said that all the parties are denying women's rights in some way, most of them by supporting extreme versions of trans rights like self-ID which appropriate women's rights to our own spaces etc; and one party is openly denying women's rights to bodily autonomy.

We'll all come to our own conclusions about which is the least worst party for women's rights, or the least worst of the independents, who have their own downsides too.. not an easy task

The labour candidate I had was very dismissive about my concerns re female spaces & sports, he said his party & he himself did not share my views.

I feel the only party who are genuinely not all gender woohoo in is FF. they are turnable.

FG, Labour, PBP, SD are playing the game to get the vote.

Labours Pat Rabbitte openly admitted that politician say whatever to get voted in

www.cppc.ie/lies-isnt-that-what-you-tend-to-do-during-an-election/

FF are definitely doing the same but I think they will move stance if they had to.

I don't think any of the others would

I am reading back my posts and it sounds like a political broadcast for FF.

It most definitely is not. I have zero belief in MM as leader, he lied in 2020 re FG, he will lie now.

So not sure about him, the belief he will bring FG into power with him again is the biggest reason I have against him

FG are planning on ensuring the Hate Speech legislation is passed early next year. Gender identity is very central to this. Hate wasn't clearly defined in the last version they presented and the accused had to prove their innocence.
It was all based on the feelings of the victim and we have all heard how misgendering is literal violence.
Helen McEntee seems determined to push this forward. FF are happy to support it but I don't get the impression it's their pet project.
Helen McEntee and Norma Foley will be re-elected. It would be a huge shock for an incumbent senior Minister to lose their seat.
As for Aontu, I don't think they would have the power to overturn the results of a Referendum so their stance on Gender Identity is my priority right now.

My feeling is that a strong showing for Aontu will get the other parties wondering 'why?' even if they don't get many seats. Our constituency has changed since the last time. Now a three-seater, an independent is likely to come in first, with a toss-up for the other two. I have yet to see a live walking-around pol.

Fine Gael must be working very hard to make sure there is no progress in the search for the body of Jo Jo Dollard before the election.

Agree they are turnable (maybe not Norma Foley though) but need to be in with practical, common sense thinking Independents & Aontú.

Like Trump getting elected, sure look at all the threads on here as to what went wrong with the Democrats, many stull can't understand !
Trump knows there are two sex male & female, he will ban males in female sports. This was a major issue for many Americans, from the way Trump is electing his staff, he is going as anti woke as possible & best of luck to them!

I think the Dems had an inkling that the public weren't with them on gender because I am only learning now that Tim Walz legislated to support 'gender affirming care' of children against their parents' wishes back in the Spring, and I think if they were confident that was vote winner it would have been proclaimed loudly after he was picked as VP. We heard lots of positive stuff about him, not a squeak about that. But if Helen McEntee is in cabinet again next Dáil nothing will change for the better, they'll be confident of five more years of power.

I haven't had anyone on the doorstep yet. Housing is my biggest issue, followed by the GRA. I had an Aontu guy at the door a while back - told him I was in agreement with their stance on the gender issue but completely opposed to their position on abortion. He ended up going off on a tangent about his Republican ancestors - I hadn't the heart to tell him that I kick with the other foot!!!! Don't think I can vote for them.

Trump & Vance had no problem repeatedly reminding the public of Walz's pledge & rightly so!

Interestingly it didn't get much airing here. maybe another area where the Irish news media hoped if they said nothing it would go away.

https://www.npr.org/2024/10/19/g-s1-28932/donald-trump-transgender-ads-kamala-harris

The Republicanz published numerous ads on the Democrats trans views in the lead up to the election 😁

Tim Waltz signed a law that allowed children to be removed from the care of their parents if they weren't gender affirming, even if the parents felt that there were other issues going on with the child
He was portrayed as being a typical hometown man of the people. But he was actually quite extreme in his wokeness.
As for Norma Foley, I think she has followed the NCAA guidance in a lot of things such as the SPHE. But there seems to be a lot of gender woo people in a lot of these organisations. They use the guise of public consultations to portray the illusion of best practice but in my opinion, it's all agenda driven as a lot of organisations seem to have been have been infiltrated by transactvists.
That doesn't excuse Foley, at the end of the day the responsibility lies with her but I get the impression that she might be a little more conservative than her record suggests.

I think you're right about infiltration by trans activists, Onehorsetown .

One of the 'how on earth did we let that happen?' questions for future researchers is how groups like TENI and BelongTo were taken as 'The Experts' on biology, the law, sexuality, medicine, sociology, education, you name it, and Irish bureaucracy, legislature etc. seem to have just gone along with it unquestioningly.

Of course, that wasn't an accident of history, there was an actual plan to infiltrate society and the body politic like this - and that's NOT a conspiracy theory! Google 'Dentons trans strategy' and you'll see how chipping away at the foundations of society was an actual plan for trans activism, including tagging along on the coat-tails of the success of lesbian and gay campaigners.

Reasonably sensible people have fallen for it hook line and sinker in many parts of the world, including here.

🥲

Hutch is going to be doing a 3 part interview on the Sunday World Crime World podcast with Nicola Tallant. I'm really curious to hear him talk, I would say hes going to eat into Mary-Lou's FPV. Sickening but I won't be surpised at all if he becomes a TD.

The only safe seat in that constituency is Pascal Donoghue, the rest is really a toss up

I don't think GH really wants a seat but he is one who likes to show his smarts. No posters, leaflets anywhere. He could be relying on his notoriety.

What a better way than to give the finger to the state, huge trial and found not guilty to run for election

Yeap PD is probably the safest seat Dublin Central, he usually gets FPV from Cabra, Phibsboro area. That's his stronghold.

Mary Lou is inner city, still think she will get in but the other seats are going to hotly contested

The Hutch could be a big anti government vote... Malachy Steenson there too could get his transfers..

Willie O' Dea said Helen Mc Entee was the worst Minister for Justice in the history of the State.

I don't know if she is the worst as I wasn't alive for a lot of them but imho I think she was pretty dire.

However FF were part of the Government that allowed a soft touch on crime, so pot,black and kettle come to mind.

And due to FF ineptitude pre/post recession so many Garda stations were closed and the number of Gardai declined.