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What impact did the local elections have on the commuter belt?

The results of the Local Election clearly point to a potentially dramatic change in the political...
Newstalk
Newstalk

18.25 29 May 2014


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What impact did the local elec...

What impact did the local elections have on the commuter belt?

Newstalk
Newstalk

18.25 29 May 2014


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The results of the Local Election clearly point to a potentially dramatic change in the political landscape in Dublin and the commuter belt. The area incorporates the eleven Dublin constituencies, plus North and South Kildare, East and West Meath and Wicklow. It is an area of 1.7 million people, over 20% of who are aged under 15 with a further 11% of pensionable age.

While every part of the country felt the impact of the economic crash, the commuter belt was hit hardest of all. The boom years saw some 130,000 houses built, as primarily young couples and families grasped the opportunity to own their first home much sooner than seemed possible a few years earlier.

This of course generated an explosion in the mortgage market as demand outstripped supply and builders and developers seized their opportunity by borrowing vast sums from banks to build even more homes.

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The price of these houses became more and more outrageous but the willingness of the financial institutions to dish out 100%+ mortgages, whilst ignoring long established repayment criteria, continued to fuel the boom. This sucked in even more vulnerable people desperate to get their feet on the property ladder as north and west Dublin and the surrounding counties became the new Yukon.

But the crash left their dreams in tatters as many now struggle to cope with negative equity and unsustainable mortgage repayments while at the same time paying addition taxes disguised as unavoidable charges. This is on top of some 200,000 unemployed while tens of thousands of the younger generation have emigrated, many of whom had abandoned college to work in the then booming construction sector.

The commuter region has always been the area which decides every election as it is highly improbable that any party can get a decisive proportion of seats without doing well here. Therefor every party intensely scrutinises the outcome of every election in the area to evaluate their future prospects.

There will be 62 Dáil seats in this area at the next election which is down three from the present Dáil because of the overall reduction of 166 to 158 seats. In 2011 as a consequence of the economic crash Fianna Fáil was swept from power losing all but two of its twenty eight seats in the region. Fine Gael and Labour gained 21 seats between them while Sinn Féin added four more to their solitary seat in 2007.

After the 2011 election there were those who thought that the Coalition Government would likely be in power for a generation while it would take at least that length of time for Fianna Fáil to return to electoral respectability. Sinn Féin was viewed as a party of protest who would not be capable of generating sufficient support beyond their traditional power base to enable them to hold the balance of power.

However the travails of the Government, particularly over the second half of their tenure in office, has seen their popularity plummet to little more than 50% of the levels obtained in 2011.

If the results from last weekend were replicated at the next General Election it would result in the most startling transformation of political fortunes ever seen in such a short period of time. The following table illustrates the extent of that transformation.

Based on my analysis of the votes cast last weekend and translated into their respective Dáil constituencies the likely number of seats per party in the region would be as follows:

party in the region would be as follows:

PARTY

2011 SEATS

PROJECTED 2016 SEATS

CHANGE

FIANNA FAIL

2

14

+12

FINE GAEL

27

13

-14

SINN FEIN

5

11

+6

LABOUR

22

6

-16

OTHERS

9

18

+9

TOTAL

65

62

 

Sinn Féin is enhancing its traditional support base by enticing higher numbers of women and the middle class to the polling booths on its incrementally consistent rise to holding the balance of power.Fine Gael and Labour would lose a combined thirty seats with Labour proportionally suffering a devastating reversal of fortunes. Fianna Fáil has made a recovery that they could not have envisaged, although that is probably less to do with their performance but rather more to do with that of the Government parties.

Independents and the smaller parties, based on these figures, would actually win the highest number of seats in the region with their nine TD’s elected in 2011 doubling, in part because of the switch of loyalties by Róisín Shortall, Tommy Broughan, Lucinda Creighton, Terence Flanagan, Peter Matthews and Billy Timmons.

However the latter four might yet form the basis of a party that evolves out of the Reform Alliance while Shortall and Broughan might contemplate re-joining Labour if the new leader can restore the party to the values that they believe were abandoned under Eamon Gilmore.

While not ignoring the potential of the Independents and smaller parties, the reality is that they are not a cohesive group and it is the performance of the main parties that will have the greatest influence on who is Taoiseach in 2016.

The accompanying map dramatically illustrates the change in the area. Of the sixteen constituencies the largest share of the vote was won by Independents and smaller parties in fourteen of them while Fianna Fáil came out on top in Kildare South and Meath West.

However only after the analysis that has identified which party had the largest share of the vote in each constituency does the dramatic change in support become truly apparent. Sinn Féin is the biggest party in seven of the sixteen constituencies and all seven are in a contiguous block in Dublin City demonstrating their remarkable progress in the area.

It paints a picture that will send shivers down the spine of the new Labour leader as they have been comprehensively usurped in their traditional heartland. If the new leader cannot reverse the inexorable progress of Sinn Féin in these constituencies then the prospects for the party’s electoral fortunes in 2016 are bleak.

Fianna Fáil holds sway in six constituencies which is an astonishing turnaround as they are primarily in the areas that saw the greatest explosions of population and housing during the boom and the consequent crash that saw the party demolished in 2011. However the comfort they can take from this success has to be tempered by the reality that they now trail behind Sinn Féin in vast tracts of the city.

Fine Gael still remain the largest party in three south Dublin constituencies but their hard fought gains in 2011 will be distant memories if economic progress is not accompanied by real benefits to their supporters.

The filtering down to the electorate of economic recovery, effectively extra money in the citizen’s pockets, is crucial to the outcome of the next election. In reality it is a race against time with the winners on the Government side of the Dáil and the losers condemned to watch helplessly when the actual improvement does come to pass.


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