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Politicians hit hustings with May election likely

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Andrew Bushe

DUBLIN — Street crime and growing juvenile violence is dominating the political agenda and putting pressure on the government as Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is expected to dissolve the 28th Dail this week and call a general election in late May.

Though no date has been revealed — the Taoiseach said he is looking at May 17 or 24 — in reality the election campaign is already in full swing.

Most candidates are in place, canvassers are hitting the doorsteps, mailboxes are bulging with election literature, huge portraits of the taoiseach and other leaders are dominating prominent poster sites and new job announcements and local spending pledges are being handed out.

On Sunday, the Progressive Democrats party launched its national policy manifesto in an effort to grab early headlines and steal a march on the other parties.

Dubbed the longest election campaign in history, the current big spending by the parties makes a mockery of ethical legislation aimed at capping election splurges. However, the law only controls disbursement of party war chest cash from the date the election is announced. By then most of the coffers may be virtually bare.

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The government hopes to piggyback next month on a feel-good factor of the run-up to the World Cup and a double payment of children’s allowance dating from last December’s budget.

The polls show Ahern is on course to lead the next coalition. Optimists in Fianna Fail hope that it could even get enough seats to form a single-party administration. But there is still a huge 27 percent undecided vote to be won over.

The Fianna Fail/PD minority coalition has been the longest-lasting peacetime administration in the history of the country and this has meant huge demographic changes that are expected to cause some shocks.

A census this month is expected to reveal the population has swelled to 3.9 million, the highest since 1871. The electoral register has increased by almost 10 percent, to 2.9 million.

There are almost a quarter of a million new voters. Many are returned immigrants or young voters using their franchise for the first time. They are a volatile, politically unaligned constituency that has not known economic hardship.

A general election normally leads to a turnover of about 25 percent of the 166 TDs in Dail as a result of defeats and people retiring. The “new” votes could lead to more major surprises.

The last time there was such a huge number of new voters was when the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18. In the subsequent 1977 general election, Jack Lynch swept home at the head of Fianna Fail’s biggest ever majority — completely confounding pollsters.

Since the 1997 general election, both the main opposition parties have changed leaders.

But Michael Noonan of Fine Gael and Ruairi Quinn of Labor have failed to establish themselves as charismatic poll favorites like Ahern has done. Both parties are hammering hard on the crime issue in the run-up to the announcement of the poll date.

The death of two gardai in Dublin 4 after their patrol car was struck by a stolen sports car traveling at more than 100 miles per hour is putting the spotlight on Justice Minister John O’Donoghue’s “zero tolerance” crime strategy.

Lack of places for young out-of-control teenagers is leading to the authorities juggling detention places to hold them.

New figures reveal that holding the so-called “tearaway teens” is hugely expensive.

It cost euro 185,000 to hold a child in the top security Trinity House Reformatory last year, compared to euro 157,447 euros a year to hold a prisoner in the dearest adult jail — the high-security Portlaoise where the country’s most dangerous paramilitaries and criminals are held.

After crime, the main national issues in the campaign will be the economy and how the fruits of the Celtic Tiger boom have been spent, health services suffering from lack of investment, jobs, house prices and the fallout from political sleaze scandals.

The key battlegrounds will be marginal seats in the country’s 42 constituencies and particularly the huge urban vote in the 11 Dublin constituencies that make it the cockpit for those seeking power.

It will be the first general election since 1923 in which candidates will not have to pay a cash deposit. This is expected to result in a record number of independent candidates going forward.

Also, for the first time, voters will use computers to choose 12 TDs. The constituencies involved will be Dublin West (a three-seater), Dublin North (four seats) and Meath (five seats).

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