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TAOISEACH SIMON HARRIS has said that he is “cautiously optimistic” about incoming general election results, as he said there was no surge in support for Sinn Féin.
Speaking to reporters in Wicklow, where he was re-elected tonight, the Fine Gael leader said there has not “been a Sinn Fein surge or anything like it”.
“I think that’s what we’ve seen, a very close and very competitive election,” Harris added.
Harris picked up close to 30% of first preference votes, easily surpassing the quota with 16,869 votes in the first count.
Exit polls had both Sinn Féin and Fine Gael almost tied for first preference votes, with Harris remaining optimistic about results.
He said that in 26 of the 43 constituencies, Fine Gael did not have a sitting TD on the ballot, but was still seeing gains.
However, he said it was still too “hard to call” who will come out of the election as the largest party.
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“I mean, it looks likely, on the figures that we’ve seen now, fewer people, many fewer people would have voted Sinn Fein in this election than the last one,” Harris said.
“In fact, I think they’re down by around 5% and actually the parties, particularly the two parties, the two larger parties in government, are likely to receive significant support from the electorate. So definitely, politics in Ireland has gotten much more fragmented.”
Harris told reporters that it was too early to comment on coalition negotiations, but said he hopes that Fine Gael will play an important and “possibly a leadership” role in the next government.
He added that it transfers made it difficult to predict how the coming hours would go.
“I think anybody who makes any suggestion about who is going to be the largest party or the construct of the next government, they’re a braver person than I am,” Harris said.
“Our electoral system dictates that there’ll be many, many transfers that will go on for hours, if not days, before we know the final computations at all.
Asked about the possible election of Gerry ‘the Monk’ Hutch in Dublin Central, Harris said the choice was entirely a matter for the local constituency.
“But I remain to be convinced that he will be a TD. I think there’s a long way to go in relation to that and as I talk to people on the ground at Dublin Central, and as I read the news, I don’t think he’s nailed-on yet at all.”
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Unless Ireland can outperform the Euro zone by 1% every year for the next 40 year, inflation will not decrease the burden it will add to it.
Michael Noonan “forgot” (read refused), to tell us what the banks have legally had to tell us for years, “Past performance is no indication of future performance”.
For the benefit of readers who might not understand what you’re getting at, Eurostat figures put Inflation in the Eurozone at 2.0% in the year to January 2013.
It is working! For the billionaires that is.. their wealth is increasing rapidly.. look it up yourselves.
Look at the situation from the perspective of its creators.
And is anyone really surprised by this? What exactly is it going to take to make the Germans realise that austerity economics is not working – you can’t cut your way out of a recession.
It’s not entirely bad news for Ireland. It means that interest rates are unlikely to rise at any time in the near future, which will be a relief to anyone who owes any significant debt.
The debt based money system we use is essentially a ponzi scheme. As money is only created through debt and it demands payment with interest it is mathematically impossible to pay down all debts. The system must grow exponentially to feed the new money creation. Unfortunately permanent exponential growth is also mathematically impossible. By taking on the debts of the sick monsters who would enslave us our government has sold us down the river and up the swanny. We can just hope against hope that the system’s bubble reinflates itself long enough for us to dig ourselves out of this. The future of this country depends upon this very dodgy gamble…
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