There are a number of government reshuffles to catch up with. Because I am short of time today, I will record the one that is easiest for me.

In Ireland there was a reshuffle on 23 March. It had been provoked by a number of ministerial resignations, including the Defence Minister, Willie O’Dea, and the Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism, Martin Cullen. A Green Junior Minister had also previously resigned.

The real news about the reshuffle was that it changed very little. This was a surprise because the Fianna Fáil party, which is the dominant party in the coalition with the Greens, is extremely unpopular with opinion poll ratings at historically low levels at around 25% support. So, there was the expectation that the Taoiseach (PM), Brian Cowen, would not just introduce some new faces, but also that he would reorganise the departmental structures to address the country’s desperate financial situation, including increasingly high levels of unemployment. However, this did not happen and he was criticised accordingly.

There is a report on the reshuffle via the Irish Times here and a commentary piece about the conservative nature of Cowen’s leadership as exemplified by the reshuffle here.

Last Friday was a good day for me. I got to vote again. In fact, it was the third time I had voted this year (though two votes were on the same day, which somewhat lessens the total pleasure). Anyway, this time the vote was the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

On 12 June 2008 the Treaty was rejected in a referendum by 53.4% to 46.6%. Late last year, the government negotiated various concessions and clarifications. Another referendum was proposed and it was held last Friday.

This time there was a resounding ‘yes’ vote. The turnout was slightly higher this time. However, it seems as if a significant amount of people did simply switch their vote from ‘no’ to ‘yes’. Obviously, apart from any negotiated changes, the big difference this time around was the state of the economy, which is worse than lousy. There was definitely a fear that a ‘no’ vote would leave Ireland badly placed within the EU. One sign of this is that, this time, the farmers voted very strongly ‘yes’, whereas last time there had been a clear ‘no’ majority.

For the record, my constituency, Dublin South, had the highest ‘yes’ vote at (a veritably stalinist) 81.7%! Only 2/43 constituencies voted ‘no’, both in Donegal. The regional results are available here.

Here is the overall result:

Turnout: 58.0%
Yes: 67.1%
No: 32.9%

During the campaign, the ‘yes’ side feared that the government’s very low opinion poll ratings (around 20% support) would lead people to vote ‘no’ simply out of protest. This did not happen. So the government may be bolstered by the ‘yes’ vote. However, there is a very difficult budget looming, there is also a vote on the controversial agency that will manage the banks’ bad debts, and the government’s coalition partner, the Greens, are currently renegotiating their programme demands. If the Greens vote to leave the coalition, then government is unlikely to survive. So, while the next election is scheduled for 2012, there is still the possibility that it may occur much sooner.

Back to normal next week after a marathon session on the EP elections. Thanks for being patient. In the meantime, I’ll end where I started off with results from Ireland.

The EP election was held in Ireland as week ago last Friday.

The turnout was 57.6%. The EU is reporting the following results (2004 in brackets):

Fine Gael – 29.1%, 4 seats (27.8%, 5)
Fianna Fáil – 24.1%, 3 seats (29.5%, 4)
Labour – 13.9%, 3 seats (10.5%, 1)
Sinn Féin – 11.2%, 0 (11.1%, 1)
Independents – 1 seat (2 seats)
Socialist party – 1 seat (0 seats)

The analysis is the same as for the local elections (see previous post). The incumbent Fianna Fáil/Green coalition did very badly, especially when compared with the 2007 general election. The Greens were wiped out (and now have more deputies in the Dáil than local councillors throughout the state!). In the EP election, Fianna Fáil lost a seat to the Socialist party in Dublin. The Labour party picked up two seats outside Dublin. Sinn Féin failed to break through and they lost their Dublin seat.

The government easily survived a vote of no-confidence after the elections.

I had a great time on Friday. I got to vote three times, in the European election, in the local council election for my area, and in a Dáil by-election for my Dublin-South constituency.

I’ll report on the Irish local elections now, but much of the coming week will be taken up with reports on the European election in every SP country. It may take some time!

Briefly, the context is that the Irish economy is just … awful (at best). So, the incumbent government (Fianna Fáil and the Greens) was always likely to lose out.

In the local elections, Fianna Fáil did worse in the cities, particularly Dublin, than in rural areas where politics is often very local. Overall, Fianna Fáil polled 25.4%, which is about down 7% on its 2004 local election score. The Greens did very badly too, and is now likely to have only about 3 councillors in the whole country! The main opposition party, Fine Gael, came top overall with about 32.2%, an increase of about 5%. The Labour party’s support also rose by about 5% to 14.6%, which was their best ever local election result. Labour is now the largest party in the Dublin area. Results are available here.

The two parliamentary by-elections were both in Dublin – Dublin South and Dublin Central – and both were caused by the death of an incumbent TD. Fianna Fáil previously held Dublin South and an independent held Dublin Central. In my constituency, the Fine Gael candidate was elected on the first count, which is almost unheard of. He was a former TV journalist and had celebrity appeal. Labour came second and Fianna Fáil came third, which was a poor result for them. In Dublin Central, another independent candidate won and Fianna Fáil did even worse, coming fifth! So, while governments rarely win by-elections, both represent very bad results for Fianna Fáil and both were consistent with Fianna Fáil’s poor performance in Dublin locally.

Overall, Fianna Fáil was expected to do badly. Given its vote held up in quite a few county council areas, there was a sense in which the outcome wasn’t quite as bad as it might have been. However, it was still very bad. Whether or not the Greens decide to leave the coalition before the next election, which is scheduled for 2012, is another question. I would expect so. And whether or not Brian Cowen is still the Fianna Fáil leader at the next election is also a moot point. I would think it’s 50/50 at the moment. There will be a lot of worried Fianna Fáil TDs who think that they might lose their seat if the party’s support doesn’t increase and a change of leader, they might calculate, could help in that regard.

I am travelling this week, so I may not be able to do another posting until Sunday. However, given where this blog originates from, I thought that I should make a special effort to record a change of government.

In Ireland Bertie Ahern has stepped down today as Taoiseach (prime minister). He has been in office since winning the 1997 general election. He has headed a coalition government throughout, but one in which his Fianna Fáil party has always been the dominant partner. The first two administrations were with the Progressive Democrats (liberal), the current government includes the Greens as well.

Ahern’s announced his decision to step down about a month ago and it came as a real surprise. However, he had said that he would do so before the next election in 2012. Perhaps more saliently, he has been the subject of ongoing corruption investigations that have been gaining more and more media attention of late.

His successor is Brian Cowan. He was the Finance Minister previously. He was elected unopposed as the head of Fianna Fáil. There will be a reshuffle, but the coalition arithmetic is unlikely to change.