Republic of Ireland Dail Elections

[EGaffney 17]

Abortion

Alcohol

Budget Surplus

Children's Rights

Corruption

Education

Environment

Europe

Foreign Policy

Healthcare

Industrial Policy

Law and Order

Northern Ireland

Rural Issues

Same-Sex Unions

Tax Cuts

Transport

UK Relations

1

1

3

3

2

2

2

2

1

4

1

3

1

2

2

4

2

1

I don't know how exactly issues can benefit parties. Here is a list of areas where the parties are seen as particularly strong. FF would be better on tax cuts, rural issues and Northern Ireland, FG on law/order and corruption, Labour on healthcare and education, PD on tax cuts, maybe Green on environment, SF on Northern Ireland and healthcare.

I would keep FF at Centre on Tax Cuts, they didn't make reducing the higher rate an issue during the election.

[gopprogressive 1,063]

Okay thanks- I'm going to test out what I have.

And a question: what issue helped FF defeat FG on? Like what did Ahern attack Kenny on?

[EGaffney 17]

The appearance of competence in economic management after ten years of fantastic GDP growth. This is also why the backlash against the government has been so severe after the house price and fiscal crash. Also, the difference in charisma was like 4 versus 2.

[gopprogressive 1,063]

All right, I think I'll replace UK Relations with Economic Management and make that FF's strong spot and FG-Lab's weakness.

What should the positions be?

[EGaffney 17]

Hard to say. You could just handle it using the Experience statistic: 5 for Ahern, 3 for the other three, 2 for the left-wing parties, High or Very High profile.

If you want to make a more ideological Economy issue, try this:

Socialist economic policy. Nationalisation. Widespread economic planning. (Soc)

Expansionary economic policy to pay for public services. Regulate prices. (FG, Lab, Green, SF)

Moderate economic policy. Continue social partnership with unions and business. (FF)

Expansionary economic policy to pay for tax cuts. Major public sector reform. (PD)

Laissez-faire economic policy. Privatise and deregulate industry.

[gopprogressive 1,063]

Gaffney,

You're right on the experience issue. I put Ahern at 5, Kenny at 2, Rabbitte 3, McDowell 4, and Sargeant, O'Caolain and Higgins at 2.

All right, I'll give the scenario a try now. I changed FG to CR on Law and Order, as apparently Kenny campaigned on the issue (so did McDowell).

It seemed to work out well. I will send you a copy.

[EGaffney 17]

You're right to put Kenny at 2 rather than 3, but dial McDowell down to 3, he made a comment that basically started the collapse of the housing market when he speculated about changes to property transaction taxes, plus he was heavily criticised for predicting 5 to 5.5% annual growth during 2007-2012.

[gopprogressive 1,063]

Gaffney,

What's your email? I can't find it due to the fact my email is cluttered up.

If anyone else wants the updated 2007 scenario, they can have it. I will submit this to 80soft once betatesting is complete.

[mz452 18]

Matty1019@yahoo.com

[zagatstein 2]

null

[Patine 35]

You know my address.

[EGaffney 17]

gaffneep@tcd.ie

[gopprogressive 1,063]

Sent to all who requested!

[EGaffney 17]

I will play this now and then make suggestions!

[EGaffney 17]

Party leaders: I don't know if you've chosen the stats for balance purposes. If not, the party leaders should be 4/2/5, 4/3/2, 3/4/3, 3/4/3, 2/4/2, 3/3/2, 4/4/1.

Abortion: C position should be the current CR position, i.e. worst cases of rape, incest etc.. CR position should be "No legislation for abortion" and R position should be "Criminalise women travelling to the UK for abortions". Issue positions are then correct for all parties.

Same Sex Unions: CR position should be "Weak support for civil unions. The status quo is fine too."

Tax: I wasn't very clear about the CL issue description. Instead of "... introduce wealth tax", it should be "... stop tax avoidance by the wealthy".

Move SF to CL on Environment, Labour to CR on Northern Ireland, Socialist to C on Northern Ireland*, FG to CR on Same Sex Unions, Labour to C on UK Relations.

The one big change I would make to issues would be to replace UK Relations with Economic Management, since the UK relationship is only ever discussed in relation to Northern Ireland, and that's already an issue.

It looks good, now I will play it.

*This is an interesting case. The party's policy is "a socialist Ireland as part of a free and voluntary socialist federation of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales". Clearly, that's not going to happen, so the closest position to what they believe is probably C or possibly R.

[gopprogressive 1,063]

Didnt Fine Gael openly endorse Same-Sex unions?

Changes have been made, but I need to make some modifications for Economic Management. Will update it soon.

[RI Democrat 0]

I'd also like to try this, scoyleri@yahoo.com

[EGaffney 17]

Didnt Fine Gael openly endorse Same-Sex unions?

Changes have been made, but I need to make some modifications for Economic Management. Will update it soon.

Sure, maybe they did. I can't remember, they just seem conservative on most things.

[gopprogressive 1,063]

Changes have been made. Will send it out again.

[JKLPirate 1]

jklpirate at yahoo.com

[Treasurer 28]

treasurerofthepc at yahoo.com

[gopprogressive 1,063]

Sent out, what do you guys think?

[matvail2002 803]

Could you please send the updated version to me?

matvail2002 at gmail.com

[hcallega 1]

hcallega@yahoo.com please

[RI Democrat 0]

I played through it once as Labour, won about 20-25 seats, I think. It's a good scenario, though as in some previous Ireland scenarios, Sinn Fein seems to do better than they do IRL.

Also, aren't Fine Gael actually a bit to the right of Fianna Fail on economic policy? This scenario seemed to have it the other way around, with FG embracing more centrist and center-left positions on the economic compared to FF.