Bonum Certa Men Certa

Understanding Irish general election 2024 results Dublin Bay South

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Nov 30, 2024

Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock.

Counting staff have conducted initial tallies of the ballot papers and these confirm my predictions from the blog post yesterday.

Personally, I'm not in contention to win a place in the Dáil. The big positive outcome for my campaign is the increased interest in my blogs about the adverse impact of social control media and some of the other things that are going wrong at the intersection of technology and society. Unlike last time I ran for public office, it does not look like a finished last again.

Yesterday I commented on one of the minor candidates from the communist-trotskyist PBP. Many people were amused that I frustrated the campaign of a communist. Nonetheless, that was not my intention. My only intention was to demonstrate the hypocrisy of communists using social control media platforms that enrich billionaires in a foreign country. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see that the communist increased her share of the votes from three percent to four percent. At the same time, the Green party vote fell as they were running with a different candidate. In general, the left votes were divided and fighting against each other and none of them appear to be able win a seat. That is a loss for the left as one seat was previously held by the Greens.

Kate O'Connell previously served as a local representative for the party Fine Gael and this time she ran as an independent. The media showed a big interest in her campaign. Her previous status and her media profile haven't helped her attain the number of first preference votes required to be in contention for one of the four seats.

Nonetheless, Kate achieved about 4.5% of the vote and this demonstrates how much harder it was for other independents who have little or no public profile at all.

Many people have commented on my €17,000 electricity bill. This is the type of scandal that is so unusual that it would normally appear in a news report even if there was not an election in progress. The media have known about the bill for a week but chosen not to report on it. This adds to the perception of many people that the media has been very selective in reporting on the existing political parties and not providing any space for new candidates and the issues we raise.

One of the issues people raised with me during the campaign was the status of the Sandymount Baths. Despite Dublin's incredible shoreline, the Baths have been derelict for over 100 years. Coincidentally, many people comment that the same two parties have taken turns to govern Ireland over the same period of 100 years.

The only independent candidate who did get significant media attention for free is the high profile bank robber Gerry Hutch. He is in fourth position after the first tally and this means there is a real possibility that he will win a seat. He could miss out on the seat if the preference transfers from other candidates all work against him to help one of the candidates in fifth or sixth positions to rise up into the fourth position and displace him. If that happens, he may miss out on the seat by a very slim margin. It may come down to just one hundred votes. People who acquired Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch domain names may share some of the responsibility if he misses out on a seat by such a small margin.

The election created a huge interest in my blog posts about inconvenient truths in the days before voting. It is interesting to see that the heightened interest in my blog has continued in the time since the polls closed.

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

The Ultimate and Inevitable Fall of OpenAI (Even Brave is 'Bigger' Now)
"When you advertise at the Super Bowl, you’ve reached just about every consumer in America. It’s the last stop. If you’re not profitable yet, you never will be."
GNU/Linux Rises to All-Time High in Chile
sharp rise for GNU/Linux in Chile
 
Links 10/02/2025: Facebook Mass Layoffs, "Meta" Did What Aaron Swartz Had Done But to the Tune of 81.7 Terabytes
Links for the day
Microsoft Tarnishing the Brand of Arch
Of course Arch can do whatever it wants, but being associated with Microsoft is a badge of shame
Adding Slop to Your Blog Only Makes One Assume All the Text is LLM Slop
Simon Coter from Oracle has turned to slop
Macao is Leaving Microsoft Behind
Windows is falling to new all-time lows
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 09, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, February 09, 2025
Microsoft's WSL (LSW) Shows That It Can Never Love Linux, Only Windows
that's just how Microsoft rolls
Activism in Times of War and a Coup
'Linux' Foundation works for fascism
What the Silencing of Neatnik Tells Us About Linus Torvalds Inside a Microsoft-Dominated 'Linux' Foundation
Is Linus Torvalds free to express his mind as he wishes about every topic, even just any technical topic?
Windows Down to 11.35% in Senegal, as Measured by statCounter
Another all-time low (Windows was at 99% in 2009)
"Latest Technology News" in BetaNews is LLM Slop Promoting OOXML and Proprietary Software at the Expense of LibreOffice and OpenDocument Format (ODF)
Remember that "open-source" and Open Source aren't the same; the former is fake
Links 09/02/2025: Coffee, Toxic Productivity, and Programming
Links for the day
Debian's Human Rights violations & Swiss women Nazi symbolism
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 09/02/2025: Software Patents on MP3 and Another Scam Dressed Up as "Crypto"
Links for the day
Links 09/02/2025: Russian Energy Cut Off, LLM Pushers Show Signs of Desperation
Links for the day
Richard Stallman (RMS) Does Not Have Media Companies and Lobbyists on His Side, But His Message Spreads Regardless
The message of RMS is spreading in spite of all the smears
Links 09/02/2025: Hottest January on Record, Panama Blackmailed
Links for the day
Why We Still Love Gemini Protocol
Gemini Protocol may seem like something "old" (it's actually very new) and something "nobody would use", but many people use it
Gemini Links 09/02/2025: "Died as a Mineral" and Game Interface for a Non-Game
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 08, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, February 08, 2025
Links 08/02/2025: UK Back Doors and Religious Fundamentalists in Positions of Higher Power
Links for the day
Today's IBM (Red Hat) Isn't the Company That Fought a Microsoft-Sponsored SCO in Court
IBM is nowadays in a state of rapid disintegration
When You Simply Rebrand Almost Everything as "Hey Hi" ("AI"), "Hey Hi Workloads", "Hey Hi Datacentres" and Whatnot
The "growth" has been a growing lie for years if not decades
Microsoft Windows Falls to 12% in Myanmar
Remember that Microsoft is virtually 0% in mobile
This is the Man Who's Attacking Linus Torvalds et al in "a Disease" (Social Control Media)
One thing that Richard M. Stallman and Torvalds can agree on is that Social Control Media should be avoided
Gemini Links 08/02/2025: "Thought Leaders" and Returns to Gemini Protocol
Links for the day
Links 08/02/2025: MElon Coup, Mass Layoffs at Facebook, and PlayStation Network Down
Links for the day
Unlike GAFAM, Free Software Serves You, It Does Not Serve Governments and MElons (Overlapping Forces)
Tired of oligarchy controlling your life through gadgets and "apps"?
On Wars Against Founders
We need to insist that founders remain
When It Comes to Social Control Media, Linus Torvalds is Channeling Techrights
GAFAM workers know exactly who to aim at
New EPO Paper: Promoting (Rewarding) People Who Grant Many Illegal European Patents to Make More Money (at Europeans' Expense) While Patent Courts in the EU Are Themselves Illegal
now the coup is sort of complete and even the "courts" are part of the corruption
Slopwatch: Carnival of LLM Slop and FUD Spewed by Bots, Pasted in by MaKenna Hensley and Day
Welcome to the Web in 2025. Articles about "Linux", "Security", and the Web (e.g. "Firefox") are fake.
Links 08/02/2025: News Corp Admits Traffic Declines, Wildlife Trafficking Tackled
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/02/2025: Lamp and Notions
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 07, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, February 07, 2025