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INDEPENDENTS’ DAY?

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Across the country, politicians are starting to gear up for the General Election. They all want your vote and many want to govern. But the face of Irish politics is starting to change: hoping to cash in on a wave of support for independents and others, many of the formerly independent TDs in the Dáil are coming together to form alliances and even new parties. This documentary asks what role these groups will play in a new Dáil.

For virtually the entire history of the Irish state, our politics has been dominated by big certainties and those certainties found their expression in a system dominated by two big parties and one smaller one. The two-and-a-half party system.

This landscape shifted in the 2011 general election and, since then, that change seems to be continuing. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael used to garner over 80 per cent support. Recently they have struggled to break 40 per cent. The structure of Irish politics is changing before our very eyes.

Recent opinion polls suggest that independent and smaller parties enjoy the support of over a quarter of all voters. This is an astonishing figure, and its implications for the newest political force on the Irish landscape are profound. Many of these TDs are looking to turn poll numbers into votes by coming together with other Independents to form pacts and even parties. Many among them are talking, not only of re-election, but of seeking a mandate to govern.

In this authored documentary, Pat Leahy asks who are the independents and others. Why we have seen a surge in favour of them in opinion polls over recent years? Why are they now deciding to coalesce? And crucially, how, if elected, would they govern our country? Because with power, comes responsibility.

Contributors to the programme include TDs Shane Ross, Lucinda Creighton, Richard Boyd Barrett, Paul Murphy, Pat Rabbitte, Michael Fitzmaurice and Mick Wallace and commentators Ivan Yates, Noel Whelan plus academics David Farrell and Theresa Reidy.