{"id":402558,"date":"2024-11-05T19:24:05","date_gmt":"2024-11-05T18:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/11\/05\/simon-harris-irlanda-parlamento-elezioni\/"},"modified":"2024-11-11T18:28:16","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T17:28:16","slug":"irelands-prime-minister-dissolves-parliament-early-elections-called-in-late-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/11\/05\/irelands-prime-minister-dissolves-parliament-early-elections-called-in-late-november\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland’s prime minister dissolves parliament. Early elections called in late November"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels –Ireland will go to early elections<\/strong>.\u00a0Simon Harris<\/strong>, the prime minister,\u00a0announced<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0he will dissolve the D\u00e1il<\/strong>\u00a0(Irish Parliament)\u00a0this week<\/strong>\u00a0after the budget bill is voted on in Parliament on Tuesday (Nov. 5) and Wednesday by the Senate.<\/span><\/p>\n

The news is not a bolt from\u00a0the blue<\/strong>. The Taoiseach<\/strong> (Irish prime minister) had stated<\/a>: “Now I expect there to be a general election in 2024<\/strong>.” Harris explained the reason, namely his willingness to “ask for a mandate from the citizens of this country<\/strong> and ask them to allow me to continue to be their Taoiseach.”<\/p>\n

The problem for Harris was\u00a0getting approval for the budget manoeuvre<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0testing the popular vote<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, the leader of the conservative governing party Fine Gael had taken over from his predecessor Leo Varadkar at the end of March this year<\/strong>, after Varadkal decided to resign<\/a> from both the position of prime minister and party leader.<\/p>\n

The 2025 budget<\/a> is the occasion for the consecration of Harris<\/strong>, in his vision.<\/p>\n

It is a measure\u00a0of about \u20ac10.5 billion<\/strong> to be organized toward key areas, such as infrastructure, housing, and support for finance.\u00a0There is no shortage of elements of change to taxation and social assistance measures, regarding which\u00a0increases have been planned for social assistance<\/strong>, with increases, for example, in maternity benefits.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for taxation, the aim is to favour the middle classes. There is a great debate over the so-called\u00a0 Universal Social Charge (USC)<\/strong>, an additional tax on incomes above the minimum threshold of 13,000 euros. The government proposes to lower it by one percentage point for middle-income earners, which would be a remarkable change for a measure that started as “temporary” in 2011 and is still standing.<\/p>\n

There is bad blood between the Irish parties on this issue, which is likely to be central in the upcoming<\/strong> (and very close) election campaign<\/strong>.\u00a0As a counter-proposal, the main opposition party, the social-democratic\u00a0Sinn F\u00e9in<\/strong><\/span>,\u00a0wants to abolish the\u00a0Usc<\/a> for all incomes up to \u20ac45,000<\/strong>. Even more extreme is the proposal of the far-left alliance PBPS (People Before Profit), which would like to keep the additional taxation only for the incomes of the super-rich (over \u20ac100,000).<\/p>\n

The budget of discord in Ireland could be the springboard for Harris<\/strong>. After passing the baton to him, Fine Gael gradually gained support<\/strong>. He is the first<\/strong> in the governing coalition, with polls<\/strong> showing him at 26 per cent<\/strong>, against 20 for the Republican Fianna F\u00e1il party, also part of the majority along with the Greens.<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in’s opposition stops at 18 per cent<\/strong>. A percentage that is\u00a0sinking\u00a0due to the political<\/a>\u00a0scandals<\/a> of the last period<\/strong>, such as the one involving a party member accused of paedophilia<\/a>.\u00a0On this, the\u00a0leader, Mary Lou McDonald, has had to give quite a few explanations<\/strong>, especially regarding the references given to the suspect by two Sinn F\u00e9in colleagues, despite the very serious allegations.<\/span>\u00a0“I am furious at what they did,” said<\/a> McDonald.<\/p>\n

The leader’s explanations will have to convince voters, who will be in the whirlwind of a flash\u00a0campaign when the Irish Parliament is dissolved.<\/p>\n

Hot weeks lie ahead for Ireland, which, if confirmed, could go to early elections on Nov. 29<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Fine Gael has benefited from its opponents’ difficulties<\/strong> by asserting its position. Still, the debates are expected to be very heated. Harris comes across as confident\u00a0<\/strong>enough to press for confirmation directly from the electorate. At the same time,\u00a0McDonald will have to try to keep her party on its feet<\/strong> and, in between scandals, press the social policies so dear to the Social Democrats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the passage of the budget bill, Simon Harris, leader of the governing coalition, will dissolve the Irish Parliament to consolidate his position. Oppositions, despite this, trudge on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7877,"featured_media":351623,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[25816,28802,29590,26878,26869,29589,27513,26692],"class_list":["post-402558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-elections-anticipated-en","tag-eire-en","tag-ireland-en","tag-irlanda-en","tag-scandali-en","tag-simon-harrisat","tag-fine-minded"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7877"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402558"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":402564,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402558\/revisions\/402564"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}