Loyalty not an issue as voters show their dissatisfaction

As Fine Gael, Labour, and Fianna Fáil, have discovered, the Irish electorate is not loyal, writes Gary Murphy.

IN THE RTÉ studio on Saturday morning, Pat Rabbitte came up with the quip of the 2014 elections when he wryly noted that, even if John the Baptist had been Labour leader, nothing would have persuaded the voters to spare the party.

Sitting across from him in the studio, I was much more interested in his observation that the people don’t protest in large numbers by rampaging down Grafton St breaking windows, but rather vent their vengeance in the ballot box. And Rabbitte well knows this, as the Government in which he serves sits in office because of the vengeance of those same voters.