Ireland's election looks set to have secured victory for the incumbent center-right parties which have dominated the country's politics for nearly a century, signaling continuity for the business community but belying broad dissatisfaction with many social issues.
Ballot papers are counted at the Dublin RDS centre, in Dublin, on December 1, 2024, on the second day of counting ballots in the Irish General Election.Ireland's election looks set to have secured victory for the incumbent center-right parties which have dominated the country's politics for nearly a century, signaling continuity for the business community but belying broad dissatisfaction with many social issues.
The result "breaks with the trend seen internationally this year for weaker incumbent election results," analysts at investment firm Davy said in a note. Chief among those issues is the country's dire housing crisis which has seen an increase in homelessness, particularly in the capital Dublin, Muzellec said.
"Among all euro zone members, Ireland is by far the most vulnerable to a loss of U.S. trade," economists Andrew Kenningham and Jack Allen-Reynolds of Capital Economics said in a note last month. The latest election result confirms that there is no significant political movement in Ireland demanding its own protectionist shift away from its very open economy, Laurent Muzellec of Trinity Business School told CNBC.