A STRING of funding announcements in Wexford last week is driving speculation that an election will be called in the coming weeks.
Government Chief Whip Paul Kehoe was in town last Friday to officiate over the launch of a new agribusiness degree programme at the Wexford Campus of Carlow I.T. This comes in the same week that the institute was given the go-ahead to acquire a 35 acre site for the development of a purpose built state of the art campus, as part of the proposed new University of the South East infrastructure.
Speaking afterwards, the Fine Gael TD indicated that the general election could happen “before the year is out”.
While the Enniscorthy politician refused to be drawn on the notion mooted in areas of the media that the government are looking at a date in mid-November directly following the delivery of the budget, he revealed that he was “happy with how Fine Gael are doing in the polls at the moment”.
Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin also took a sojourn from Dail business on Friday morning to attend the official announcement of a further €2.5million in funding for refurbishment works at Johnstown Castle.
This announcement was promptly followed up by a statement from Minister Howlin’s office welcoming the programme of advanced works for the Loreto Secondary School.
While the construction of the new 900 pupil post primary school at a site in Killeens was originally announced as part of a government stimulus package in 2012, this latest announcement means that the green-light has now been given to the construction of a new access road at the site.
The Labour Party senior politician also made a stop-off in Ferns to formally open the new GAA Centre of Excellence.
These latest capital investment announcements, tallied with the anticipation that the forth-coming budget will offer tax breaks and spending increases across all departments, is fuelling the expectation that the government will not run its entire term, despite comments made by Taoiseach Enda Kenny to the contrary on Sunday’s episode of RTE’s The Week in Politics.
The deadline for the general election is April 8th 2016. Legislation states that the current government must be dissolved by March 9th 2016 and an election called scheduled within thirty days.
The bookmakers are predicting that an election will take place next month. The odds shortened from 4/5 to 1/3 last week.
Liam Glynn, BoyleSports’ spokesperson said: “Judging by the surge of bets that have come in for a General Election to take place in November on Tuesday evening, we reckon that it’s only a matter of time an official date will be announced for November.”
He added: “A lot of the bets that have been placed were around our Dublin city centre shops which are within walking distance of the Dáil and with the budget set to take place next week it’s now looking like that we may well be heading to the polling stations in November.”