AAA's Gino Kenny: 'A hung Dáil? I'm not sure'
By Fiachra Ó Cionnaith, political reporter
An Anti-Austerity Alliance/People Before Profit candidate who seems set for the Dáil has dismissed Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil's concerns about forming a coalition, saying: "Civil war politics was over a long time ago. What we're going to have now is class warfare".
South Dublin county councillor Gino Kenny made the claim before the first count in Dublin mid west at City West this afternoon.
Speaking to the Irish Examiner as the alliance was being predicted to be in contention for as many as seven seats across the country, Mr Kenny said "numerically" Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil appear to be the only parties able to form a government.
However, despite apparent resistance within the two major political heavyweights over forming a coalition, the left-wing candidate said there is no reason for them to ignore the potential move.
"I think numerically it's probably going to be Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Civil war politics was over a long time ago, what we're going to have now is class warfare.
"A hung Dáil? I'm not sure, but don't rule anything in or out at this time. It's amazing what happens when the dust settles and when the count is counted."
Mr Kenny was speaking after Alliance colleague and Dublin south west TD Paul Murphy - who is in contention to top the poll in his constituency - said what is happening in this election is the continuation of 2011 and 2014.
"The two and a half party system is now broken, it's finished, just like what happened in (the) Spain (elections) before Christmas," he said.
"Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour have something like 53% of votes. If you go back to the mid-80s it was 80%. So there's a huge crisis of political representation for the 1%.
"A political revolution has taken place in Ireland over a series of elections. In 2011, Fianna Fáil was smashed and in particular their association with the working class. In 2014, the Labour party was reduced to below 5% in the European elections, so this [today's results] is an expression over a period of years of the same process we've seen in Greece, Spain and Portugal, just austerity eating away at their [larger parties] core. That will still run on.
"The next government is Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael, but what opens up then is a government that can be beaten," Mr Murphy said.
Meanwhile, retiring Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins has told RTE he is hopeful the coming Dáil will see a AAA/PBP/Socialist Party technical group of its own, ensuring greater speaking rights.
