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Section 7 of the Electoral (Amendment) Act, 1927 requires that the Dáil be dissolved within five years after its first meeting following the previous election (14 June 2007). Article 16.3.2 of the Constitution of Ireland requires that a general election for members of Dáil Éireann must take place not later than thirty days after the dissolution. The next general election had to, therefore, take place no later than 14 July 2012. The current statutory framework for the setting of a date for polling day in the general election is set out in the Electoral Act 1992 (as amended). Section 96 of the Electoral Act 1992 requires that the poll is held, not earlier than the seventeenth day or later than the twenty-fifth day, following the day on which the writs for the election are issued. The writs for the election are issued by the Clerk of the Dáil on the day the Dáil is dissolved. Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport Mary Hanafin, said the general election was likely to place in mid March 2011. Batt O'Keeffe, then Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, hinted that the election might take place on 25 March. On 19 January the Green Party indicated that they expected the budgetary process to be completed by the end of February, and that the election should be held no later than the end of March. On 20 January 2011, Brian Cowen attempted a reshuffle of his party's ministers. However, following the resignation of six cabinet ministers, it became clear that the Green Party would not allow him to fill the vacancies. He subsequently announced that the election for the 31st Dáil would take place on 11 March. Motions of no confidence in the outgoing government were tabled by Fine Gael for 25 January and by the Labour Party for 26 January; both parties said they would be willing to give the government time to expedite the Finance Act in return for bringing forward the election date. Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said it could be moved by "a week or two at most". Cowen resigned as Fianna Fáil leader on 22 January, and the Green Party withdrew from government the next day, but promised to support the Finance Act. On 28 January it was announced that Brian Cowen intended to dissolve the Dáil on 1 February. As usual, certain offshore islands voted earlier than the rest of the country. Voters on Arranmore, Clare Island, Gola, Inishbiggle, Inishbofin (Donegal), Inishfree, Inishturk and Tory Island headed to the polls on 23 February; voters on the Aran Islands and Inishbofin (Galway) cast their ballots on 24 February. Read more about this topic: Irish General Election, 2011 Famous quotes containing the word date:“Modern tourist guides have helped raised tourist expectations. And they have provided the natives—from Kaiser Wilhelm down to the villagers of Chichacestenango—with a detailed and itemized list of what is expected of them and when. These are the up-to- date scripts for actors on the tourists’ stage.” “Until I was twenty-five, I had no development at all. From my twenty-fifth year I date my life. Three weeks have scarcely passed, at any time between then and now, that I have not unfolded within myself. But I feel that I am now come to the inmost leaf of the bulb, and that shortly the flower must fall to the mould.” “We, when we sow the seeds of doubt deeper than the most up-to- date and modish free-thought has ever dreamed of doing, we well know what we are about. Only out of radical skepsis, out of moral chaos, can the Absolute spring, the anointed Terror of which the time has need.” |