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The Irish goverment is ridiculously ideological in a left wing direction. Including its reaction to migration issue and the stabbing in Ireland, and its support of hate speech laws, which are hyped to be some of the most extreme and one sided in europe. I doubt it advertised what it was before it got elected. Apparently it is the liberal conservative party of the progressive center. And wiki has it as a center right party!
These kind of "center right" parties end up more culturally leftist than the left. Or at least there isn't any sizable, difference, you are getting the same cultural far left. Nice to see them lose this referendum, but is there any alternative in Ireland which would be a substantial change from this? My impression from my very short "research" is that all major Irish parties are pretty interchangeable, unfortunately.
On another note, I think one of the problems of current democracy is that voters are too inflexible and avoid stopping voting for major parties if they push bad policies, or ones they disagree with. Or go to different parties with similiar agendas, scared of voting outside of what they are used to, or for parties branded as far right.
More referendums and direct democracy would be one way to get better policies which avoid the agency problems between ideological left wing extremists acting an an authoritarian manner where the people's are too party loyalist for their own good, to kick all of them out. The result wouldn't be always in line with the cultural right, but mass migration for example has been quite unpopular in most countries. The same people running a system that demonizes the alternative views, passes hate speech laws, and does as it pleases is not going to allow enough of that, of course. I do sincerely believe it would lead to something closer to a country run by the people, for the people, and better governance than that of ideological far leftist extremists who see opposition to their agenda as completely illegitimate. Even if it is not the ideal governance, it would be an important improvement.
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