General Election 2011 is over, at least the first one is over and hopefully the politicians can sort out a deal to make a stable government. The odds are that a Fine Gael/Labour coalition will govern for some years to come while the outgoing Fianna Fail party could take several elections to recover from the  disaster that befell it. At the end of the day Fianna Fail cant blame anyone but themselves. Their policy decisions over the last decade led the country into an unsustainable boom and when it all collapsed they landed the nation with a huge amount of debt while trying to shore up a group of banks that mattered little to anyone outside the golden circle of property developers and politicians.  I personally dont doubt most of the TDs thought they were doing the right thing for the country but they had become so removed from the real country and the ordinary people that they did not understand what life was like outside Government Buildings.

I voted. I always have since I was old enough to vote. When you consider what people went through to get the right to vote then it seems childishly ungrateful not to spare 10 minutes every 5 years on the way home to call into a hall and put a mark on a piece of paper. For ID I brought my passport and before heading over to the polling station I snapped a couple of shots. Most of them didnt come out and then on the way I only managed to get one photo of the election posters that I liked. I did try to sneak an iPhone photo of the ballot paper when I was in the voting booth (not allowed but I wasnt the only one who did it) but it didnt come out so these two photos will just have to do for this election.

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