Ireland Ousts Old Government

It seems hardly anyone is happy with their government these days. In Ireland, voters rejected the Fianna Fail party, denying them a place in government for the first time in 13 years, and a significant place in parliament for the first time since 1932. The rebuke is largely because of Ireland’s financial crisis. Fianna Fail presided over Ireland’s economic boom, and its collapse and subsequent bailout by the European Union. The country currently has an unemployment rate close to 14 percent and 100,000 people are expected to emigrate over the next two years in search of work. Instead of Fail, they chose the center-right Fine Gael and the Labour Party, both of which favor budget cuts and the austerity measures mandated by the European Union as a condition of the country’s bailout.