Voters Decide

THE IRISH ELECTION RESULTS were staggering.

The party, [Fianna Fail] which has ruled Ireland for 61 of the last 80 years, was reduced to the country's third party, with Sinn Fein hot on its heels in fourth place. The Greens, Fianna Fail's coalition partner, lost all its seats.

Fine Gael is expected to take over 75 seats, 7 seats short of a majority. The leftist Labour party (The "leftist" term was in an AFP story.) came in a distant second with 33 seats. Fianna Fail is now reduced to 20 seats. In Dublin alone, they lost 46 out of 47 seats.   All 6 Greens deputies lost their seats.

Ireland is, as Reuters notes, "the first euro zone government to be brought down by the debt crisis."