Predictions for 2014.

1. Labour will lose all its MEPs. FF will win 3.

2. FF will perform modestly in the local elections, with the big winners being the independents. FG/Lab will not do as badly as expected. The fact that elected councillors will have the power to vary property tax rates will be almost completely ignored during the campaign, which will be treated as primary elections for the 2016 general election. The ugly truth is that local elections matter far more to the political parties than the voters.

3. Dublin councils will fail to pass the threshold for a referendum on an elected Mayor, with councillors failing to turn up for the vote but then protesting that they are in favour of an elected mayor. They will call for further study. As they did 14 years previously in 1999.

4. Government will propose referendums on all the non-contentious proposals from the Constitutional Convention, not one of which will transfer an iota of decision making power from the cabinet. The most radical proposal, to bar TDs from being ministers, will be “set aside for further study”. Like Seanad Reform, draining the Shannon, and Dublin hosting the Olympics.

5. As polls continue to show Sinn Fein performing strongly, Fianna Fail will start to distinguish between Gerry Adams serving in cabinet and an FF/SF coalition.

6. For the first time since 1979, turnout for the European Parliament elections will go up, sadly due to loads of crazies voting for the first time for various headbanger parties.

7. “Vote No for Seanad reform” will join “Vote Yes for Jobs” and “Labour’s way or Frankfurt’s way” as one of those slogans which gets more embarrassing the further one gets from the result.