Irish Election - Coverage of Irish Politics, News and Current Affairs

Since the dictum that “all politics is local” surely applies in Ireland, it’s worth keeping note of seemingly arcane issues that could present tricky problems for the Government in the election.  One is surely the closure of the sugar factories in Carlow and Mallow.  While the government has the safety net of being able to [...]

Ciaran Cuffe of the Green Party is a TD for Dun Laoghaire. Some interesting feedback in there that you might want to pontificate on-Lab/FF as the most likely government, pedestrianising of College Green, turning Bank Of Ireland, College Green into a civic building. Ciaran Cuffe Thanks for talking to us. IE.com: Quick reaction to the [...]

The Kingdom That’s a mighty leap altogether LIVELY Kerry dancer Kelly McDonnell is relying on the Jackie Healy-Rae factor to help her in her quest to become Miss Ireland.  Kildare Nationalist Creevey an early faller in general election race 

Before I start I am going to be open about this. This post is going to contain some of the same ideas as I talked about in this post. But I think it can get away with it as I think it is relevant to the latest government proposals on funding third level education.

Over the recent months, coinciding with the growing data and drip-drip feeling of the Business Posts monthly barometers, the narrative of the next election has shifted. At the turn of the year we had a government which was in trouble but certainly not out of power. The opposition were a ragtag bunch, ill-fitted to working [...]

The Social Partnership deal has been more or less done. More details later when they come to hand.

RTE are reporting that a prisoner was seen being brought through Shannon. It seems the prisoner was a US Marine for minor offensives. However the Irish Government was not informed of this as they are supposed to be. The American ambassador has apologised for this but the cabinet has expressed “gravest concern.” In a statement [...]

CJ Haughey passed away earlier this morning. At this stage the talking heads are getting into full gallop on TV, radio and doubtless ready to go in the press tomorrow (or have been ready for a while). Below is open to all comments on Haughey so get stuck in. Let us know what you reckon [...]

Limerick County Councillor, and Election candidate, Cllr Noreen Ryan, proved that she was not up to representing the people who elected her once and for all today in the High Court in Dublin. Ms Ryan was before the court as part of an ongoing dispute between residents of Palaskenry, and Limerick County Council, over works [...]

It has been pretty quiet in politics and around here the last few days I guess the good weather effects people. Indeed the local papers have been quiet as well hence no round up. But Questions and Answers was interested. Q1: What is the panel’s response to the latest sex law? Panel and audience respond [...]

In main ways it might be to Fianna Fail’s and the PD’s advantage to lose the next election. There is a saying about economics “Don’t do what the banks say to do, do what they do”. With that in mind when I heard that AIB and Bank of Ireland were selling there buildings. I got [...]

Via Damien Mulley comes the Sunday Times story that Labour are looking to web guru Zack Exley to get a web strategy in place for next May. Exley has worked for Howard Dean (for the last US Presidential Election), John Kerry (ditto) and UK Labour. Go to Mulley and the Times article for some comment. [...]

In the first of an inevitable-if irregular-series in the run up to May next year, The Sunday Business Post trails an interveiw tonight on The Week in Politics with ex-Labour fixer Pat Magner. The interview tells us that Rabbitte had backed himself into a corner over any deal with Fianna Fail. Should the numbers not [...]

RTE reports that FG’s Dinny McGinley TD is standing down at the next election.  Going by the last election results (which you can get to from the blog links above), FG will have little problem holding the seat since their 2nd candidate had as strong a first preference base as McGinley. FF probably have bigger problems, as [...]

To me free market has the ability to solve many of the world problems from Dublin transport to world poverty. It is the one force that allowed the west to out perform the Soviet Union and allow its people to be free. I have talked here about privatising Bus Eireann and Aer Lingus and I [...]

Regarding the latest hiccup in Irish jurisprudence, I’m with Simon: the political consequences for election are hard to discern. If the coalition continues to take a battering on other things, this episode may weigh heavily on them. . But, as Fionna has argued, the issue should not go away. The law as it stands is a mess (if not an ass). This crisis, more than than anything else, reflects a general unwillingness to meet difficult policy issues head-on.