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

The first thing I did when I saw this headline in the Fianna Fail press releases—Streaking is not a laughing matter: Crowe—was laugh.

What’s the deal with these?

An interesting debate took place in the Dail last week on the Labour Party motion opposing the increasing privatisation of the health service and the consequent further development of the two-tier system of healthcare. This privitisation will result in the building of private hospitals on the grounds of public medical facilities and major tax breaks [...]

VoteTube is a competition for the most entertaining, most persuasive and most effective political and civic message videos made about Ireland. There are two categories for entry. One is specifically for third and second level students and the other is for everyone else. You can enter as often as you like. Videos may be entered [...]

The publication of the Stern Report in the UK today has pushed the environment to centre-stage yet again, however it’s fair to say that the topic had been at the top of the agenda before this event anyway. In Britain, the green-shift in Tory focus under David Cameron has been the greatest evidence of this, [...]

From Breaking News: A minister today quizzed the Opposition over reports it urged the gagging of the Taoiseach at the European Parliament. Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern called on Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny to issue an immediate statement of clarification on what he termed “an unfortunate affair.” The move comes following reports that Fianna [...]

This story has been about the blogosphere for a while but now the dailies have picked it up. It seems blogs are being banned for staff in Leinster House. We getting too real for you, Leinster House? Can’t take the heat, eh? It seems the parties and members can still read blogs but the ordinary [...]

Science is fact, isn’t it? Pure fact, no ego, nothing but truth. It would be great if that was true and, indeed, science is that, but the people who come up with the science are as human as anyone. In 1801, Thomas Young proved that Newton’s corpuscular theory of light was wrong. In the famous [...]

Okay, the last post on this subject was addressing the need for some bluesky thinking on the means by which Fine Gael and Labour might take on Fianna Fáil at the next election, and the suggestion was that the big tent should be extended further in line with the Inter-Party Coalitions of the 1940s and [...]

Meath Chronicle E10m error costs town 75 homes Carlow Nationalist Lacey likely to run on PD ticket Anglo Celt Nurses strike averted at Cavan General Donegal Democrat Killybegs “becoming a ghost town” – Dinny McGinley Laois Nationalist FF TD’s brother slams “illegal” war in Iraq Longford Leader Rural poverty an escalating crisis – Bannon Western [...]

From Politics.ie FF -39 +6 FG -23 -2 SF -10 +2 Lab -10 -4 Green -8 +1 PD -3 -1 Oth -7 -2

Be warned: don’t read this post while having your tea! One of the great things about being in a wheelchair, as I am, is that you get a postal vote. And this has allowed me in the past couple of elections to indulge in a personal fantasy: filling in my ballot paper on the jacks.

Democracy, isn’t it great! It allows all types of people to run for election, whether they are right or wrong. Take this for example: last week’s Nenagh Guardian (Free reg.) reports that A group lobbying against the erection of mobile phone masts are considering running a candidate in North Tipperary in next year’s General Election. [...]

First, a plug. If you haven’t seen it yet, please give RoadSafetyBlog.com a visit. The site is co-ordinating a campaign among Irish bloggers to get people across the Island involved in the development of the next Road Safety Strategy, and to get young people in particular thinking and talking about road safety. The campaign is [...]

Originally posted on the Cedar Lounge Revolution. Continuing our dissection of 1990s politics and the implications for today and the forthcoming election, and why not? It’s more than time to cast a jaundiced eye over that particular period because it reveals more than enough about the contemporary situation, a discussion on P.ie (Politics.ie) caught my [...]

Just put the whole €52-million-plus-storage cost issue aside for one moment. Though our “single transferable vote” system may be one of the more democratic ones going, you seem to need a degree in rocket science to understand what’s going on. Quotas? Fifteenth count? Transfers? I get a splitting headache everytime I try to follow election [...]