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

Fabulous news everyone.
Should we think of casting our democratic vote for Fianna Fáil we are invited to “take the next steps”. Where? To what purpose? Baby steps or great leaps a la Neil Armstrong? Shuffle, or stride? Forward or back? Up or down? Over and out.
Should by contrast it be Fine Gael that takes our [...]

That is to be the battle between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, the Taoiseach’s speech was absolutely saturated with promises to the electorate. Detailed promises on tax and spend, with the Taoiseach, the message went, its more, more, more. Enda Kenny took a completely different approach.

More than the other speeches so far, the clear emphasis is that Fine Gael are pushing Enday Kenny’s conviction politics. His image as conviction politician was the focus of the start of the speech “as leader I didnt just make a bond with Fine Gael but a bond with the Irish people”. While the start [...]

[MP3 from lofg.com]
- O’Callaghan & ors v Judge Alan Mahon & ors [2007] IESC 17 (30 March 2007 - Judgement of the Supreme Court, delivered by Denham J.)
- Mahon Tribunal: Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments
- Owen O’Callaghan v Mahon tribunal case: Quarryvale hearings to resume in April (The [...]

The Fine Gael take on criminal justice has always worried me a bit. Mainly just from Higgins. But yesterday another thing popped up that shows me why Fine Gael in government would be slightly scary. From Irish Times.

He [McDowell] rejected a Fine Gael proposal allowing courts to admit evidence even if it had been [...]

A while back we got ourselves the swanky domain irishelection.tv. Inspired by the votetube and hoping to prod our politicians on to bigger and better things we are launching it this morning. It is a similar look, similar feel only with a smaller group of commentators watching our politics unfold from youtube. Another hurler on [...]

I decided to merge these two since they are related. First a quick update on the weekend vote petition. It is just over a week since we kicked off the petition for a weekend vote this General Election. We have gone over the arguments and there is healthy debate over the rights and wrongs of [...]

The Breaking news site speculates this morning, or at least reports growing speculation that the General Election will be held on Thursday May 24, a week later than Wagger suggested but still a Thursday. It is also interesting how he now appears to have the power to change the order of days in the week;
“There [...]

We should have noted this before* since it’s been brewing for a while but Fianna Fail are in the midst of an increasingly high-profile selection row in Dublin North-East.   In a move dictated by HQ, they are going with just two candidates, Michael Woods and Martin Brady, leaving longtime local player Senator Liam Fitzgerald out [...]

All politicians love jumping on an old band wagon. The latest being the kids in New Zealand he showed that Ribena did not have as much Vitamin C as they said. So now Mary Upton has come out and said. Our schools must be equipped to test for Vitamin C
“We’ve just seen the case in [...]

And so the final one is upon us. This weekend is the Fine Gael Ard Fheis and as Enda takes to the stage, his is going to have to find that golden sink to throw at the voters. The Examiner tell us that he is going to outline the promises on Health, Crime and the [...]

A response to Mary Harney’s vidcast. View This Video on You Tube (Thanks boozy for the heads up)

According to Sinn Fein local Canidate John Dwyer they spread it in fields across Wexford. I particularly liked this line.
“One of the main conditions of the nutrient plan was that the 2871 tonnes of waste would be treated with odour suppressant. Totally disregarding local people [...]

A bus shelter inside the borders of Dublin Central now displays a poster with a head-shot of FF Councillor Mary Fitzpatrick, with a message asking all to vote number one for her. Hmm, has the election been called yet?
What’s most interesting about the poster is what’s not [...]

What you mean you missed it? Don’t worry so have a lot of people.
The Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2007 is currently going through the Oireachtas. Contained in that bill is a clause that will mean that private developers in the many areas of Dublin will be able to tell buyers that nobody on social [...]

This is just a quick note to follow on from this post.
The video of the press conference which took place yesterday is available here.