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

A four month pregnant 17 year old girl is taking the Health Service Executive to the High Court tomorrow after the Health Service Executive asked gardaí not to permit her to leave the jurisdiction for an abortion. The girl, who is under care of the HSE, found out a week ago that her baby has a condition [...]

Seanachie, of the superlative Pleasures of Underachievement highlights something that perhaps should be getting as much prominence as the Weekend vote issue but has, so far, managed to go completely under the electoral radar.

After Margaret. Labour give you Aoife. View This Video on You Tube

The following is inspired by the father of Magical Realism Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Rather than being a truly factual account of politics in the constituency of Cavan – Monaghan it should be viewed as a type of fable, containing elements that may be true. The constituency should be a five-seater but through a rather desperate [...]

First sod turned for M3 motorway

Enda Kenny signs his contract with the people, but has he signed a carbon offset contract. From RTE it says he is going to travel 20,000KM. Which if he is travelling in one of the Fine Gael SUV’s will produce 6,038 tonnes of CO2. Not including the CO2 of the rest of his posy travelling [...]

The Irish Times begins the first full day of the election campaign with a story from the Mahon Tribunal. The Tribunal has been informed that Bertie’s bus driver on the night in Manchester (for I think it is he) gave £30,000 to Celia Larkin in cash. The money was placed by Ms Larkin in an [...]

Breaking news indicated from the Irish Times political editor Stephen Collins on The Week in Politics about a story in tomorrows paper. More as I get it but it concerns £30k, Celia Larkin and Michael Wall. Maybe this is why Bertie has been a bit quiet today and avoiding questions?

Yes tonight here on IE we are announcing the launch of ‘my candidates stuff is tackier than yours’. I still have metal badges and a sweatshirt from the Mary Robinson Campaign from 1990 but this is 17 years later and candidates and canvassers have access to so many more exciting things to give away, festoon [...]

Over at cearta, I have posted the following footnote to Election 2007: Now that An Taoiseach (the Prime Minister) has put us out of our misery and finally called the long-awaited general election, all Bills currently pending will fall with the outgoing Dáil (Lower House). Of those of particular interest to this blog, this means [...]

They’ve announced it. The general election is set to be held on May 24th. I won’t be voting. This is not because of apathy. This is not because the difference between the two possible coalitions is minimal. This will be because of what one angry disenfranchised voted called Temporal Gerrymandering.

So the election is on and, as the cliché goes, all bets are off. But between now and polling day, is there anything we should expect to see that we haven’t seen so far in this campaign? Naturally there’ll be a lot of hand-shaking and baby-kissing, but what important political manouvers do you expect to [...]

Bertie’s election call is somewhat bizzare, to say the least. Were it called last Sunday, the Mahon tribunal would have been suspended. This is not the first time Bertie has lost his nerve – remember his party address? Reminds me that Bertie might not be the political genius that he believes himself to be. More [...]

Daithí on Lex Ferenda writes: Irish bloggers, please spread the word. We may as well make the most of a daft Thursday election. If you are unlikely to be able to vote in person on Thursday 24th May (and you are already registered to vote), it is not too late to apply for a postal [...]

PD manifesto is up on the website some of the main promises; Reduce the Tax rates for the higher and standard rates to 38% and 18% respectively. REbalanc tax in favour of couples so that they can earn E40,000 tax free and up to E100,000 on the standard rate More below;

I’d like to remind people to get their digital cameras, webcams and mp3 recorders ready as the season has begun for the Doorstep Challenge. Remember you need to go for all those who come to the door not just the big bucks.