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

26 days
Hard not to think it was a bit fluffed. Two reasons strike me for saying that. Firstly the fact it was called on a Sunday and that he didn’t wait until next week, but instead had to meet the President just prior to her departure from the country to the United State. Secondly the [...]

A text at 5.30am saying that journalists were told to be at the Aras told me that last nights late night postering and rumours were finally indicative that it was about to start. (I read it, and rolled over and went back to sleep, I assume that the journalists responded accordingly.)
Press conferences and launches will [...]

(Courtesy Siobhansilke). After some toing and froing on Politics.ie, it sounds like Bertie Ahern is going to call a general election for 24th May later today. We await official confirmation, that Bertie is going to Mary McAleese to ask her to dissolve the 29th Dail. Now might be a good time to remind people that [...]

John Dwyer, the Sinn Féin candidate for Wexford, has an interesting election poster.
At the moment only Fine Gael and the PDs have put billboards up in the town, and both are calling for your no.1, reminding us how great they are as people and as public representatives. The Fine Gaelers all wear suits, while [...]

I read this piece by Fergus Finlay in Tuesday’s Examiner* and I was positively seething afterwards. I would urge everyone to read Fergus’s piece and to raise this on the doorsteps with any and all government reps who will be calling over the coming weeks.
My sister, who is a year, a month and a day [...]

I used to be a big fan of the PD’s. I mean what was not to like. They had fiscally sound politics and a liberal outlook on the world. Yet under McDowell they have dived bombed in respectability. With the latest campaign against the Greens and the slogan of the party. The party is on [...]

Michael McDowell has launched his New Immigration Bill. The big part from Ireland.com
Foreign nationals legally resident in the State will have to carry a credit card-sized permit containing biometric information under legislation published today by the Government.
So what do people think? Is it right and is the fact that they will be biometric good or [...]

With all the talk of Stamp duty I amazed with how little coverage the issue of Value Added Tax gets. The only person I heard go on about it is Vincent Browne. None of the parties are going on about even though VAT is more regressive and hits people harder then stamp duty (21% of [...]

These leaders’ blogs aren’t blogs. Blogs allow readers to comment on content. Blogs are a two way street. You can come onto my blog and let me know I’m a twat. You might influence me, you might not. But I’ll let you say it.
This is just top-down press release style pointlessness. You’re supposed to be [...]

Rock the Vote launch leaders blogs. With Bertie, Pat, Gerry, Michael, Trevor and Enda blogging. However unlike this blog and most others they don’t allow comments I am afraid. To afraid people might disagree? That is a huge opportunity lost for people to really engage with politicians. As without it they are just press releases [...]

FF 34 (-3)
FG 31 (+5)
Lab 10 (-1)
Greens 6 (-2)
PD 3 (+2)
SF 10 (+1)
Ind 6 (-2)
The poll was conducted over last Monday and Tuesday from a representative sample of 1,000 voters at 100 sampling points across the country and in particular after the parties had all published the key economic aspects of their manifestos. Tomorrow’s Irish [...]

You can sign the petition here Currently1152 signatures including Fianna Fail big wig Senator Mary O’Rourke who issued support in the Seanad previously.
The Dail Debated the weekend voting bill again last night. Again the same fuck up was made. This time by Sinn Fein. You should read the debate it is [...]

It seems in FF’s hurry to get some vague campaign website up and running that they’ve missed out on hiring some competent designer for their new “Next Steps” campaign site. The resulting image is shown here:

The site, as it now stands, has a confusing visual effect occuring on the main page which does not seem [...]

Posted across at irishelection.tv by political thicko
Effective though labour’s attack ad undoubtedly is.
I think a little more directness is worthwhile.

Tom Raftery of Pod Leader fame has been commissioned to interview Minister of State Batt O’Keefe for a series of podcasts in the run up to the General Election.  Questions are invited here. Is this a first in terms of commissioning podcast interviews of politicians?

Lack of e-voting a disgrace, says Ahern