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

Speaking at the launch of the Merchants Quay Ireland 2006 report, Junior Minister for Drug Strategy Pat Carey suggested the government may look at implementing a needle exchange programme nationally. The programme seems prompted by the volume which the smaller Merchants Quay project deals with. Last year nearly 40,000 visits to the programme were logged [...]

A fairly comprehensive statement today from the up-to-now quiet Enda Kenny on SNN-LHR. Perhaps some of the time was spent reconciling the position that FG will now adopt with their non-opposition to the Aer Lingus privatization (although they had complaints at the time about how it was managed). A few interesting things in [...]

Interesting post by Simon here on irishelection who seems to be dubious about Eamon Gilmores opening leadership campaign gambit [sub req'd], the idea that Labour should aim for 30 seats. Easy to say one might think, and a good five years until it was proven one way or another. But I suspect that if Gilmore [...]

Surely this is the type of contest which Howlin craved? Willie Penrose joined the crop of heavyweights such as Ruairi Quinn and Michael D Higgins in supporting the candidacy of Eamon Gilmore.
Penrose is an influential voice within Labour as he is one of the most successful vote-getters the party has in its ranks. He was [...]

I am in Paris at the moment and thus a bit behind the news cycle here, so I am not sure if anyone has made this point yet, but anyway. I always find it interesting the groups that align in these cases. You can get two groups that never unite unite on an issue such [...]

Here’s the text of the (hastily written?) press release from the Department of Transport following the Cabinet meeting on Shannon-Heathrow today.  The statement is mostly the familiar litany from the government and avoids the issue of the call for an Aer Lingus EGM or the purpose of the 25 percent shareholding.  But there might be [...]

Gilmore targets 30 seats for Labour this is what this got me thinking of.

Here’s an issue that has surfaced briefly at various times in the Shannon-Heathrow-Belfast dispute and has now been explicitly raised by IMPACT: is Belfast in Ireland?  We can probably all recall instances where one of the many usages for the two jurisdictions on the island has had a similar impact as fingernails being drawn across a [...]

This appeared in one of the Sunday’s yesterday but the Green’s Ciaran Cuffe today announced the party had reservations about the building of an Outer Orbital Route from Drogheda to Naas ahead of improving public transport infrastructure. Cuffe suggests that the Orbital route lies beyond what was agreed in the Programme for Government and appears [...]

On RTE this morning, Brendan Howlin ruled himself out of the contest for the Labour Leadership.
Having considered running for the position over the weekend he added that this was the end of his ambition to be leader.
He will instead take up the Leas-Ceann Comhairle position on the return of the Dail.
Surely that makes it [...]

I know some breakfast roll men. I meet them every morning at my local newsagent. They’re building workers. They’d be surprised to learn they are one of the most important political categories today, their lifestyles and electoral choices the subject of endless punditry. Indeed, you’d think, from the commentary that the only debate in the [...]

Apologies for the delay this week, technical gremlins got into the system. Better late than never however is Episode 3 of Inside Out. Head over to the blog or check out iTunes to download this weeks show.
Up for discussion this week is Scottish Independence and the issue the Gardai refusing to allow a Sikh reservist [...]

Here’s an interesting profile from the Financial Times a few days ago of Padraig O’Ceidigh, now the chairman but at one time the hands-on businessman who developed Aer Arann out of its island service base into a decent sized regional point-to-point carrier.   It’s not clear whether this is the right model for Shannon, where long-haul [...]

Gilmore and Broughan were mentioned earlier but today’s Irish Times carries strong suggestion of Howlin, McManus and Burton being possible candidates. It will be of interest to many who happily greeted Rabbite’s departure that Gilmore is not in favour of an ‘alliance of the left’ either, which reads as a pointed reference to Sinn Fein [...]

Fianna Fail have made available the prepared text of Cowen’s remarks in Ballina this afternoon.  One could question what the value added of the pugnacious speech is, especially as the event is presumably intended to leave some of the partisan politics aside for a little while.  Nevertheless it does usefully collect the FF (and ex [...]

RTE this morning had interviews with both where strong hints were given that Gilmore and Broughan (quelle surprise) were interested in standing. There will be a few kits flown over the coming days no doubt Howlin and McManus are taking soundings as is Burton and a Joe Costello must be considering it after a decent [...]