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

With ministerial compensation already an issue after the latest pay review, the latest irritant arrives: a special section inserted into a bill (see below) by Brian Cowen last week to allow former minister Michael Woods TD to retroactively recover pension money for which he had forgotten to apply within the required period.  Two quick defences [...]

A quick review of where things stand on Aer Lingus and its services to Heathrow.  First, yet more evidence that Belfast is not the golden goose that EI seemed to think it was heading towards.  Easyjet is beginning European services out of Aldergrove almost immediately, including one to Barcelona that will compete head-to-head with Aer [...]

via Gerry OS 

So then. As P O’Neill noted that lasted precisely three days. 72 hours if we want to be picky. A whole host of expensive Road Safety Authority advertising in the weekend newspapers burnt on the alter of political expediency since, as the Department of Transport notes:

Announced this afternoon — the rule requiring that a driver on a 2nd provisional licence have a driver with a full licence in the car is postponed until end of June 2008. 8 months to clear the test backlog (209,000 currently on their 1st provisional, by the way). Statement from the Department of Transport below. [...]

Rough details here, more as it comes out. Its mostly as you were, FF unchanged, Greens at 7%, FG unchanged while Labour loses 1%. I suppose that it will come as a bit of a surprise to both sides as both Labour and Fine Gael could not have been happier with 1)their start to the [...]

No two ways about it, the main man Noel Dempsey is having a nightmare of a time in Transport. He has been badly undone by Aer Lingus and the FOI revelations (even though the civil servant took the rap) and now his handling of the driver’s licence regulations is woeful beyond belief. How can one screw up [...]

Well, now there’s no surprise. Clicking over to Politics.ie what does one see but a nascent campaign against the latest attempt by the Government to reform the Driving License situation. In a mass mobilisation that has those of us who have struggled long and hard on numerous political issues weeping into our pints the airwaves [...]

€32,471.40: The average annual earnings of an adult male industrial worker in Ireland. €38,000: Bertie Ahern’s pay raise for 2008. Sources below.

In my post on The Irish Times Gives Award to Itself Dav of mediabite.org, kindly left a link to a very interesting and wide-ranging interview that mediabite had with Fintan O’Toole this year. In relation to the post on the Property Developers series in the Irish Times its very informative on the symbiotic relationship between [...]

You may find it curious that at the moment the Irish Times is doing extensive coverage of Irish developers, those brave and assiduous men, and they are all men, who are bringing this country the type of shopping centres and office blocks that we could only have dreamed of when we sat watching Dallas in [...]

Another embarrassing revelation in this morning’s Examiner for Fianna Fail and some fantastic FOI work by them it has to be said. Dermot McCarthy, Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach and Secretary General to the Government, had been told by the Department of Transport of the Aer Lingus decision in advance by around [...]

His cup overflowing with goodies, Bertie Ahern is nearly at the end of post-election patronage and reward for those who propelled Fianna Fail back into Government Buildings. Some interesting committee appointments (well, for entertainment value anyway) as Jackie Healy Rae will chair the Social and Family Affairs Committee although Beverly Flynn loses out on a [...]

Journalists ordered to comply with Mahon

Reading Politics.ie recently, what do I see? Well, actually, reading Magill I see an inaccurate swipe at Politics.ie in the most recent issue. Wigmore wrote: Is there anything as awful as political blog sites? Not the sites of writers and personalities, but the bulletin boards and chat rooms. The hope that the likes of politics.ie [...]

The report of the 2007 Consituency Commission is out, some would say a little bit too late but how and ever. Kerry is to remain split, with Kerry South a 3 seater while Kerry North joins to West Limerick in also remaining a 3 seater. Dublin Euro is a 3 seater, Dun Laoghaire is a [...]