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

We are still looking for input on the Irish Election Pre-budget submission. The ESRI’s Budget Perspectives 2008. might be of some use.

The High Court today ruled in favour of the Mahon Tribunal and against the Irish Times in the Bertiegate case. The tribunal is seeking to have the paper and its journalist, Colm Keena, reveal the source of the material which sparked Bertiegate earlier this year in September 2006.
The planning tribunal sought the order against [...]

Questions and Answers is supposed to be our prime political debate show. Where the head politico’s come and debate the issues of the day and let the people see all sides of the argument before making their minds up on an issue. So what did we get in last nights issue. Q1: who should take [...]

From IrishHealth.
The president of the Irish Pharmaceutical Union (IPU), Michael Guckian, called on his members to end their action last night.
Mr Guckian said this was because pharmacists feared the contingency plans to give recovering addicts their methadone were not working, and that the involvement of an independent lawyer in the dispute was a positive move
More [...]

From the Sunday Independent.
Protest groups are being formed as a growing body of residents fear the power lines will run too close to homes and schools, endangering health by exposing them to electro-magnetic radiation.
Electro-magnetic radiation sounds scary doesn’t it. Yes it does. And every day we in Ireland are getting exposed to it day [...]

Video from yesterday’s Save Our Slots Rally
I am unable to embed them here, but they can be found at the below link
Link.
Update Simon. Video added below

Bertie gave the Bodenstown oration today and used it as an opportunity to return to the legacy issue theme of turning Fianna Fail into a 32-county party. He sought to reassure unionists that Fianna Fail will not be a sectarian influence of proponent of narrow nationalism as it seeks to move North.

There was a lively atmosphere on O’Connell Street in Limerick today with a red army again packing the street. Today rather than rugby, it was the issue of Shannon and its slots that were the main event. The press are pulling their punches at the moment but the only FF TD, John Creegan, on the [...]

Yesterday a court ruled that the Department of Education had not discriminated against dyslexic students when after they received reasonable accommodation in their exams that their results would be marked as having been marked differently. I wrote my feelings angrily on this a while ago Mary Hanafin or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and [...]

Many parties will be preparing Pre-budget submissions with many groups having submissions so why not a bunch of internet loonies like ourselves :). Idea would be that bloggers here could post their submissions (remember we here are always looking from bloggers to join up just email me at thedossingtimes at gmail.com or irishelection at [...]

Two bits of business in this post.  First, the sharp-eyed squid has pointed out that the first hints of an Aer Lingus move to Belfast appeared not in mid-June but in late May.  Below, the rest of the Irish News story to which squid refers.  Second, another interesting thing from the NI media.  Willie Walsh noted as expressing [...]

Time to boycott People in Need.

Over on politics.ie an article from the polish radio service is highlighted which says.
The Polish community in Ireland appeal to the authorities of that country to make Polish the third official language, after English and Irish. It’s natural, they say. We are now the second largest nation of Ireland, so we should enjoy our right [...]

Hat tip Eurotrib. From VoxEU
Gender discrimination is economically inefficient since it prevents equalisation of marginal products. Recent simulations based on calibrated macro models indicate that the economic loss is large. In one thought experiment, the research suggests that a very large fraction of the income differences between many nations and the US is due to [...]

Should we be giving people in power memory tests. Two big stories yesterday, someone forgot the tell Noel Dempsey about Shannon and John Bruton only now remembers being told a FG councilor asked for IR£250,000 to support Quarryvale. The phrase lose your head if not screwed on comes to mind. Am  I the only one [...]

If the Dail stays on schedule, ministerial questions will begin in about 10 minutes (link to live broadcast) at which time Noel Dempsey will be asked to explain the 6 week gap between his department knowing about the Shannon-Belfast Heathrow slot switch and him knowing about it.  Still unsolved, and perhaps to be explored in [...]