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

O’Dea rejects pub fight claims

DEFENCE Minister Willie O’Dea verbally abused two people during a pub row over Shannon Airport and offered to fight one of them, it was claimed last night.
Need I say anymore?

In todays independent this was a headline. Irish HIV rates on the up, says new report
AN average of 31 Irish-born heterosexual people a year are now being diagnosed with HIV, according to a new report. The report from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre said of the 169 heterosexual people from different countries diagnosed in [...]

There has been much comment recently on the indebtedness of the nation such as Conor’s post on €1.3 TRILLION REASONS WHY IRELAND HAS AN OVERDRAFT FOR AN ECONOMY. On of the questions is how much of that debt is housing and how do we compare. Luckily someone else has done the work for me. Morgan [...]

RTE are reporting that Amgen has put their plans for a factory/facility and an additional 1,100 jobs in Cork have been put on hold indefinitely. Rumours had been around Cork for a while that this was the case but as recently as last month the company were simply saying their would be a delay in [...]

Drug allegations raised in the Dáil
Fine Gael TD Simon Coveney asked Bertie Ahern if he was aware that a journalist had claimed an unnamed Minister had admitted taking drugs on a regular basis.Mr Coveney asked if the Taoiseach was planning to call in his Ministers to ask them if the claim was true.He read out [...]

Today’s Irish Times carries an opinion piece written by Dr. Alan Gillespie (subs req), chairman of the Ulster Bank Group, in which it is suggested that Ireland’s IDA and its Northern Ireland counterpart Invest NI should merge into an all-Ireland body.
This, it is argued, would benefit both Northern Ireland and Ireland as it would bring [...]

Today in the news we are told
Corrib gas vigil mounted Members of the Shell to Sea campaign began an all-night candelit vigil at the Corrib gas refinery gates in north Mayo last night to mark a year since deployment of extra gardaí to the area.
So I looked back a year and saw this headline.Landmark [...]

Heads up to Random Walk for this one. And, ahem, McWilliams for the overdraft line. Ireland’s gross external debt increased by 262% under Fianna Fáil and the PDs, from around €521 billion in 2002, to over €1.36 trillion as of 30 June 2007. The gross external debt, according to the CSO, consists of “the gross [...]

The government released the Exchequer figures for nine months this afternoon and it is a wonderful mix of spin and fact. The release begins with the bad news; the deficit for nine months of 2007 has grown to €3.1 billion. That is well ahead of the €546 million deficit forecast for the full twelve months.

Last night, RTE broadcast the third and final part of David McWilliams’ ‘Generation Game’. The first two episodes revisited familiar McWilliams territory: Ireland’s debt explosion, our over-reliance on multi-nationals, the impending slowdown in the property market. The final episode was intended to showcase McWilliams ‘Big Idea’. Namely, that we institute a ‘right of return’ for [...]

Not many of us have the good fortune to found a school of thought. But David McWilliams is a fortunate man. In the final episode of RTE’s Generation Game he has conjured for us an innovative strategy to revitalising the ailing Celtic Tiger which deserves, if only fleeting, a recognisable status. I’d like to propose [...]

In a surprise move Brian Hayes endorsed the government policy on education.
“Nothing less than a quantum leap in how we teach is necessary for Ireland to become a major player in the global knowledge economy”
Now Quantum Leap is not just a TV show, it is when an electron moves from one energy level in an [...]

Enda Kenny this morning suggested Bertie had lost the moral authority to lead this country, a suggestion Bertie thumbed his nose at this afternoon suggesting in his own inimitable fashion that they can pfo. However in Ahern’s response (short and inarticulate tho it is) there is a nugget of insight, as there is with most [...]

The uneasiness that seemed evident last week (not with government itself rather the contortions positions its forces them into) is set to go on. Eamon Ryan was door stepped this morning and has again committed the Greens to seeing this whole government thing through.
No doubt they are a little disappointed that Gormley’s raising of litter [...]

Update: Report here. 
Ireland lagging on treatment waiting times. Is the headline on RTE.ie while lower down the piece they tell us we have jumped from last out of 29 to 16th out of 29. While still not great it certainly is a move in the right direction.
The report states that the Health Service Executive reform [...]