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

The term “public health” is used in various ways but one important meaning refers to the system that monitors for emerging health risks in the population and reports them to an authority that can do something about it.  We’ve traditionally thought of this as the key mechanism for control of infectious diseases: people start showing [...]

Eoghan Harris almost walks out on TV3’s The Political Party
It’s a pretty funny moment, especially when he realises he can’t re-record the interview and everything he has just said is going to be broadcast.
It’s equally funny to note that while he complains about spending too much time on the Tribunals here, he b

What is it with Fine Gael and random Drug testing and searches. Do they have shares in it of something. Their usual hobby horse drug testing is schools has been around for about a year which has very little research supporting the notion that it works. But now they have moved on to clubs. Gardaí [...]

Britain is to embark on a wind power revolution that will produce enough electricity to power every home in the country, ministers will reveal tomorrow. The Independent on Sunday has learnt that, in an astonishing U-turn, the Secretary of State for Business, John Hutton, will announce that he is opening up the seas around Britain [...]

The recent Transparency International report gave some interesting data on corruption in Ireland. They asked Percentage of respondents who think that in the next three years corruption will Increase, Decrease or stay the same. 44% of Irish people said that they thought corruption would decrease this compares to the EU as a whole of 18% [...]

Taoiseach attends EU-Africa summit
Bertie meets Robert after refusing petitions in the Dail last week to boycott the forthcoming summit over the situation in Zimbabwe. A trial run in Lisbon for the forthcoming six-hour signing ceremony for the EU treaty. Gordon Browne will not be attending

Tiger’s wife wins lawsuit
What a stupid, stupid thing to publish. I am just amazed that in this country, with libel the way it is, the sum was not bigger.

Eamon Gilmore 3.5
James Reilly      3.35
Richard Bruton 3.24
Joan Burton      3.12
Brian Lenihan   3.04
Brian Cowen     2.93
John Gormley  2.78
Brian Hayes     2.77
Jan 0′Sullivan  2.73
Eamon Ryan   2.59
Enda Kenny    2.56
Dermot Ahern 2.48
Mary Hanafin 2.42
Mary Harney  2.3
Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin 2.15
Bertie Ahern 1.78
Graph below fold.

The Six one News had a report about the todays jobless figures showing a rise in unemployment coming mainly from construction. They had a report about how many rural areas depend much on construction something I mentioned a few weeks ago. What it reminded me of was a clip on reeling in the years. In [...]

In view of tonight’s news that Fianna Fail have registered as a political party in Northern Ireland, it’s worth reading this Slugger O’Toole post from a few days ago noting the lax regime covering donations to political parties in NI relative to the rest of the UK.  One wonders if the NI registration is really [...]

On no less a day than national Dig-Out Day, the Mahon tribunal team was its most explicit yet about its own theory of the legal expenses contributions to Bertie Ahern, or at least most explicit in their scepticism that the dig-out ever occurred.  Charlie Chawke (who, God bless him, is essentially working with one leg) [...]

Property in Ireland - its sale and rental - is not just a social issue, it’s a political issue. And it is covered by journalists as a political issue. Recently we saw a highly publicised campaign by the Irish Times and the Irish Independent to see stamp duty cut. The argument was that stamp duty [...]

Edit : Bumped. If you have not voted please do. Thanks
Iain Dale launched on his blog Politicians’ Performance Index for Britain so I thought why not have one here to. Sure people love polls Anyway the Irish Election performance index will ask people once a month to rate politicians performance. You shall find [...]

Speaking in the Dail Enda Kenny brought up his old chestnut drug testing in schools. (Considering the recent allegations that drug taking was happening in the dail you can sigh our petition to drug test Dail Eireann here)
I made a suggestion previously based on analysis of works done in other countries where a voluntary code [...]

After the 2007 Budget last December, Brian Cowen was called Santa Claus by those quick witted subeditors eager to fill a snappy headline. After all, the surprisingly large tax returns, mainly provided by the rampantly inflated housing market allowed him to provide a bumper ‘giveaway’ budget.
This year of course, with credit crunches and a collapsing [...]

Another day at Mahon – and another “dig-out” contributor who had no idea that the payment was a loan, and another of Bertie’s “repayments” remitted to a charity linked to Bertie Ahern (the Mater).  This time it’s Maureen Gunne, speaking for her late husband Fintan.   Much like Padraic O’Connor, her view is that Bertie was [...]