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

Good day for a news dump… The Minister for Health Mary Harney has said that major cutbacks are underway to prevent cost over-runs in the Health Service Executive. The minister was responding to questions in the Dáil about the HSE’s budget over-run which was expected to exceed €300m by the end of this year. Minister [...]

It’s useful to look at the details of the guarantee that Alistair Darling gave Bradford and Bingley yesterday in comparison with Brian Lenihan‘s dramatic announcement today.

I was listening to Thomas Friedman of the New York Times talking on KRCW’s To the Point. Friedman has been arguing for years that the US needs to drastically cut its dependence on oil and to transition to more sustainable technologies and behaviours. “The problem for the US economy” he said “is that it has [...]

In a statment released this morning, the Government signalled that it will “safeguard the Irish Banking system”. The world fell apart yesterday and surely some of our most famous banks are hanging on by a thread. Their stock pummelled and – in private at least – their reputation is now in tatters, they need security [...]

The world is falling in.

Voters are not ignorant, according to Bryan Caplan, they are irrational. Caplan is the author of the provocative “The Myth of the Rational Voter”, a book in which he lays a large part of the blame for poor political outcomes on the shoulders of voters. The voter messes things up because he or she makes [...]

Cathal Coleman out at my alma mater emailed the details of his adult education course on Democracy this morning. The course is called The Worst Form of Government: Democracy from Plato to Marx and full details are in the pdf.

Part of the UK’s new short-selling rules is to require that investors disclose short positions in quoted financial institutions.  The list reveals that some big investors are looking negatively at Irish banks – [Wall Street Journal, subs. req'd] Lansdowne and Blue Ridge Capital disclosed short positions in Anglo Irish Bank. Kynikos Associates held a short [...]

Twelve year old Rebecca has a hole in her heart. It is a congenital defect and it may cause her problems in the future. But it is not by a long way her biggest challenge in life. Rebecca’s parents are both heroine addicts and they have abandoned her to her granny who is now in [...]

Joe Zefran is the editor of RTE online at RTE.ie – the online presence of the State broadcaster and he is going to be attending the Irish Social Media conference on October 4. He will be talking about the developments in the mass media here with regard to the internet and technological change. I met [...]

While some on Questions and Answers last night were talking of socialism for the rich, New York bourses plummeted again on uncertainty about the Hank Paulson bailout plan. The Dow ended down 3% again, ISEQ fell over 5% this morning and everyone is left scratching their heads. The problems lie in Donald Rumsfeld’s known unknowns.

The Taoiseach formerly known as Bertie wants a title. Looking forward to hearing your suggestions. Here are mine: Iar infection Iar wig Iar relevent Iar ittant Iar-ksome Iar of the sow (that you can’t make a silk purse from) Wasn’t it funny when people pointed out that, in wanting to be referred to as Iar [...]

Back in March of 2007 I queried the professional backgrounds of the then FF/PD cabinet with respect to their experience of the realities of making things and what could be termed the productive sector of the economy. Batt O’Keeffe appears to have revived interest in the topic in recent days by suggesting that we need [...]

ITs a good week for Red C to take the latest tracking poll for the Sunday Business Post. Markets are falling like stones (Friday has the potential to be another massive dead cat bounce) and the government don’t look to have stamped authority on many aspects of policy.

Good riddance. Or as WorldbyStorm writes over at Cedar Lounge Revolution, ‘The PDs get a a four week reprieve. Then they die.’ Can’t come soon enough. The only downside is that we’ll have to endure a plethora of obituaries telling us how the PDs made a difference, how they shaped whole governments regardless of their [...]

In a carefully calculated Friday afternoon news dump which will be lost in all the financial excitement, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern has added at least 6 months to his earlier timetable for a Victims’ Rights Bill.  This is a sequel to his killing of Alan Shatter‘s private member’s bill on the same subject back [...]