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

EurActiv.com – Interview: ‘Hold second Lisbon vote, with opt-outs’ | EU – European Information on EU Treaty & Institutions Colm Burke MEP reckons that we need to get honest and tell people we will be holding a second Lisbon Vote in Oct 2009 with protocols desigend to secure a yes vote.

The Dail voted this morning to take Tuesday off (wonder if my boss would respect a democratic vote of workers to abstain from Tuesday?). Ah sure they must be wrecked placating 30,000 protesters on the streets of Dublin before facing another week of batterings over education cuts. This is ridiculous, it may be tradition but [...]

Digital Darragh has pictures of the protest march in dublin Interesting protest sign in foreground. NO CARD NO TREATY. Update by Cian: A few pics from me here too below fold

  With all the talk of the down turn in construction and the havoc that has raised it is one of the safest industries in the country. The next phase of the global economic evolution is off-shoring and a rate we have yet to see.  Ireland can no longer compete with the likes of China for manufacturing. [...]

Labour’s Cllr Dermot Lacey notes over on his blog that Dublin City Council have started their voter registration drive for the new electoral register.  Nice posters, which include messages in English, Irish, Chinese and what is presumably Polish, are up in Smithfield and other areas with high numbers of people who don’t have English as [...]

Paddy Power offering on next election being in what year. 2008 28-1 2009 8-1 2010 7-2 2011 6-4 2012 evens I am not a betting man but some very good value bets there.

The local elections will be around May next year. But to be able to vote you need to be on the register of elections for 2009. Which is to be published in February. However the Draft electoral register is coming up in November. So make sure you are on the register. And then you can’t [...]

The term save your bacon was first recorded in 1654. What the origin of the phrase is unclear. Maybe bacon was expensive back then and to save it, was to save something precious. To a politician nothing is more precious then their seat. It is their job, their symbol their power it makes them what they [...]

That’s the deal now on offer to those workers making just above the minimum wage.  RTE on the inevitable income levy climbdown – The Government has decided that people earning up to the minimum wage of €17,540 per year will be exempt from the 1% income levy announced in the Budget. However, anyone earning above [...]

Every time a crisis point arrives in relation to funds for our GPs the elephant in the living room pulls on its camoflage and goes completely invisible. Here is the truth: our GPs in Ireland are vastly overpaid for what they do.

AT a press conference this morning, the Taoiseach Brian Cowen, Minister for Health Mary Harney and Green Party Leader John Gormley announced a major u turn on the medical card policy for the over 70s. The threshold was nearly trebled while those who already hold the cards will be allowed to keep them. No finance [...]

One of the biggest stories about the state of the Irish Economy came out on Friday to little notice.  THE IRISH Financial Services Regulatory Authority has instructed accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to assess the extent to which the banks are delaying the collection of interest payments on loans to builders and property developers. If banks are [...]

I travelled to Brussels this week with a group of Irish journalists on a media trip to the EU which co-incided with the Summit. In the two days leading up to the Summit we met a number of Irish and non-Irish MEPs, several senior officials in the Commission and Parliament (including the highest ranking civil [...]

We hear that Fianna Fail county councillors are so outraged about the medical cards that they have arranged a regional meeting of an entire Euro constituency of councillors at 24 hours notice for tomorrow. No doubt they are spitting at the prospect of taking the largest of kickings in June for the measure.They aren’t the [...]

I’m talking out of turn here politically, but if anyone is interested in a practical solution to the over 70s medical card fiasco, there’s my tuppence worth. I might be asking a rather obvious question here but if the GPs charge the state €640 (the figure itself isn’t really relevant at the moment) for giving [...]