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

Were things good, Joan Burton would be roundly accused of talking down the economy. However, things aren’t good and so the answer to her Parliamentary Question on tax reliefs for construction holds some pretty grim reading. In the financial year 2006, the government waved of €464.4m in 19 property based tax exemption schemes. This included [...]

Ireland now sticks out like a sore thumb among countries whose banks are heavily exposed to property.  While the guarantee scheme made a huge splash when it was announced, other countries have since moved onto banking system capital as a major focus of their efforts — providing banks with enough of an additional buffer to [...]

This is Fine Gael’s new campaign. What do people think? (it has been squeezed to fit. )

So poll numbers are down. Fianna Fail at 25% in the Irish Times poll. I am sure there is plenty of commentary about all this already among people. There is a generally held belief that the young are the most likely to be left wing in a society and most likely to be on the [...]

Finally, a slim ray of light. ‘The problem we have in the public finances is as a result of the fact that the economy is in a recession . . . we have a problem in the economy which has created difficulties in the public finances. It’s not the other way around.’ So said Eamon [...]

techPresident – The Future of Campaign Technology: The Ground Game Irish Parties looking at learning online and database lessons from Obama could do worse than bear this post in mind. Almost as soon as the election is over, improvements and evolution are making some parts redundant and others essential. Get your campaign an i-phone for [...]

Lisbon Is Doomed Colman at the EuroTrib give his reasoning on why Lisbon is dead. The Government's incapable handling of the budget cuts are the nail in the coffin.

Barack Obama’s victory might not have been certain until late on, however his online victory was secured long before this. Anyone who attended the conference last month where Damian O Broin and Zack Exley gave an incredible breakdown of the online campaign would know that Obama’s superiority was borne of simplicity, ruthless organising and intelligent [...]

Our economic boom was built on 2 pilars. Foreign Direct Investment and property. Now that we are down too one pillar that pillar has to take even more weight. 80% of Irelands exports are from multinationals. 20% of Irish GDP comes from just 3 American companies Dell, Microsoft and Intel. This has been possibly our [...]

It is a long running line ‘tax revenues were off predictions’. For good or bad tax revenues repeatedly failed to conform to targets and expectations. On the way up property inflation yielded a massive boon to the exchequer and fuelled increases in state spending and shrinking of the tax base. On the way down – [...]

Tubridy is running for local elections. No not Ryan but some guy called Garret( according to P.ie his brother. ) Now there is a few things to note here. 1. He is running for Fianna Fail. Which is well hidden on the site. As if he is ashamed of the label. Seems to be doing [...]

Those who were left with the fallout from Bertie Ahern‘s ten years in office, namely Cowen and Lenihan, were probably impressed by the production value of the Bertie documentary series last night – if nothing else. The programme was exceptionally well put together and surpassed what I had expected it to be. It wasn’t reliant [...]

If you click on the party news link on the top you can see the latest Press Releases from the political parties. Bruton exposes Irish oil rip-off: diesel 20.1% dearer, petrol 11.3%, heating oil 13% Reading that headline you would think that he himself had exposed the rip-off. Telling us tales of going undercover in [...]

Dan Boyle was selected last night to run for the Green Party in the Euro-South constituency next summer. The senator’s work will be cut out for him getting into one of the three seats. The field is likely to have two sitting MEPs who won in 2004 and a third who was parachuted in for [...]