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

It is an interesting spat, I read a lot of Brian Hayes releases as they come into the inbox here and it is interesting how he does focus on the micro, chasing down figures which might be obscure to some but I always thought it was a sign of a decent command of his brief. [...]

It seems to stand to reason that with so many high profile developers (and plenty of low profile developers dotted around the country too) going to the wall as the bubble collapsed and banks called in loans outstanding, the future of PPP projects in providing social housing would fall into question. Well according to the [...]

Here’s a sign of the wide ripples of the crisis at Anglo Irish Bank — it apparently has pulled the plug on the financing of the 150 story Chicago Spire, which had Garrett Kelleher (owner of St Patrick’s Athletic, inter alia, an institution with its own problems) as the developer.  Although cost estimates for this [...]

From all of us here at irishelection. Now back to ur turkey!

It is thought to be the few places to do well in a recession (no doubt thanks to the E80 million that government put in the prize kitty every year) but your local bookie might be hurting. If they happen to be Celtic Bookmakers here are some of the more interesting politics bets you will [...]

Dumped into the bailout and Christmas news cycle is the news that Aer Lingus is restarting their Shannon-Heathrow service from March.  They are attributing it to cost concessions but it would seem that they are feeling politically underclothed in the face of the Ryanair takeover bid and want to reestablish their bona fides as taking [...]

Below the fold.  Impressions: they’re still playing from behind.  The Anglo Irish bailout sets the objective of it remaining “a sound and viable institution”. But the history of banking rescues shows that you have to let some banks go under.  Or do a major balance sheet restructuring to keep the good parts of  a bank [...]

Here is the unsourced Sunday Times story which claims that the government is to take an 80% stake in Anglo Irish and make large capital injections to Bank of Ireland and AIB along with a brokered merger of IL&P with EBS.  No mention of Irish Nationwide.  It’s only a few days to Christmas so if [...]

How to “cull” banking executives: the UK Financial Services Authority is getting ready to do it.

The Government has refused a pensioner a fuel allowance because he’s 4c over the limit.  Does everything they touch right now turn to a PR disaster? Joe Costello: The Minister for Social and Family Affairs has taken over the role of Scrooge this Christmas. Henry Porter, a resident in the North Inner City and ninety [...]

Update: David Drumm steps down as Anglo Irish Chief Exec in the wake of the loan scandal. The financial regulator had knowledge for a while this was happening and the couterparty were Irish Nationwide. Anglo is now below 30c per share and one wonders when the bank will simply beforced to merge. It is a [...]

In the downloadable rich text version (large file) of Building Ireland’s Smart Economy, one can check the file properties and see the author identified as Peter Clinch.  Peter Clinch is a Special Advisor (or SpAd, as Guido calls them) in the Department of an Taoiseach.  Now that’s fine.  Someone had to coordinate the different components [...]

It’s going on at the moment.  One strange detail (no doubt among many) has emerged.  The government just adjourned the Dail for 6 weeks.  But they will need legislation to access the National Pension Reserve Fund for their capital programme for banks.  Now it turns out the proposed venture capital fund for R&D will also [...]

Yes, that Peig: the one that a young conservative, nationalist, and Catholic state employed to revive its native tongue. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Peig’s death and both the national broadcaster and some of the print media have been reappraising her significance. For the guardians of the fledgling nation, Peig’s world was not [...]

Sherlock calls for full transparency in water

At the time of the first Lisbon referendum, Declan Ganley marched out on front of the cameras with three tickets for the leaders of the pro-Lisbon parties. We were, Ganley told us, to send these politicians back to Brussels to renegotiate the treaty. Many journalists mistook Ganley’s pro-social behaviour for a political stunt. After all, cheap stunts are to politicians what concrete blocks are to builders, but these commentators failed to remember that Ganley is not a politician.