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

From The Boston Globe (via Steve White). By revealing the names, the group said it hopes to highlight the issue of immigrant Irish priests who are known pedophiles and whose histories of alleged abuse have long been “outsourced’’ to the United States. It said news from Ireland serves as a painful reminder to survivors. BishopAccountability.org [...]

It’s that time of year again when the mainstream media distrtibute performance gongs among their favourite politicians. There’s a touch of the foxes sitting down to judge the chickens about the whole thing. In due course that ‘Politician of the Year’ stands a fair to middling chance of being chewed up, masticated and spat out [...]

According to TV 3 News Brian Lenihan has been diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer. Update by Cian: The later post to this has been removed following complaints. The Department have not confirmed the story and we will wait until they do so. This post stays up to note that TV3 are reporting the minister is ill. [...]

A quick note to say happy Christmas to all our readers, bloggers and commenters. Steadily since 2007 we have grown irishelection.com and you have all helped to develop this blog. Best wishes to you all – where ever you are – this Christmas and for 2010. Many thanks for the support, readership and liveblogging in [...]

Of a Christmas Eve, no less, Brian Lenihan has issued the statutory definition of eligible assets for NAMA.  This raises the incidental point that it’s really not a good time for the media to take their eye of the ball, as the Department of Finance has also in effect admitted that performance-related “bonus” was part [...]

Hot on the heels of the NAMA board, Brian Lenihan is delivering his Christmas pressies ahead of schedule with the valuation regulations for NAMA.  Before we get into a potentially key detail, have your calculators ready for the following.  Let’s suppose that you are an ordinary decent developer with a project that has revenue of [...]

The NAMA board has been released. Former chairman of the Revenue Commission Frank Daly Steven Seelig [ed. former IMF officer.] Brendan Mc Donagh of the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), now interim managing director of Nama, is to be the chief executive of the agency. The other members of the board are financial consultant Eilish [...]

From the Independent IRISH Nationwide chief executive Michael Fingleton fasttracked millions of euro of loans to leading politicians, it was claimed last night. These included a €1.6m loan to former finance minister Charlie McCreevy, who was buying a property that was only worth €1.5m at the time, an RTE investigation found. The loan was granted [...]

Look, I realise that The Irish Times only provides Breda O’Brien with a column to get its liberal readership riled up. Nobody wants to read opinions that conform rigidly to the mainstream the whole time (on which point, here‘s an insidiously good article on how climate change is grand). Well, I am liberal and I [...]

Did you know that when it comes to the financial sector, Ireland has “stronger oversight and better regulation”?  That’s the sales pitch from Billy Kelleher TD who has the Trade and Commerce portfolio within the department of enterprise and employment.  It’s a quote from a Financial Times story which says that Ireland is marketing itself [...]

They came in search of a legally binding agreement. What they got was a communiqué, and a short one at that. But it was a choice between that, apparently, or nothing at all. About two and a half pages in length, the agreement hammered out by US President Obama with the representatives of China, Brazil, India [...]

From the Irish Times THE INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund (IMF) told the Government that the definition of “long-term economic value” on bank loans in the draft Nama Bill was “masterful” as it was “sufficiently specific” and “sufficiently vague” to allow “appropriate flexibility”. Steven Seelig, an adviser at the IMF, made the comments in an e-mailed response [...]

Social partnership is dead, ICTU General Secretary, David Begg declared this week; killed off by the government. ICTU’s threat of a ‘winter of discontent’ to force the government to reverse the public pay cuts might have been the stuff of banner headlines and political hand-wringing. Curiously, it fell flat. Overtaken by a Bishop’s resignation perhaps? Fallen [...]

You might have heard about the Herschel Telescope of late. If not possibly because you only consume Irish media basically it is the largest telescope ever to be put in orbit. Some recent images showing the cosmos in never before seen detail have been released. Scientists are raving about this because basically, it can tells [...]

Around fifteen years ago in Duagh, Co Kerry, a man named Liam Sheehy raped a local woman in her car. She was giving him a lift home from the town when he pulled the handbrake and raped her. During the trial a retired principal of the local community college gave character evidence on his behalf, as did the local [...]

From Dublin City Council. Dublin City Council last night voted in favour of a motion by Councillors Tom Brabazon and Críona Ní Dhálaigh that will oblige developers give new estates in the city names in the Irish language only. The names of the new estates in Dublin city will reflect local history and topography. Now [...]