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

Central Bank board member* David Begg reviews Peader Kirby’s book on the collapse of the Celtic Tiger –
It cannot be gainsaid that the social outcomes were less than were hoped for but the last agreement, Towards 2016, was the closest we have ever come to a social democratic programme in this country. This collapsed in [...]

Shortly after he was made leader of the Labour Party in 2007, Eamon Gilmore promised to increase his party’s Dail representation to 48 seats or more in the next general election. Refusing to bow to the ‘two and a half party’ political culture, with Labour permanently designated as the half party, he vowed to change the face of [...]

Dan Boyle sheds the green jersey.  His Sunday Tribune comments (which only got a weblink late in the day) are noted by Reuters.

A little Saturday puzzler.  One likes to believe that the annual report of a financial organisation provides a somewhat comprehensive description of its activities and accounts.  With that in mind, consider the following: Where in the 2009 annual report of the Central Bank of Ireland is there a discussion of its approximately €10 billion loan [...]

It’s all there in black and white and makes for fascinating reading: http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/Committees30thDail/PAC/Reports/document1.htm
No doubt the material will be filleted for gems that support political partisanship of one flavour or another, but for the ordinary concerned citizen, it’s worth skimming through the lot to get a flavour of what was influencing policy decisions at that time.

Just what is Michael Noonan trying to tell us?
Fine Gael’s new Finance spokesperson is reported to have told a radio station that, in his opinion, ‘New ERA’, FG’s €18bn centre piece programme to revive the Irish economy, will not create the 105,000 new jobs that is its headline promise.
The 105,000 new jobs number may have [...]

Ivor the Driver — full Seanad report.   It was nice of Bertie to send Ivor’s letter of appointment to his Cork address.

From the just released IMF annual surveillance report on Ireland –
The authorities agreed that property taxation would also help broaden the tax base while at the same time making it more stable than the current system of stamp duties. In the transition to a valuation-based tax, a flat tax rate is under consideration.
If you haven’t [...]

It’s worth looking at this Bloomberg News interview with Brian Cowen.  Although Bloomberg was in some ways going along with the hype surrounding Cowen’s visit — “Ireland primes the pump” — the charts flashed during the interview told their own story.  More importantly, the interviewer extracted an acknowledgement from Cowen that AIB will almost certainly [...]

In a week when the use of forged documentation in the asylum-system was highlighted with the rejection by the Supreme Court of the appeal of Nigerian asylum-seeker Pamela Izevbekhai against her deportation, FG and Labour are proposing the allow asylum-seekers to work. Despite 13% unemployment and mass-emigration – Alan Shatter and Pat Rabbitte are now [...]

Brian Cowen, today presenting the awards for outstanding achievement in the field of excellence in the Public Service –
It will be a challenge, and equally an opportunity – an opportunity to dramatically accelerate the pace of change in the Public Service, to the benefit of all stakeholders. And an opportunity to ensure that the Public [...]

So again the notion that we lack public representatives with the experience and talent to sort things out and how electoral reform might serve as a means to get us better TDs who could serve in government is raised today by Dr. Ed Walsh in the Irish Times. We’ve been here before of course, indeed [...]

July 1st, 2010. A momentous day for Ireland, and one that will be remembered in history for a long time to come. Not as momentous as July 7th, 1993 perhaps, but astonishing that we’ve reached this point just 17 years after Mary Robinson signed into law the decriminalisation of homosexuality.