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

As has been widely noted, the Constitution says – The State shall not be bound by any international agreement involving a charge upon public funds unless the terms of the agreement shall have been approved by Dáil Éireann. The current talking points supplied by the government’s ace legal department are that since the loan program is [...]

We, the Irish people, are, as a collective, the authors of our own current misfortune. But we were also terribly unlucky. Our reckless behaviour led us onto a path to self destruction just at the very time the US was headed for its own, catastrophic financial failure. The shockwaves from the spectacular US collapse crashed [...]

We’ll update this post as the day evolves, newer material first. The IMF is lending under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), and not the more common Standby Arrangement.  The EFF is meant for countries with serious medium-term balance of payments imbalances.  That’s the one thing that Ireland — courtesy of its strong export performance — [...]

It’s not recommended.  But it’s prompted by Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan’s repeated claims that bank senior creditors are pari passu with depositors, therefore you can’t burden-share with one without burden sharing on the other (i.e. the ECB, the  Central Bank, and us).  So you start using your favourite search engine to get some information on the actual [...]

One wonders if election posters working around the Brian Lenihan on Primetime claim that “we all partied” are already being printed up.  By coincidence, the CSO has released the numbers from the 2009 survey of household income and living conditions.  This survey appears to be a critical source of  information on trends in household income [...]

Jack O’Connor was so pleased with his ‘Plan for the Stone Age’ quip he repeated it on radio and TV and will, no doubt, go on repeating it every chance he gets in every studio he visits for the rest of the day. It’s often indicative of having nothing useful to say when public figures [...]

It appears that another day of the slow motion crisis, featuring rumours that the European Financial Stability Fund will charge a 7 percent interest along with an apparently bleak panel on Vincent Browne, will lead to a few sleepless nights.  There were the occasional bits of entertainment along the way.  Brian Cowen’s repeated references in [...]

Last night on the Frontline Fintan O’Toole called for government negotiators to step aside now to be replaced by a group of wise men and women from outside politics. In the meantime, he argued, we can have some kind of national administration or consensus government until such time as we get alternative proposals which can [...]

It didn’t seem possible that the Irish political system could look more busted today than it did yesterday but that’s where the version of Lanigan’s Ball from the Greens leaves it.   Michael Lowry — having had the leverage of his side-deal with the Coalition for nearly 3 years in return for his vote, runs to [...]

Below the fold.  The interesting phrase … “deleveraging and restructuring of the banking sector”.  The surgeon’s knife is out.  Sweden and UK — the big northern non-Eurozone economies, also to lend.  [UPDATE] The corresponding Irish government statement, which uses many of the same sentences, omits the part of the Euro statement where they say that [...]

This is a time for fortitude and resilience, not sentimental blubbering about our hard won sovereignty.

Clearly overnight the government was told that the tactic of sending the Brians out to deny the obvious — that we are negotiating a loan — was making things worse so the new spin today is that because we’re so special, the IMF is designing a special type of loan just for us.  One where [...]

The latest by-election poll from Red C (conducted for Paddy Power) in the Donegal South-West by-election campaign confirms SF on target to take the seat: Pearse Doherty (SF) 40% Brian O’Domhnaill (FF) 19% Barry O’Neill (FG) 15% Frank McBrearty (Lab) 14%

We have a first prize of a subordinated bond in Anglo Irish Bank (and 2nd prize of 2 subordinated bonds in Anglo Irish Bank) to the person who sees the historical irony in Brian Lenihan having gone over the summer as the first Fianna Fail speaker at the Beal na mBlath commemoration for Michael Collins [...]

As I type this, I’m on a bus from Dublin to Ballybofey. In all likelihood, I’ll be based there for the next 10 days, working on Frank McBrearty‘s by election campaign. After a crazy week in which I visited Tralee, Tuam, Rathowen and Galway, I finally headed for Donegal South-West last Saturday morning. I’ve never [...]

Brian Cowen as quoted by Irish Times – “So the sovereign, if you like, has that funding arrangement in place. We don’t have to borrow any money in respect of the sovereign issues that affect the Government . . .’’ From the FAQs for the European Financial Stability Facility – A16 – Will the EFSF [...]