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

I stumbled upon this today and while I never thought that my low opinion was supported by anyone else, when people start betting on Bertie Ahern to depart as Taoiseach on/before 31 Dec 07 it makes me chuckle. This places Bertie in the same ‘Good’ company as Robert Mugabe to depart as President [...]

Having watched one of my favorite movies, “The American President” a movie I usually cry over, with a feeling of pride and honor. I realized that at no time in resent memory could I ever express such Pride and Honor over a real politician. With the gross lack of any real Honor, Respect and Pride [...]

Do you know why a Politician is like a good pint?
After you fill the pint with brown stuff, it starts to empty.
After you slip the politician the brown envelope, it starts to empty.

and you just can’t keep either of them filled up

If Sinn Féin wanted my vote, they would blowup the Toll booths on all the Irish toll roads. Particularly after NTR boosted the rate for autos to 1.70 Euro just before the Easter Bank weekend. After only 6 months in operation on the M7, this would make a 6% increase, and if that were to [...]

I keep hearing that the polls are still pointing at another Fianna Fail government in the future. Except it looks like no one is willing to but their money where their mouths are, here Irish Politics
What do you think, are the pollsters all talk? What do you bet?

How many years does it take to provide ‘a few more hospital beds’. Today Bertie used that line, while explaining why his government is giving away billions of Euros in Public lands to private hospital developers. His government has been in power for 12 years, and now he is planning to supply a few more [...]

Here is the real question, has any party in Irish history ever delivered real tax cuts after they have been elected?
While I voted in the last local elections in Cork a few years, my poor election memory has raised the the yellow card with regards to political promises. They never seem to happen.

Crime statistics aside, much of the current crime is being committed by gangs—gangs formed in the absence of alternatives in the infrastructure and jobs. Note also the glamorization of drugs and alcohol and the easy life. All these things are the results of neglect ten, fifteen and twenty years ago of community infrastructures and youth [...]

Here is a novelty: if the decision on the age of consent should be lowered, why not let the citizens most affected by the decision be allowed to vote on the subject? Why not lower the voting age to 16 and put the decision up to the people. That would let the TDs and Dail [...]

€500: that’s approximately what the surplus means to every man, woman, and child in Ireland today. What could you do with €500? Maybe buy a new government, or maybe add it with your neighbor’s €500 and help fix up the local medical facilities, or maybe your estate residents could help fund a rapid transit stop [...]

Interesting, almost everybody I’ve talked to knows that government is not a business. So why is the government hoarding it’s our money? We gave the government money to spend on maintenance and infrastructure build-out, to help people and make the future brighter and better. If they aren’t spending it, give it back, they obviously don’t [...]

Why does Ian Paisley look like a man with a mad dog on a leash with regards to the Stormont attack by Loyalist killer Michael Stone? Why is this a great thing, appearing to be a real moderate by demonstrating to the public what a real Unionist looks like? What a great tactic to [...]

Has any one noticed that the Irish Government has returned to the Silent Lie? That Stardust does not need to be investigated because no new evidence was found by the non-existent follow up investigations that never happened. That the nursing home reports are never publish so long as the bathroom tiles are fixed?
The fact [...]

I find this amazing when political polls indicate a rise in popularity like when Fianna Fáil soars in poll as Opposition suffers decline. Everyone in the captive press spew hours of dialog about how such results could have happened. But when polls are negative, they spend that same effort trying to demonstrate that the [...]

The problem with deadlines, with regards to political issues, is there is no penalty for flying past them with no results. In fact, in most cases it behooves both parties to do just that, zooming past deadlines is part of the process.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if there were penalties? Not that I advocate violence, I [...]

The Irish are exceptionally generous people, and as such are particularly forgiving of their politicians. They often boast about who has been talking more brown envelopes than another, down at the Pub. I can only think that the general public here expect that taking bribes and “wink and a handshake” deals are the norm for [...]