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

Big things are happening in a big week for Irish and European politics and, let’s be honest, most of us don’t really understand what’s happening, or why. The budget to be unveiled today and tomorrow will need to cut spending and increase taxes because of the banks, or something. The European summit being held on Friday will save [...]

The headline: “Buying imported food a traitorous act, guide claims” to which the story doesn’t really add anything. This is just a representative manifestation of the Buy Irish, shop local, self-sufficiency good, imports bad sort of protectionist nonsense – like the outcry over Christmas shopping in Newry – that sends my blood pressure through the [...]

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 [...]

The first round of CAO offers went out today, but those who have done well enough in their Leaving Cert to proceed to university may be the last ones to do so for free. The return of fees was probably inevitable even before the economy ran dry. Even so, the performance of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) on the issue over the past year or so is [...]

Last night I attended a lecture in Trinity College on Ireland’s role in achieving the Millennium Development Goals given by the Minister of State for Overseas Development, Peter Power. The topic was unfortunate given the recent savaging of the overseas aid budget, which means that Ireland will be spending 22% less than in 2008. These [...]

Noel Grealish, the rather lonely figure who comprises the PD back bench these days, has spoken out against the Mahon Tribunal in a bid to make himself some new friends. Mr. Grealish has been previously reported to have held discussions about joining Fianna Fail, and is regarded as being a good fit- part of the FF “gene pool”, [...]

Those with an interest in third-level education will no doubt recall the interest sparked by one Frank Prendergast Jr, whose High Court challenge to the quota system for medicine courses has been the cause of much discussion in educational circles.

Mary Hanafin has announced that new fee-paying schools will get no assistance from the government. The Indo seems to have an exclusive with this one; the Minister was reportedly answering a query from Ruairi Quinn, as if to remind Labour that Fianna Fail can be as lefty as anyone, thank you very much indeed. Existing [...]

Fianna Fail today sat down to their “think-in” out in the wilds of Wicklow. Chaired by Dermot Ahern, the gathering is a welcome opportunity for TDs, councillors and MEPs to get their heads around the serious business of governing for the next five years. An Taoiseach was plainly delighted to be sprung from Dublin Castle, [...]

The whole country to choose from to fill 11 seats in the Seanad, and who has Mr. Ahern gone for? Well, it’s the usual story in terms of rewarding, compensating and back-scratching. Not that the opposition would have done it a different way, so Leo Varadkar may want to watch out lest his words about “independent [...]

And so the counting has begun following the elections, such as they were, to the perennially ignored talking shop that is Seanad Eireann. The campaign to woo the electorate of a few thousand politicians and university graduates has largely been ignored by the media- and for good reason. No body of well paid and intelligent [...]

Earlier this evening, Questions and Answers flirted briefly with the issue of the Irish language, following the leaking of a report which predicted the end of Irish as the Gaeltacht’s lingua fraca within twenty years. Eamon Ó Cuív was asked whether he was embarrassed that only 46% of students in Gaeltacht schools can speak the [...]

The obituary writers will be out in force tomorrow, as Tom Parlon’s decision to leave the PDs sinks in. The former Minister of State will take up a post with the Construction Industry Federation- more on the ethics of this move anon. Mr. Parlon seems intent on sampling all the delightful interest groups that hold [...]

John Gormley pledged today that he will review his department’s stance in relation to “archaeological practice and policy”. He also released the documents dealing with the site at Lismullen, which is on the route of the controversial M3 motorway. Such openness and transparency is to be welcomed; but the whole affair raises questions over how [...]