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 has a database [...]

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 parish [...]

[Cross-posted on TheStory - please appreciate I wrote this at 1.30am after a day spent reading official documents. Mistakes are a possibility, I'm open to discussion in comments section]
It’s about a year since An Taoiseach announced plans to develop ‘The Smart Economy’ (the successor to ‘The Knowledge Economy’, remember that?). In those twelve months we’ve [...]

What exactly are the Government expecting in their Department of Justice budgeting:

Lenihan’s headline grabbing paragraph about investment in flood management will undoubtedly appeal to an element of the electorate that is looking at a particularly tough, possibly homeless, Christmas.
And it’s worth noting that many of those hit hardest would fit the traditional Fianna Fáil voter demographic. Though Simon debates this below…
The minister announced a 16% investment [...]

The way Cowen, Gormley, Lenihan and Harney have set to restructure civil service pensions in today’s Budget is strange. They’ve danced around the details using a fudgey term – “career average”, I’m trying to figure out exactly what they mean…
It appears the Government will restructure the way civil servant pensions are paid from its current [...]

(Image by The Great Eric Luke of The Irish Times)

Gerry McHugh, until this morning an Independent MLA, has joined Fianna Fáil. He becomes the first person to represent the party in a parliament other than the Oireachtas, I believe (Dev didn’t sit). It seems to signal their entry into Northern politics.
McHugh was a Sinn Féin representative for Fermanagh/South Tyrone until 2007. His reason for [...]

We’re living through the most important times in contemporary Irish history with decision-makers who shirk making decisions.
Since the start of the summer the country has been hit with a slew of reports and scandals, collectively they provided onlookers with a veritable feast of unaccountability and political gutlessness. Each, in their own little way, served to [...]

I’m loving the number of verbs and provisos in the Green renegotiated Programme for Government. My favourite section is on the political system, headed, “Enhancing Our Democracy and Public Services”.
This “radical reform” includes various promises to review and advise on the implementation of various reforms with a view to doing stuff that’s good. Including…
“Establishing [...]

Simon gave me a bell in work today. It seems he has been doing some research into rulings by the European Court of Justice and the EU Court of First Instance on asset management and the legalities surrounding the application of state aid.
The beauty of working in journalism is you can spend time checking background [...]

You’d swear Lisbon wasn’t on the cards. It’s not in the papers.
I read Saturday’s Irish Times, it has one Lisbon article on page 8. Today’s Sunday Business Post has nothing. Looking at their website, The Sunday Times has a piece about the spending involved from private groups – not the politics though. The Tribune has [...]

Constantin Gurdgiev rips into Alan Ahearne, the economic advisor to the minister for finance.

Warning 1: I am about to attempt mathematics. I am a journalist.
Warning 2: I am about attempt electoral mathematics. I am a journalist.
Warning 3: I know you can’t reduce voting preferences to maths, so don’t bring that up. Yes this is speculation for the sake of discussion. I am a journalist.
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I have been in contact [...]

Veteran FF Deputy Ned O’Keeffe tells The Corkman “I have to put my hand up and admit that we did mismanage certain parts of the economy, in particular the construction sector. As a backbencher I was quick to point this out at the time, unfortunately my warnings fell on deaf ears”. Any one remember Ned [...]