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

Newstalk is speculating that the following will be the line-up of the new cabinet: Brian Lenihan as Justice Minister. Dick Roche out but may get a junior ministry later. John O’Donoghue as Ceann Comhairle. Most of the rest will stay as they were. If that is the case then Bertie has no imagination. I cant [...]

Just on RTE McDowell has lost his seat and announced that his time in public life is at an end.

In all the hype and excitement of results coming in from around the country at least one constituency seems to have been over looked on RTE radio and the internet. South Tipperary. Apart from a first count result and a comment on the radio that they were onto the third count there has been no [...]

Martin Cullen is elected in Waterford with 11438 votes and a quota of 9906. It just shows you don’t need to fool all of the people all of the time, you just need to fool 11,438 of them.

Tally reports from Limerick East say Kieran O’Donnell (FG) will take Tim O’Malley’s (PD) seat.

Before calling the election Bertie was embarrassed at us for using pencils to vote and said we were the laughing stock of Europe for not having e-voting. Who’s laughing now Bertie? Certainly not the Scots whose e-counting system has contributed to what the BBC has described as “voting chaos”.

Today the launch of the Fianna Fail election manifesto was overshadowed by an exchange between Vincent Browne and Bertie Ahern. The Taoiseach sounded annoyed and under pressure while a Fianna Fail official (“PJ”? Good old PJ Mara I wonder?) tried to silence Vincent leading to comparisons with Charlie Haughey. Nothing I can write here can [...]

Last Sunday, the 1st of April i.e. April Fools Day I read a story in the Sunday Independent telling readers that the Progressive Democrats had put up a billboard poster outside a train station in Dublin that misspelled Michael McDowells name using one ‘l’ instead of two, so it said “Michael McDowel”. Being April Fools [...]

As the American politician Tip O’Neill used to say “all politics is local”. Perhaps if he had been Irish he would have narrowed it down a little to “all politics is personal.” You need only examine the way Irish politicians get re-elected again and again, with many lasting twenty to thirty years in the Dail [...]

RTE Radio has just issued newsflash announcing that Mary Harney is stepping down with immediate effect as leader of the Progressive Democrats. She will remain on as Minister for Health at the discretion of the new leader.

Sinn Fein’s Aengus Ó Snodaigh today accused the Government of planning to play the “race card” in the upcoming election. Sinn Féin’s justice spokesperson Aengus Ó Snodaigh has accused the Government of being “ruthlessly committed to exploiting, and creating, fears over immigration to Ireland for electoral benefit”. Hmm, excuse me lads but in fairness isn’t [...]

As El Matador has written, the PD’s have fallen to a new low in the polls with just 2% of first preferences. Now to me that is a rather significant number because, and I may be wrong here, I always assumed that the margin of error in most polls was at least 2%. If thats [...]

While other nations hire ferries, move aircraft carriers and warships, or wait to see how the situation in the Middle East develops the Irish government did something amazing. They hired a couple of buses and drove the Irish citizens trapped in the Lebanon out of the country.