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

Libertas have an outraged press release accusing the Irish government of a systematic campaign to hide information on the Lisbon Treaty based on what they call “an email from a very senior Irish official to his British counterpart” which the Daily Mail published today. Headlined the Treaty Con, this story is picked up by a [...]

Despite operating under the slogan, “Facts, not Politics”, eurosceptic organisation Libertas have been accused by EU Commissioner Margot Wallstorm in her blog today for carrying out “a case study in distortion through selective quotation”. Essentially, Libertas quoted a speech she gave where she said “Whatever we win in efficiency we might lose in democratic legitimacy [...]

A name like Balls will always give rise to some obvious slagging, so with the British Secretary for Education Ed Balls and Jack Straw reputedly having exhcanged ‘verbals’, A Kick in the Balls game was born. Well worth a look – thanks to Guido for the pointer.

Fine Gael launch a detailed policy document with plans to streamline government by reducing the number of state agencies, increase their accountablity and make savings of €200m for the tax-payer.

Unless one is a fan of some of the organisations which generally only come to our attention courtesy of the Cedar Lounge’s Irish Left Archive, chances are you don’t generally follow the Korean Central New Agency. Unfortunately, you would be a lesser person for that, as the voice of the world’s most secretive regime is [...]

How MEPs Work is ideal for all you worried about the minute of our MEPs actions. If you fret about how those attendance records stack up in a European comparison or spend your nights wondering about how strong the whip system is in the European Parliament then How MEPs Work from the Romanian Public Political [...]

Comments on political PR and the web from a European perspective.

The Live Register jumps 12,000 in one month, the biggest ever such increase for the third month in a row while the standardised unemployment reaches 5.5%. International factors I hear you say? Then why has unemployment being falling over the past year in the EU and the industrialised world more generally?

The most peculiar, Pravada like behaviour of the Anderstown News, which saw the censorship of a columnist and a front page apology to Gerry Adams for suggesting he may not be God incarnate, has (unfortunately) not been much covered in the Free State. Slugger is continuing to run on it, while the Splintered Sunrise has [...]

EU Commissioner Margot Wallström has called for more women to hold positions at the top end of the European Union, and suggested a number of names of prominent women who could hold the Presidency of the European Council, Parliament or Commission, including our own Mary Robinson. Robinson would have strong appeal amongst the Socialist Parties, [...]

British Trade Mark blog, IPKat has an interesting piece about how a Patrick Melly (a most interesting character) tried – and almost succeeded – in a sharp stunt to gain legal ownership of the names of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

One of the more interesting aspects of the Lisbon Treaty is the manner in which the President of the Commission will be chosen. Under Article 9, the President of the Commission is to be chosen with due respect to the result of the European parliamentary elections;

While his row with John Deasy was the one which caught the headlines, the interesting comments from Willie O’Dea last week were his comments on the Chinese involvement in Chad’s civil war: The rebellion is supported by Chad’s powerful neighbour, Sudan, whose regime is in turn by the Government of China. … Approaches to the [...]

A few months ago, t’was all the rage to make up your own Young Fine Gael poster. Now you can do it for real. In previous European Referenda, Young Fine Gael ran provocative, pro-European campaigns, notably the Better 2B Inside poster below, stressing the theme of European integeration. And this time, the intention is to [...]

Reviewing one online campaign, and looking forward to the next. Six months on, it seems fairly clear that the impact of the web on the 2007 General Election campaign was minimal at best. Much was made in advance of May 2007 about the potential impact of the blogs (I remember the enthusiasm of the blogging [...]

Tomorrow’s Irish Times has an opinion poll in tomorrow’s edition according to the good people of politics.ie. Possibly I am being overly harsh, but the proliferation of such polls across all newspaper speaks volumes for the poverty of political journalism in this state. Rather than discuss the policies of the political parties, and allow politicians [...]