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

In case you missed it, Ruairi Quinn called for the establishment of a Minister for Public Service Reform the other day. I’m going to claim partial credit for that idea.  I can’t remember whether I actually said it to Ruairi himself, but I was punting the idea around the Labour Party backrooms for a couple [...]

It’s been announced that “An Bord Snip Nua” will report tomorrow on its proposed reductions in public expenditure and increases in public revenue. The report will go to the Minister for Finance. There is no indication of when a public version of the report will be made available.

Posted this on my own blog yesterday, so apologies for the cross posting. Should have put it here first! Apart from the speculation on who will be Fianna Failure‘s nominees for the two Seanad by-elections (caused by the death of Senator Tony Kett [FF] and election to the European Parliament of Senator Alan Kelly [LAB]), [...]

Tomorrow’s poll numbers: Fine Gael 36% (-2) Labour Party 23% (+3) Fianna Failure 20% (-1) Hat tip to Aoife. update by Cian: Greens on 3% Sinn Féin on 8% Leaders:Cowen on 21% Kenny on 31% Gilmore 49% Gov approval 12%

Irish Times poll by TNS/MRBI is out tomorrow. Party Ratings: Fianna Fáil  21% (-1) Fine Gael  38% (+6) Labour Party  20% (-4) Sinn Féin  9% (nc) Green Party  3% (-1) Government Satisfaction  10% (-4) Leaders Satisfaction: Brian Cowen  18% (-6) Enda Kenny  33% (+3) Eamon Gilmore  51% (+7) John Gormley  25% (-4)

The Labour Party has announced that Senator Ivana Bacik will be seeking its nomination for the Dublin Central by-election. This close to the close of nominations, it’s highly unlikely any other candidate will come forward (or be able to beat Bacik in a nomination contest). Senator Pascal Donohoe of Fine Gael had been seen as [...]

Results, courtesy of Neil: Fianna Fáil 23%  (-5) Fine Gael 33% (+2) Labour Party 19% (+2) Green Party 7% (n/c) Sinn Féin 8% (+1) Independents/others 10% That poll would have been taken on Monday and Tuesday. As always, you get the results first here on IrishElection.com! Update: RTÉ now has more on this.  When asked [...]

Sindo Poll: FF 23, FG 26, Lab 18, SF 5. Greens 3, Ind 4. Yes I know that adds to 79! Leaders: Cowen 20, Kenny 33, Gilmore 65, Gormley 38, Adams 27. Hat tip to Aoife. Update: It appears those are the “raw” numbers, and the 21% spare is the undecideds.  Depending on how you [...]

SBP poll: FG 30 -3 FF 23 -5 LAB 22 +8 GRN 6 -2 SF 11 +2 Ind 8

From twentymajor the new FF website

First time I’ve seen the Irish Trade Union movement do something good on the PR side.  They’re usually left in the wake of the better resourced employers:

The Government has refused a pensioner a fuel allowance because he’s 4c over the limit.  Does everything they touch right now turn to a PR disaster? Joe Costello: The Minister for Social and Family Affairs has taken over the role of Scrooge this Christmas. Henry Porter, a resident in the North Inner City and ninety [...]

Sherlock calls for full transparency in water

Fianna Fáil are seeing something of a bounceback in tomorrow morning’s Sunday Business Post RedC poll.  The numbers, as reported by RTÉ News: Fianna Fáil: 30 (+4) Fine Gael: 35 (+2) Labour Party: 14 (-1) Sinn Féin: 8 (-2) Green Party: 5 (-1) Independent/Others: 8 (-2) The poll is a week earlier than normal (normally [...]

Well, that was some two weeks.  The Obama campaign is over – ending in victory, of course – and I’m back to Ireland today. (…well, it was “today” when I started writing this last Sunday.) The Obama campaign was, overall, a masterclass in grassroots activism.  The sheer numbers of people contributing to the campaign – [...]

Labour’s Cllr Dermot Lacey notes over on his blog that Dublin City Council have started their voter registration drive for the new electoral register.  Nice posters, which include messages in English, Irish, Chinese and what is presumably Polish, are up in Smithfield and other areas with high numbers of people who don’t have English as [...]