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

There is a major ruck going on in the Republic over the rather convoluted and, frankly, highly dodgy account the Taoiseach has given the Mahon Tribunal concerning his tax affairs. Cian has the Enda Kenny statement that the Irish Times re-published in full in yesterday’s paper. Mr Ahern responded by calling the opposition leader a [...]

Today a draft agreement will go before a hastily assembled national convention of Ireland’s Green party which, its leadership hopes, will to take them into office for the first time ever on Thursday.

One interesting aspect in the wash up to the Republic’s election was a minor furore over alleged anti government bias in the Irish media’s coverage. It was sparked by Bertie Ahern’s comments on the Friday count night, that journalists had had a job to do “in return for good pay and expenses”, implying that undue [...]

So much of what occured after the Belfast Agreement is so hidden from open scrutiny that it is often a case of paying your money and take your choice of who was responsible for who ultimately collapsed the immediate outworking of that deal. Republicans blame unionists, and vice versa.

Gerry Adams now says that the general election in the Irish Republic was always going to be difficult for his Sinn Féin party. Yet, like any good boxing pro, he talked a good fight at the time. If he had doubts during the campaign, he didn’t let it show. [Good discussion where this blog was [...]

Gerry Adams concedes that his party faces a lot of work in the next two years before the council elections in 2009. The sheer size of the gap between current political reality and the party’s own ambition is easily seen when you consider that its performance compares unfavourably with the Alliance party in Northern Ireland. [...]

In yesterday’s Irish Times Deaglán de Bréadún comes up with as good a reason for Michael McDowell’s demise, as TD, leader of his party, and Tanaiste as any offered elsewhere. He argues, in particular, that his responses to a media onslaught on Ahern over ‘Bertiegate’ allegations leaked from the Mahon Tribunal were highly erratic:

Over at the Guardian, Fintan O’Toole reckons the Greens just might make up whatever shortfall Fianna Fail may need for the next government.

FG Mairead McGuinness concedes in Louth… so no second seat there for Fine Gael… Also Harry is calling Meath East two FF, which I’m guessing would see the previously unfancied Tommy Byrne oust the long term favorite Dominic Hannigan. 

I, like others, gave Sinn Fein a fair chance of taking a serious step forward in this election. But perhaps it is possible that we’ve been viewing them too much through the prisym of their Northern Irish success, and not as they are viewed by southerners. One Northern unionist, Steven King, clinically picks apart Sinn [...]

Again in that Doughty Street discussion one thing became clear was the huge inertia that exists within the Republic’s political system. Hopes of political renewal are often quickly dashed when, as Fintan O’Toole notes in his CiF blog this evening, the election result gives into weeks of internal horsetrading, and out comes an amalgam of [...]

We’re picking up rumours of valid voters being prevented from voting. We have no indication of scale or geographical spread, but it is hardly surprising, since the register was thought to be up 15% inaccurate by polling day, and the parties had already assembled their legal teams well in advance. The final scale will tell [...]

Brian Feeney casts his eye south of the border. He reckons Sinn Fein nibbling on the edges of government will cause much agitation within the DUP. He’s possibly right. However the actual position of the DUP on seeing Sinn Fein walking into a future government may not be as clear cut as he suggests. In [...]

Brian O’Neill of Sportsspread.com told Slugger today that they have a seen a huge shift in money over the weekend in the political spread market. In just three days, Fianna Fail have had a surge in money, moving them from a predicted 63 seats up to 70. In the same period, Fine Gael and Labour [...]

There are some who say that the bookmakers, rather than the pollsters who make the more accurate predictions. BettingMarket.com has the latest from Betfair.com which suggests (at the moment) that the result will be a Fianna Fail/Labour coalition (if tonight’s barney between Rabbitte and Cowan is anything to go by there will have to [...]

Tomorrow night at 18 Doughty Street, I’ll be on a panel discussion with, amongst others, Simon who also blogs here at IrishElection.com and Dan O’Brien of the Economist Intelligence Unit to try and tease out some of the issues being discussed and taking stock of some of the mixed messages coming from the polls and [...]