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

Today is a good day for bad news. Batt O’Keeffe certainly knows this. He chose this morning to announce that he was closing the classrooms of over 500 special needs children. The Irish Times reports: Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe said 534 children in 128 primary school classes will be affected when the move is [...]

At the time of the first Lisbon referendum, Declan Ganley marched out on front of the cameras with three tickets for the leaders of the pro-Lisbon parties. We were, Ganley told us, to send these politicians back to Brussels to renegotiate the treaty. Many journalists mistook Ganley’s pro-social behaviour for a political stunt. After all, cheap stunts are to politicians what concrete blocks are to builders, but these commentators failed to remember that Ganley is not a politician.

Contrary to what many government TDs might like you to believe, the past is not a foreign country. In 2002, when the Fianna Fail promised to invest in the education system, it was because Ireland needed to improve its system if its youth were to receive their right to an adequate education and if Ireland [...]

You know, I think that the Lisbon Treaty campaign has to have been one of the most tedious referendum campaigns we’ve ever had in this country. The momentum has always been with the no side who have released and re-released certain arguments in different forms over the past few weeks. These arguments usually have an [...]

To the parents of autistic children present in the Dail last night, the defeat of a Fine Gael motion on the funding of applied behaviour analysis (ABA) education for autistic children was as predictable as it was devastating. Few government TDs bothered to listen to debate and but the necessary numbers appeared when it was [...]

Drug seizures are always big news, particularly when there’s some nice pictures to go along with them. Take for example the following RTE news story caught my attention last week: Customs officers have seized 18kg of herbal cannabis with a street value of €216,000 at Dublin Airport. A sniffer dog gave an indication that a [...]

Originally posted at Associate Notes The Seanad is an undemocratic, archaic, useless institution. It’s been that way since its inception but the Irish people have ignored it, mostly because it’s the most boring institution we’ve got. That is about to change. Eoghan Harris has just become a senator. No, you’re not dreaming. Your eyesight has [...]

Over at the Washington Post Global website, Amar C. Bakshi is investigating how the world sees America. He’s looking for contributions so if you’ve got an opinion on America, Americans or American culture, just go here. Amar has just finished up a stint in England and is currently touring India in his attempt to understand [...]

If you were not listening to The Last (First?) Word this morning, then you missed a classic discussion between Matt Cooper, Fintan O’Toole and Eoghan Harris. Basically, Harris ranted on when asked questions, and accused Fintan O’Toole of being “sleazy”. Matt attempted to allow Fintan reply to Harris’ hysterical rant, but Harris wasn’t done yet! [...]

People of Ireland, today is a great day for men and women everywhere. We have rid ourselves of the beast they called McDowell. It is more than we could have hoped for. Not only has he lost his seat, not only has he lost the PD leadership, but he has also resigned from public life! [...]

There are those who feel that the ban on election coverage the day before the election is a bad thing. I disagree. For me at least, today has put the last three weeks back in context. Just look at the RTE headlines:

Pat put a horrible image in my head, and I thought I’d share the pain

Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I bought the Sindo, something I’d promised myself I’d never do for reasons that I hope are obvious. Now to be fair, there were mitigating circumstances. After all, they had an exclusive interview with one Bartholomew Ahern, leader of this fair nation, regarding certain strange favours received by [...]

Originally posted at Plain of Pillars Back in 2006, the government promised to act on the recommendations of The Report of the Expert Group on Mental Health Policy. The romantic subtitle of the report was A Vision for Change. But can we honestly expect to see this vision realised? Based on the election campaign to [...]

Leadership Needed On A Difficult Issue Michael McDowell: We are dealing here with a balance of constitutional rights Doctors For Choice: It is time to end the political hypocrisy surrounding abortion and women’s health care in this country. We call on leaders of all political parties to respond to our statement that Miss D be [...]

You are all prostitutes. At least, that’s what all of the main political parties seem to think. The general election campaign of 2007 will not be remembered as one driven by ideology or by issues. In fact, it will probably be remembered as little more than a bidding war between two parties with near-identical policies. [...]