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

Who among us has forgotten the tearful scene at the end of Terminator 2 when everyone still standing realizes that although that awful T-1000 Terminator is dead, the good Terminator (Arnie) points out that he is technology from the future and therefore must destroy himself to leave no trace?  So he lowers himself into the [...]

Capping the worst 5 days work from a Taoiseach in Irish history, Brian Cowen has gone from being a reaffirmed leader of FF and sitting on his preference for an extended election campaign to losing 7 ministers (8 if you count the non-replacement of Micheal Martin) and the leadership of Fianna Fail, along with the [...]

Joe Higgins versus Jose Manuel Barroso: Higgins (page 9), Barroso (page 13).

Brian Cowen last discussed the government side-deals with the 2 independents on 10 November.  We’ve got the whole exchange below the fold, but the key point is that the Michael Lowry and Jackie Healy-Rae agreements are with the leader of Fianna Fail, not an Taoiseach.  Brian Cowen inherited them from Bertie Ahern but they are [...]

It’s going to be a long week. Presumably we all know by now that Brian Cowen has reversed his position of one week ago that the positions of Taoiseach and party leader should not be separated and has resigned as leader of Fianna Fail.

In a news dump that would impress Andy Coulson, the government clearly put the word around yesterday that it would not be implementing the abolition of the so-called “Section 23″ property tax reliefs and this is confirmed in the Friday afternoon release of the Finance Bill, which was already overdue.  Specifically, according to the Minister’s [...]

  “They’ve changed the arrangements that apply to coalition governments” … Brian Cowen on the Greens just now on Six One.  Apparently there’s an unwritten constitution for such governments.  His tone of lecturing the Greens on how government works is not going to go down well.   He is also mingling his roles of Taoiseach and [...]

From the start, there have been questions about the government’s number10.gov.uk style website,  merrionstreet.ie.   Despite the presence of special advisers, media affairs units, and handlers in government offices, there’s supposed to be a clear line between political boosterism and the provision of taxpayer-financed official information.  Yet within an hour of the Taoiseach’s unscheduled Thursday statement [...]

Resignations from Mary Harney, followed by Noel Dempsey, Dermot Ahern, and Tony Killeen.  As Brian Cowen appears to have been sitting on at least one of these letters for over a week, we don’t know the timing.  But Mary Harney correctly pointed to the problem with TDs intending to retire from politics — and thus [...]

Sez DDP. The vote count — as far as gossip can determine – will be important in determining the fallout, but so will the respective reputations of Micheal Martin and Brian Lenihan within the party after today’s events.  Cowen now says (to RTE News) he has accepted Martin’s resignation.  Any chance that Cowen takes the foreign affairs portfolio [...]

And then backing away. A great sequence on RTE Radio 1 News at One just now. Brian Lenihan said his position has always been that there is no vacancy for leadership so the question of his interest in it did not arise. Right afterwards, John McGuinness said that Lenihan had encouraged him and other backbenchers [...]

Quote from Brian Cowen — “In normal times you don’t see a diversion (sic) of interest between national interests or national advance if you like and political advance. So we live in very transformative times”. (11 minutes in) So during 1997-2007, there was no difference between the national interest and that of Fianna Fail.  Remarkable.

Brian Lenihan, 8 December 2010 – People should not be surprised that there’s a huge erosion of trust in the Irish banking system when we’ve an endless debate on whether we should be defaulting on the payment of our obligations,” he said.  “A small country like Ireland cannot default without the support of a central [...]

Bunreacht na hEireann Article 15.10 – Each House shall make its own rules and standing orders, with power to attach penalties for their infringement, and shall have power to ensure freedom of debate, to protect its official documents and the private papers of its members, and to protect itself and its members against any person [...]

It’s going to be a long weekend for Brian Cowen so this will have to be a frequently updated post.  Let’s start with the seemingly damaging Irish Times story that Anglo lobbied Central Bank director and Druid’s Glen diner Alan Gray the day before the guarantee – Anglo had sought a €1.5 billion short-term loan [...]

If you’re old enough, or if you like those old detective shows, you’ll remember the time in every episode when Detective Columbo would have reassured his prime suspect that he was not the prime suspect, step out the door, and then pop back in with a jarring “just one more thing”.   Yesterday in the Dail, [...]