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

The liveblog is digesting the budget – full documents are here and highlights are here. What marks out of 10 to you give the budget. Poll below fold.

So the general talk is that this Budget is going to be harsh. Very Harsh. But Fianna Fail are not ones to create a total PR disaster. They are going to cut the cost of alcohol by 10c. Now from Alcohol Action Ireland In 2007, the Department of Finance’s Tax Strategy Group calculated the anticipated yield [...]

This poll will remain up until the budget speech starts. I want to gauge how the pre-expectations of the budget will compare to the post budget reaction. Update Poll closed average vote 4.81.

So it Budget Day. Stay tuned to Irish Election for reaction.

Previously balls, Slang: Vulgar. a. boldness; courage; brashness. b. nonsense (often used as an interjection). A new definition to add. IBEC group Retail Ireland has issued an assessment of the environmental impact of cross-border shopping claiming trips north are releasing ‘tonnes’ of carbon into the atmosphere. Retail Ireland Director Torlach Denihan said: “On the first [...]

Friend of the Blog Joanna Tuffy has a press release today. The government decision to collapse the talks about public service reform and reject union proposals for unpaid leave, is all the more inexplicable given that the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, wrote to all local authorities in June of this year authorising all [...]

From the Independent TAOISEACH Brian Cowen is set to take a 14pc cut to his overall salary in Wednesday’s Budget in an attempt to show that politicians are also willing “to take pain”. The cut means his salary will have dropped from €285,583 to €228,466. I am not against high salaries. If you want to best [...]

UPDATE: Looks like we spoke too soon. Talks broken down. RTE is reporting. a break through in talks.

First we had Cowen This overwhelming negativity needs to stop because it’s not in our national interest to see that continue. Then we had Bertie CRITICS WHO blame the Government for the economic crisis should “dig the garden or grow bluebells or do something useful”, former taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said. Now we have the [...]

From the Irish Times CRITICS WHO blame the Government for the economic crisis should “dig the garden or grow bluebells or do something useful”, former taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said. In an interview, Mr Ahern attacked “cynics and knockers, people who always see the glass as half empty. I can’t understand people who are always [...]

From RTE Taoiseach Brian Cowen said: ‘This overwhelming negativity needs to stop because it’s not in our national interest to see that continue. ‘It is portraying our country as incapable of coping when in fact all of the success we had in the past was not illusory. ‘It is the community spirit that I have [...]

The OECD report on Tax Burdens in terms of GDP for 2008 was released 2 days ago. Where does Ireland fall in terms if taxation burden compared to GDP? Excluding Australia, Netherlands, Japan and Poland.?

The role of a Trade Union is to look after its workers interests to make their lives better. One of the biggest worries for alot of people (public sector workers anyway who don’t have to worry about if next months pay cheque is coming) this time of year is when to get the christmas shopping [...]

Labour recently came out with their new energy policy document . Now it had a few interesting bits and pieces and lots of generic waffle. But they do talk about Nuclear power. We consider that nuclear power is not an option for Ireland at present on financial,environmental or technical grounds. Now that really doesn’t tell [...]

Last Week ( I was on Holiday in Bruges last week. Like a F**King fairytale) so I am a bit behind the news. But anyway last week the government announced.Taoiseach launches €150m plan for ‘smart schools’. Every classroom in the country is to get a teaching laptop, software and digital projector over the next three years [...]

The MEP of the Year awards were given out Last night and the Irish took home. No awards. Indeed none of our MEP’s were shortlisted. Now you might be asking why I am pointing this out. But I am sure if we did win one we would hear about it.