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

The government has announced that it intends to save some money by merging and closing various state agencies. So far the common thread linking all the named agencies for the chop is that in some way they have opposed or embarrassed the executive during their existence.
However, I’d like to use this as an opportunity to [...]

I’ve been snapping all the anti-treaty material that I come across for a while and have released them on a Creative Commons attribution and non-commercial licence.
I’ve now made a Flickr Group for such pictures as I see a few other people have been doing the same- including EWI.
The Link for the Group’s page is http://www.flickr.com/groups/769144@N21/
So [...]

Last night, unexpectedly, I was called by Newstalk’s Breakfast Show and asked how I thought the electorate were reacting to the personal attacks between Enda Kenny and Bertie Ahern.
Firstly, I pointed out that my record of reading the mind of the electorate is similar to my success at becoming heavyweight champion of the world. Then [...]

Elections are moments of truth- when we get as close as we can to really hearing what other people are thinking, albeit as a collective.
And one of the more interesting things I’ve heard from this election was the general feeling (except from some Green party members) that having the Green Party in government could only [...]

The following is taken from my notebook. It was written on January 3rd this year, as I tried to make a list of problems to solve or salve. I haven’t changed any of it in the light of hindsight. It will be my last post on politics for a month.

The main opposition party is further [...]

Day 23
Photo originally uploaded by The Labour Party.
It’s voting day today. The sun is shining in Dublin. All over the country people are going to find time to put ones, twos and threes and so on down the list of names who want to represent them.
The last few days of the Election campaign [...]

I’ve written before about the problem of discussing public affairs in videos when you can’t legitimately reuse portions of the RTE news- the primary source for any current affairs videos.
Eoin O’Dell has started the ball rolling to try to persuade RTE to release the footage of the upcoming debates in a format which would allow [...]

I tried to repost it here, but there seems to be some Style Sheet restriction of unfathomable form. See Tuppenceworth.ie/blog for its full glory 

VoteTube is a competition for the most entertaining, most persuasive and most effective political and civic message videos made about Ireland.
There are two categories for entry. One is specifically for third and second level students and the other is for everyone else. You can enter as often as you like. Videos may be entered by [...]

Damien Blake, a FF County Councillor from Donegal appeared in today’s Sunday Times for stating the obvious: that the electronic voting system the government spent €52 million on buying and still spend €2000 euro a day storing should never be used. “I am unaware of any impartial, independent person who knows what they [...]

Well, what now?
It’s all very well to issue a single sustained clarion blast. It’s a little tougher to actually gather your forces and have a clear idea of what to do with them.
Nonetheless the last few days have seen the bare, tentative sketching of the kinds of things a push for change would involve.
I warn [...]

There will be an election within the year. People who claim knowledge of these things say it will most likely take place around next Easter.
Lots of bloggers have been commenting on the political parties’ maneuverings as they try to position themselves. I’ve never been that interested in that side of things- polls, photo ops, the [...]