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

This post stems from a discussion in the comments section under ‘All politics is local‘. We were comparing and contrasting the UK and Irish systems in terms of how rooted politicians must be within their local constituencies. I think there is significant difference between the two jurisdictions, to some degree due to FPTP (First Past [...]

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 INO’s Liam Doran

Liam Doran [...]

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 [...]

Fianna Fail will nominate Cllr James Carroll – Louth County Councillor and parliamentary assisatnt to Margaret Conlon for one of the two Seanad seats to be filled at the forthcoming Seanad election. You might remember him from his scintillating blog posts during the local elections (he is also one of Suzy’s stepford candiates).

Simon gave me a bell in work today. It seems he has been doing some research into rulings by the European Court of Justice and the EU Court of First Instance on asset management and the legalities surrounding the application of state aid.
The beauty of working in journalism is you can spend time checking background [...]

What’s Colm McCarthy up to? Trying to rehabilitate the Oireachtas? Make us believe that our political class have something relevant to contribute?
Mc Carthy is right: there should be an investigation into how our banks got into the pickle they’re in. He’s also right that there needs to be a much greater public understanding of how [...]

Pat Cox yesterday morning delivered a speech down the country making plain the case for Europe. Of course Cox is running hard with his Ireland for Europe grouping trying to get some traction on the Yes side for Lisbon II as well as getting a credible claim in for credit at the other end. Many [...]

As Cian points out, the Government’s majority is potentially down to the vote of one TD after Sligo-North Leitrim TDs Eamon Scanlon and Jimmy Devins resigned the Fianna Fáil whip today.
The Government now has 83 votes, including Jim McDaid but not today’s two. It consists of 72 Fianna Fáil TDs, 6 Greens, two former Progressive [...]

Employees of Thomas Cook branches in Dublin have locked themselves into the branch at the bottom of Grafton Street in a dispute over redundancy packages and the manner in which they were told they’d lost their jobs. I was down there for a time earlier speaking to a number of those involved.

We can see already that there are groups with a multitude of colours sharpening swords for the impending Battle for Lisbon. This time though it appears it will be a battle not of parties but of people.
The Yes side has conscripted an array of celebrities to their army including Bill Cullen, Eimear Quinn (Of Eurovision fame, apparently) and Mick [...]

The PD’s long goodbye is almost, nearly, complete, The Irish Times reports. They had what will likely be their last meeting yesterday. While the story itself is of little interest – we all knew it was on the way – the following section made me raise an eyebrow…
Mr Grealish also expressed confidence that he, Ms [...]

President McAleese has signed the Criminal Justice Bill and Defamation Bill into law. Last night the Council of State discussed the bills in what many interpreted to be a symbolic, or tokenistic, meeting. This morning they were signed into law.
Step in which direction? I know one or two regular participants on this website thought the [...]

Stephen Spillane has scooped everyone with the news that the bill laying out the Lisbon 2 referendum will be published today and the Referendum Commission will follow on the heels once the bill passes the Oireachtas. From his post:
Commission will aim to inform voters of the issue as well as encourage people to vote. The [...]

Much of page 12 in today’s Irish Times is given to follow-up articles on yesterday’s conference on political reform. Like most conferences, it had its good parts and…
I spent the day in a bunker-like lecture hall deep in the bowels TCD’s Arts Block listening to highly-informed journalists and academics. The vast majority of the speakers were either insightful, educational or [...]

So the new Lisbon deal will be formally agreed with our EU colleagues over the next couple of days.  The media coverage is going be particularly unreliable on this one, because the line to the media from Brian Cowen and Micheal Martin will be to show their efforts in extracting every possible concession and driving [...]

In case you missed it earlier here’s the entrance of Maureen O’Sullivan TD and George Lee TD into the Dáil Chamber this afternoon.