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

Our panel of bloggers and tweeters will be giving their reaction on the performance of the party leaders in tonights debate. Check back a little later for their thoughts on who impressed and who was trí-na-cheile.

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 [...]

From The Boston Globe (via Steve White). By revealing the names, the group said it hopes to highlight the issue of immigrant Irish priests who are known pedophiles and whose histories of alleged abuse have long been “outsourced’’ to the United States. It said news from Ireland serves as a painful reminder to survivors. BishopAccountability.org [...]

Around fifteen years ago in Duagh, Co Kerry, a man named Liam Sheehy raped a local woman in her car. She was giving him a lift home from the town when he pulled the handbrake and raped her. During the trial a retired principal of the local community college gave character evidence on his behalf, as did the local [...]

[Cross-posted on TheStory - please appreciate I wrote this at 1.30am after a day spent reading official documents. Mistakes are a possibility, I'm open to discussion in comments section] It’s about a year since An Taoiseach announced plans to develop ‘The Smart Economy’ (the successor to ‘The Knowledge Economy’, remember that?). In those twelve months [...]

What exactly are the Government expecting in their Department of Justice budgeting:

Lenihan’s headline grabbing paragraph about investment in flood management will undoubtedly appeal to an element of the electorate that is looking at a particularly tough, possibly homeless, Christmas. And it’s worth noting that many of those hit hardest would fit the traditional Fianna Fáil voter demographic. Though Simon debates this below… The minister announced a [...]

The way Cowen, Gormley, Lenihan and Harney have set to restructure civil service pensions in today’s Budget is strange. They’ve danced around the details using a fudgey term – “career average”, I’m trying to figure out exactly what they mean… It appears the Government will restructure the way civil servant pensions are paid from its [...]

(Image by The Great Eric Luke of The Irish Times)

Gerry McHugh, until this morning an Independent MLA, has joined Fianna Fáil. He becomes the first person to represent the party in a parliament other than the Oireachtas, I believe (Dev didn’t sit). It seems to signal their entry into Northern politics. McHugh was a Sinn Féin representative for Fermanagh/South Tyrone until 2007. His reason [...]

It has been the most horrific hammering for the country west of…well just west really. There are a litany of stories of properties destroyed, farmland under 7ft of water, county towns and villages like Shannon Harbour cut off from the country. Road-diversions due to flooding themselves being flooded. Our second city hasn’t got potable water [...]

You’d swear Lisbon wasn’t on the cards. It’s not in the papers. I read Saturday’s Irish Times, it has one Lisbon article on page 8. Today’s Sunday Business Post has nothing. Looking at their website, The Sunday Times has a piece about the spending involved from private groups – not the politics though. The Tribune [...]

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 [...]

Warning 1: I am about to attempt mathematics. I am a journalist. Warning 2: I am about attempt electoral mathematics. I am a journalist. Warning 3: I know you can’t reduce voting preferences to maths, so don’t bring that up. Yes this is speculation for the sake of discussion. I am a journalist. – I [...]

A spokesman for the Garda Representative Association speaking 0n Newstalk’s Lunchtime with Eamon Keane today said young gardai would be more  susceptible to bribery if they were paid less. Newstalk don’t podcast their shows so I can’t quote the GRA man directly, his basic argument was “cutting the pay of young guards would make bribes [...]

He was one of my potential movers. Is John McGuinness lining one up? He has been stirring it within Fianna Fáil and critical of party leadership but has yet to do anything about it, as far as I remember… “There will come critical times or moments or events that will determine whether a new leadership [...]