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

UPDATE: Ruairi Quinn has but didn’t inhale, and Willie O’Dea thought he had, but actually got shit-faced off a ciggie. Interviews on Lunchtime on Newstalk today.

Rumble in Ranelagh

Since the advent of our 24-hour news culture, I have noticed a marked increase in downright lazy journalism in the mainstream media.
Added to the raging torrent of coalition speculation and BertieGate updates, opinion polls continue to drown even the most fundamental policy issues in this election campaign.
Analyzing these surveys is to reporting what diving [...]

Originally posted on Green Ink:
The current crop of PD election material features the cartoons below. Following on from Simon’s accurate analysis of the battery imagery, not to mention the implicit fatalism of the Don’t Throw It All Away campaign, I have to say these fail to offer anything but the image of a party in [...]

Irish Anarchist Organistion, the Workers Solidarity Movement, today launched a campaign to encourage public understanding of our democratic system in the run up to the general election. The campaign will focus on groups such as young people, the working class and ethnic minorities, who have a history of high rates of abstention.
The campaign launched with [...]

Canvasser originally posted this at the Cedar Lounge Revolution.
Don’t believe the newspapers. The real campaign kicked off in the early New Year for the Candidate. This was the point at which people were contacted as regards their ‘availability’. Availability to leaflet that is.
The Candidate doesn’t have the resources of the larger formations and depends [...]

The PDs want to lose

McDowell warns about prison contraband

Interesting piece on the Independents on the Pat Kenny show this morning on RTÉ.
Think back to 2002. Heady days. Fianna Fáil on the point of a significant, but not comprehensive, political victory. Fine Gael recording one of it’s worst polls ever. Both Sinn Féin and the Green Party cementing themselves as more than [...]

Twenty four hours is indeed a long time.
Last night, the imminent demise of the Fianna Fáil / PD coalition was assumed by many a blogger, including myself. alas, the PDs have decided to struggle on in government, according to Michael McDowell, in order to “look after the health service.”
so, what’s the reaction today?

Leadership Needed On A Difficult Issue
Michael McDowell:
We are dealing here with a balance of constitutional rights
Doctors For Choice:

It is time to end the political hypocrisy surrounding abortion and women’s health care in this country. We call on leaders of all political parties to respond to our statement that Miss D be offered a termination of [...]

This whole Wallpapergate thing is totally obscuring the real scandal of this election: Vampiregate.

I set out tonight to focus in on blogs from left-wing candiates, but first a quick mention of
Thomas Byrne, FF candidate for Meath East, who got into a bit of a tizz with Mary Hanafin over the issue of education and autism. His comments were reported in the Drogheda Indo, while Thomas gets to grips [...]

While I never received a reply to my email from last week it seems that the Leaders Blogs on Rock the Vote can now be commented on. Does this herald a new era of spontaneous spinless dialogue between party leaders and voters? Well, you have to be a registered user to comment.
How very Blogorrah.

[originally posted to Comin's 'N Goin's]
Cork South West is the heartland of Fine Gael and has always one of the most predictable constituencies in the country.

[originally posted to Comin's 'n Goin's]
The people want a change of government! Yes! Revolution is in the air!