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

Today a draft agreement will go before a hastily assembled national convention of Ireland’s Green party which, its leadership hopes, will to take them into office for the first time ever on Thursday.

Better than ringing from the Jacks, right? A twitter feed from the Mansion house.
Edit by Cian: Newstalk report that Trevor Sargent says he is willing to resign if needs be. The future of the country is more important than his.
RTE understand he is standing down.
Edit 2: Twitter is back, Stephen is here. Add twitter.com/irishpolitics as a friend [...]

The Irish Times purport to have seen the programme, which has been discussed at length by WBS over at the Cedar Lounge. For those who missed it, the Times reckon that Shannon, the M3, road-building, Mary Harney/Health and income tax cuts are all to proceed as normal. Greens to get E50 Million extra for education [...]

Tomorrow’s conference provides one of those major museum-type situations in politics, where an actor is stripped of cover in their decision making, all the academic modelling and assumptions (rational-choice, culturalism etc) go out the window and the nitty gritty of deciding things takes over. This is something that anoraks will get very excited over and [...]

So FF-Green have done a deal - now the guessing game before the full statement:

Does it include the PDs (and co-location)?
What ministerial positions will the Greens get?
Will Sargent stick to his guns and step down as leader, having guided the party to Government?
With or without Sargent, it’s likely to be another all-Dublin Taoiseach/Tánaiste team, what [...]

From the press office:
The Green Party concluded talks with Fianna Fáil this evening and agreed a draft programme for government that will be put before a special convention of party members tomorrow. Negotiation teams and party leaders reached agreement at approximately 8.30pm after a day of intensive talks and document drafting.The Party has invited [...]

RTÉ News at One is saying that a final agreement has not yet been reached and that Dan Boyle did not tell journalists that a programme for government had been agreed, as has been reported already.
It looks like we’re close to it, however, with Boyle and Noel Dempsey putting the final touches to the agreement [...]

According to Newstalk Dan Boyle has emerged from Government Buildings and confirmed that a text has been agreed between Fianna Fail and the Green Party for a programme for government.  Bertie Ahern and Trevor Sargent will sign off on it later this afternoon.

RTE are reporting this afternoon that the Green party have gotten a response from Fianna Fail to their document outlining the difficulties in the negotiations. Clearly there are still roadblocks but time is certainly less of a luxury now than it was on Friday.
Green Chairman John Gormley has now returned to the party’s head office [...]

FF and Greens still in contact

The discussions are likely to recommence today between Greens and Fianna Fail but a really interesting question (the answer to which may never come out in the wash) is who has to do the most moving to get it done? The Green party’s internal structure has been a major factor in the negotiations for government. [...]

From the Green Office:
Fianna Fáil has contacted the Green Party to investigate whether there is a basis for new negotiations on agreeing a Programme for Government.
Further to those contacts, the Green Party has sent Fianna Fáil a document. The Green Party awaits Fianna Fáil’s response.
Of course our twitter users already know that (to get [...]

From their press office;
The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Green Party, at its meeting today, endorsed the recommendation of the Party Leader Trevor Sargent TD, to enter exploratory talks with Fianna Fail about the formation of a new government.
This follows extensive communications with members of the Party throughout the country. The Party’s NEC [...]

Ciaran Cuffe posts about winning, just. He is also very frank on the matter of coalition with Fianna Fail  but there is a but.
Let’s be clear. A deal with Fianna Fáil would be a deal with the devil. We would be spat out after 5 years, and decimated as a Party. But, … would it [...]

While Mr Ahern is certainly in pole position in the race to form a new Government, it would be unwise to rule out Mr Kenny’s opportunity at this early stage.
RTÉ have reported today that Jackie Healy-Rae, Finian McGrath and Tony Gregory have all been contacted by Fine Gael, but not yet by Fianna Fáil. [...]

“The Labour Party Will Struggle With Its Conscience. The Labour Party Will Win.”

Interesting times for Mr Rabbitte. Wagger believes that, with the aging profile of the Labour TDs, an FF/LAB Government is not out of the question. This is the last chance for such oldies as Costello, Quinn, Higgins, O’Shea, Stagg, [...]