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

Update: Gallagher on facebook denying he is man in a 1992 photo cited on David Cochrane (of politics.ie)’s twitter page. Sinn Fein’s allegations linking Gallagher to a cheque for €5,000 for FF have been undermined following the revelations that the accuser has convictions for cross-border fuel-smuggling and tax-evasion and leased his General Election HQ to [...]

For the past few days (ending on Friday), an Irish delegation of doctors and politicians was in Bahrain to seek the freedom from detention of doctors imprisoned during the protest crackdown in that country. The link arose because the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland has a long-standing partnership to train Bahraini doctors and some [...]

In a sequence that will revive memories of Dick Roche’s desk-clearing approval of the M3 motorway near Tara in 2007, acting Minister for Communications, Energy, and Natural Resources Pat Carey has approved the Corrib gas pipeline project.   As with Tara, the next minister might view this either as a hot potato glad to be off his to-do list or as a [...]

Following @shaymcdaid on twitter from the slection conference in Donegal NE where Neil Blaney has given a speech declaring he is bowing out of the race meaning right now Fianna Fail are to run a single candidate, Charlie McConalogue. HQ will decide on a 2nd tomorrow. As pointed out by @faduda this is the first [...]

If you’re old enough, or if you like those old detective shows, you’ll remember the time in every episode when Detective Columbo would have reassured his prime suspect that he was not the prime suspect, step out the door, and then pop back in with a jarring “just one more thing”.   Yesterday in the Dail, [...]

The latest by-election poll from Red C (conducted for Paddy Power) in the Donegal South-West by-election campaign confirms SF on target to take the seat: Pearse Doherty (SF) 40% Brian O’Domhnaill (FF) 19% Barry O’Neill (FG) 15% Frank McBrearty (Lab) 14%

“Quinn-direct is not in trouble .. The only time that Quinn-direct will be in trouble is when Sean Quinn is in trouble. And Sean Quinn is in no trouble. ” –  Sean Quinn, to Simon Carswell, then at the Sunday Business Post, 30 December 2001. One nugget in the SBP article is that at the [...]

Green Party National Executive Committee member Andrew Murphy, not content with calling emigrants quitters, now calls journalists lazy. @greenparty_ie I love how you bolded the key points so journos have to do the very least amount of work possible.I’m sure they’re v grateful And I’m sure they’re very grateful to you too, Andrew.

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 [...]

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 [...]

Today the motion of no confidence tabled by Fine Gael seems certain to fall, meaning they will not be able to table another such motion for six months – early December. With the Government’s Dáil majority looking shaky, I’m going to assume Fianna Fáil will push to have the Donegal South-West bye-election to replace Pat [...]

Update: via Declan Ganley is to step down from leading Libertas and bow out of public life according to reports at the count in Castlebar. He will no lead the Lisbon II campaign either. From the live blog, Ganley’s wheelie bin recount loses him 3,000 votes. New NW counts (original in brackets): Gallagher: 82643 (82643) [...]

1st Count Quota: 123, 815 Projcection: Gallagher, Harkin and Higgins (Ganley has a hope only if he pulls 10k more transfers than Harkin from O Keeffe / McLoughlan and the rag-bag of independents.) Gallagher – 82 643 Ganley – 70 628 Harkin – 84 813 Higgins – 80 093 Higgins, John (ind) – 3 030 [...]

One of few journalists to call CU for Dana in 1999 has called the third seat in the Northwest euro constituency for Libertas leader Declan Ganley: Ten years ago this week, I was the only reporter to ‘call’ it for Independent candidate Dana Rosemary Scallon in advance of the Connacht-Ulster European election. Fianna Fáil and [...]

Sent to us from Mayo – the first bumper sticker and the first anti-candidate ephemera of Elections 2009.  Suppose if it was going to be any candidate it would be The Chairman.

In the first of an occasional series of people running for office but abandoning their party logo we have Fianna Fail Councillor in Ballybofey Cllr. Patrick McGowan running a very interesting ad in the local newspaper. With a hat-tip to Susan O Keeffe on her twitter for sending the photo. Have a look below the [...]