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

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%

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 [...]

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 [...]

  This is  the third in a series of posts looking at who would or would not keep their seats if an election was called now. With not much  local polling to go on this is entirly my opinion and probably wrong. If you have any ideas on it please drop a comment. Donegal North [...]

In Monday’s Irish Times, John McGuinness is now directly challenging the memory if not the veracity of Mary Coughlan‘s account of their recent conversations.  The fact that he was well liked in the media seems to be an underlying issue in the breakdown of his relationship with Mary Coughlan and Brian Cowen.  Another Coughlan reference [...]

The Oireachtas has today launched a detailed profile based on the 2006 Census of all the constituencies in the country. The information is quite interesting and comprehensive and details all 42 constituencies in the country.

The Sunday Times reports that Fianna Fail are looking for “independently wealthy” -haven’t they hade enough of them? – persons to run as second candidates for Europe. They expect them to spend big on themselves like Royston and raise lots too. In other words they are skint. In Connaught-Ulster the party has set it’s hopes [...]

One of Bertie Ahern‘s home stretch events today was to launch the Dublin Airport Authority’s plan for Dublin Airport City.   Not to put too fine a point on it, this seems like one of the crazier proposals to have emerged over the last year, and symptomatic of much of what is wrong with governance and [...]

Just before the election Anthony Sheridan sent a letter of compliant to Donegal County Council about posters Pat “the Cope” Gallagher had erected posters which allegedly broke litter regulations. He has been for a while trying to get answers. This is the reply he got.

At the least it seems Sinn Fein are hoping to pick up 6 additional seats in this election. Mary Lou McDonald reckons they can pick up seats in Donegal (not sure if one or both), Sligo-North Leitrim, Cork North Central, Waterford and Wexford. She also suggests seats in Dublin (well she would) though not specifying [...]

Donegal South-West, not wanting to be left out the fun and games in North-East, has apparently seen a power play by FG HQ.  Joining the trend of unretirements, Dinny McGinley says he’s back on the ticket at the expense of Cllr Terence Slowey, who apparently has been persuaded to withdraw [UPDATED 2 MARCH].

From the Donegal Democrat. Labour’s spokeswoman on education, Jan O’Sullivan, angered educators in Donegal when, speaking on Newstalk, she said: Donegal ended up coming out badly in the guide but they don’t have any, either IT or university, up there. In response Paul Hannigan, Director of Letterkenny IT: said “The impression that Donegal is the [...]

RTE reports that FG’s Dinny McGinley TD is standing down at the next election.  Going by the last election results (which you can get to from the blog links above), FG will have little problem holding the seat since their 2nd candidate had as strong a first preference base as McGinley. FF probably have bigger problems, as [...]

Ireland once had what was termed a 2 and 1/2 party system. It might be now said to have a 2 and 7/8s party system.The Irish electoral system has by in large been kinder to the larger parties in terms of seat bonuses when comparing to the smaller parties.. Both FF and FG have benefited [...]

Sorry for the delay in bring this but I blame a certain team in red. Donegal Democrat Solicitor Makes Sensational Cash Payment Claim A LETTERKENNY solicitor issued a strongly worded statement last night in which he claims an attempt was made to pass on a substantial cash payment to his client, Donegal T.D. Niall Blaney.

Local news round-up If there is any stories you have read please drop us a comment. The Kingdom Kenny moves to put stop to nasty FG spats FINE Gael leader Enda Kenny is closely monitoring party activity in South Kerry where a new wave of internal feuding is threatening to destroy already slim chances of [...]