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

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 [...]

At this pace of news dumps, we’re going to need a bigger Dumpster.  Today it’s the report into why Brian Lenihan misled Chris Andrews in response to his parliamentary question about the payment of bonuses at Bank of Ireland (the same question triggered the AIB bonus row).  First, a digression.   Let’s suppose you were considering [...]

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 [...]

In the run up to the election much of the talk was whether or not Fine Gael could get an overall majority. As the dust settles it is clear that they are just short. So where did they fall? One place they will look back at is Kildare South.

A couple of semi-formed thoughts of issues that perhaps deserved a little more attention in all the relentless punditry.

Today in Commercial Court – Mr Justice Peter Kelly was told today that the [M1] tolling company is claiming it had a legitimate expectation, including a promise from the Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey, that tolls would go only up. The court heard that the Minister told the Dáil in June last year that the by-laws [...]

Just announced.  Laois-Offaly was 3FF, 2 FG in 2007.  Could FF be looking at 1 now? (Maybe not — see below).   Hopefully that little issue of the caretaker Taoiseach not being a TD is sorted out by now, presumably on the grounds that he was a TD when he was given the status.   Anyway, [...]

There is understandable amusement at the constitutional contortions involved in Gerry Adams resignation from the UK House of Commons so that he can concentrate on his candidacy for Louth in the 2011 general election.  But before presuming that there is something uniquely republican about the problems created by the resignation procedure, consider the list of [...]

It’s going to be a long week. Presumably we all know by now that Brian Cowen has reversed his position of one week ago that the positions of Taoiseach and party leader should not be separated and has resigned as leader of Fianna Fail.

And then backing away. A great sequence on RTE Radio 1 News at One just now. Brian Lenihan said his position has always been that there is no vacancy for leadership so the question of his interest in it did not arise. Right afterwards, John McGuinness said that Lenihan had encouraged him and other backbenchers [...]

Stephen Collins today reading the mood in the corridors of Leinster House – When the Dáil resumes next month, the Greens, the Independents and disgruntled Fianna Fáil TDs will all be looking at each other to see if anybody looks like losing their nerve and making a bolt for the Opposition benches. The other side [...]

Minister engages in excessive expenditure for private jet citing pressures of schedule and lack of commercial options to attend an event.  Resulting public outcry causes minister to resign before he is sacked. It’s France, last month, when the aid minister Alain Joyandet chartered a jet to go a donors conference for Haiti — conveniently located [...]

A couple of days ago, we had a discussion about whether a Fiscal Policy Council could work for Ireland.  There is one basic problem: as such a council would imply reduced power for Fianna Fail, they’d never go for it.  Anyway, move along to another power that FF governments will never surrender: appointments.  Today the [...]

A day after George Lee’s departure, we can see a situation that would have warranted another George politician to say “Heckuva job”.  Lee’s departure obscured the implosion of the year-long government talking point that NAMA would increase bank lending: the IMF had told them, quite sensibly, that it wouldn’t.  According to Enda’s statement yesterday, Lee [...]

Gordon Brown statement to House of Commons on Hillsborough Agreement – None of this could have been achieved without working closely with the Irish government – and I pay tribute to Brian Cowen, the Irish Foreign Minister, Micheal Martin and to the Taoiseach’s predecessors Bertie Ahern and Albert Reynolds. Who’s missing from that list of [...]

So Boy George has bit the bullet. Fallen on his own sword, hoist by his own petard, crashed and burned, came a cropper. At 1pm today former RTE economist and more recently celebrity by-election candidate, George Lee, announced he is resiging his Dáil seat and his membership of the Fine Gael party. It wasn’t happening [...]