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

This is the Eight and last 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 entirely my opinion and probably wrong. If you have any ideas on it please drop a comment. Dublin South West

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.

REd Mum has the post on Michael Kennedy TD at the pensioner protest on Wednesday. He spoke of the money given to single parents and their ‘10 kids’ and, get this, ‘FREE HOUSES’. (They are actual quotes.) Seriously my daughter is 16 years old now and he is saying there are free houses, given what [...]

There are two small but interesting pieces in the Irish Times today concerning Labour and the PDs. The PDs are meeting in Galway today in a meeting organised by Noel Grealish to discuss future direction. Though the meeting is due to be “councillor-driven” and Mary Harney won’t be present it is interesting and symptomatic of [...]

Following on from Cían’s post about additional minister of state positions, Bertie Ahern has confirmed that Trevor Sargent will be one of the twenty put forward in the coming days. Sargent said he wouldn’t take a full ministry after he announced his resignation as Green Party leader – he said he would, however, take a [...]

Man its a long count up there. Green Party now on 6, final total.

2 FF elected. Looks like another FF to be elected and a FG. Last Seat between Green and FG. No one elected in Dublin North Niall Collins (FF) elected in Limerick West

If you go down to North Dublin today your in for a big surprise… A young mother today rounded on Fianna Fáil TD Ivor Callely after her young children were canvassed by adults in teddy bear suits outside school gates. The 33-year-old woman insisted she was shocked by the former junior minister’s electioneering stunt outside [...]

Welcome to the final edition for Green Party Global Warming. This is Hot or Not but for Green Party candidates. It’s gender equality day today. Who will it be? Trevor Sargent, Green Party badass. Patricia McKenna, Green Party best suer. We’re all for gender equality here, so who will it be? Who’s hotter? The badass [...]

Amidst the plethora of “2006-in-review” articles populating today’s papers, there is one very interesting piece in the Tribune. The way our electoral system works makes polls slightly unhelpful—ignoring particularity within constituencies and also the nature of transfers—but the Tribune have taken a look across the most contested constituencies to attempt to predict the likely election [...]

I see that in the wake of the Nally trial, the PDs have come out with legislation on protecting home-owners who “confront” burglars. Funny how they can bring this out fast but not gay marriage legislation. Anyway, it appears they are trying to spin it in favour of their candidate Tom Morrissey by referring to [...]

Fianna Fail seem to have found a solution to their Dublin North problem, with the replacement of Jim Glennon by John O’Leary, as reported by RTE. In more speculative news, a Fine Gael source in Meath contacted by Irish Election says that Graham Geraghty would be interested in running for them in Meath West, but [...]

Selection later this month but it’s a sign of confidence in their abilities following the resignation of G.V. Wright, Jim Glennon and Sean Ryan. I wonder whose votes they are targetting: Labour or Fianna Fail?

On Friday I spoke with Senator Tom Morrissey of the Progressive Democrats at the end of the party’s ‘A New Heart for Dublin’ conference, which detailed their idea of redeveloping Dublin Port into a residential area. Senator Morrissey is the man spear-heading the idea, and the conference was launched by Michael McDowell, where he spoke [...]

It got lost in the focus on Fianna Fail’s good poll numbers last weekend, but governments are formed by TDs, not opinion polls, and in that regard the party suffered a blow with Jim Glennon’s decision not to run again in Dublin North.

Some weeks ago I posted Fine Gael in Dublin North about the rumour that former Former IMO President Dr. James Reilly was to seek Fine Gael nomination in Dublin North. Guess what. He is.