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

Returning officer announces that votes are missing so adjourns count until the morning, Liz McManus was due to be elected on the distribution of Deirdre de Burca’s votes.  All back to the desert at 10am.

Minister Roche’s surplus of 275 now being distributed

Wicklow could elect 3 FF TDs as it seems that Fitzgerald has gone ahead of De Burca on tallies, putting him in position to take a third FF seat. Count there in 30 minutes.
Meanwhile in Cork South Central Lynch is beating Dan Boyle of Green Party by 200 before Buttimer’s 5,760 are transferred.

Water and all

Could you really make it up? Ian has the low down on MySay. Dick Roche is bad for water.

Prediction 2FF 1FG
Sligo/nth leitrim tally - FF 41 (+3.3) FG 38.2 (+15.3) LAB 3.9 (-2.2) SF 11.7 (+2.1) GP 3.1 (+3.1) IND 1.1 (-21.5)

Based on 55% of the boxes open…
Roche 15%
Behan 14%
Timmins 13%
Mcmanus 10%
De burca 7%
Nicky Kelly’s vote in Arklow is down significantly.

FF on 36% Fine Gael on 23% Labour on 16% Greens on 7%
Tallymen reckon 2-2-1 unless FF vote breaks down with Fitzgerald taking fifth seat

Ian was on from Wicklow, it seems that all parties are talking about Liz McManus topping the poll there (some bright spot for Labour). There are signs from early tallies that Dick Roche is being out polled in his Greystones base by the Greens (possibly over the seafront issue). Billy Timmins running strongly from West [...]

Welcome to the first edition of Green Party Global Warming. The nonsensical, not very regular beauty contest involving Green Party candidates.
How this works is that we have a Hot or Not style beauty contest between Green Party people. With politics getting as bad as everything else, it is the sound bite and the flick-hair-over-shoulder-while maintaining-pouty-look [...]

This was so good over at irishelection.tv, it gave us rule number 3. Never let your young ones post your videos to you tube.
To be fair, for a bebo site, Pat Fitzgerald’s isn’t half bad. The FF green is just about handle-able. The picture of Dick Roche encroaches on the eye no matter where you [...]

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 [...]

News this evening that the long Mitchell presence in the Dail will end next year with Gay’s decision to pursue his MEP career rather than run again as a TD. FG sound optimistic that they can hold the seat with Catherine Byrne, but that still leaves Labour with a battle to get their second [...]

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 winning a seat [...]