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

Bertie Ahern was delivering a speech to IBEC today where he admitted that since 2002 our competitive position has been considerable eroded by the strength of the Euro and price rises. He is still talking positive on the economy as it “enters a period of transition” but with consistent downgrading of expectations by major institutions [...]

UPDATE: The following letter was printed in the July 28th edition of The Irish Times denying links with Justin Barrett, and also denying – to the “almost certain knowledge” – his presence at the election centre count. Senator Mullen also denied the same on Newstalk 106 this morning. This to be welcomed. The original post [...]

Ciaran Cuffe is surprised to learn that ballots for the Seanad election, for the TD/Senator/Cllr pool anyway, are not all that random. Councillor Tom Kivlehan pointed out to me a curious aspect of the Senate Election. Each ballot is marked with a unique number on the back. Before I told him my number, he was [...]

The Sunday Indo has been informed that Bertie Ahern will be proposing an increase in the number of junior ministries next week from 17 to 20. This is likely to accommodate the ambitions of the younger pups within the party who remain a bit peeved that senior ministries were unnecessarily given away in coalition. The [...]

Following a vote in the Dail, O Donoghue was elected after the nomination of Ruairi Quinn  by the opposition forced a contest. Result: 90 votes to 75 votes# Incidentally, watch it live on Oireachtas.ie

The following is taken from my notebook. It was written on January 3rd this year, as I tried to make a list of problems to solve or salve. I haven’t changed any of it in the light of hindsight. It will be my last post on politics for a month. The main opposition party is [...]

We are always giving out about RTE, the State of Us was dire, Fair City risible, and Killinascully is a vacuous black hole of comedy which has all the laughter sucked out. But what about RTE’s election coverage? It was supposed to be the most extensive coverage ever and sure enough the RTE TV studio [...]

While Mr Ahern is certainly in pole position in the race to form a new Government, it would be unwise to rule out Mr Kenny’s opportunity at this early stage. RTÉ have reported today that Jackie Healy-Rae, Finian McGrath and Tony Gregory have all been contacted by Fine Gael, but not yet by Fianna Fáil. [...]

The body strives for that which sickens the mind with love… Stretches out toward that which smites it, and yearns to couple.” (Lucretius, In the Realm of the Senses, 4.1048) For all the talk of a presidential campaign – for all the Lunz cuntz focus groups and “Dream On Baby” slipup scoops- this election boiled [...]

This just came into the text but the technology is not playing ball with publishing it, so it gets a post. “Congrats to Bertie with his unequivocal success. I always knew he would do it. I’m a prominent F.F member and i telling you now: Gregory will be Ceann Comhairle, Harney will keep health and [...]

Listening to Bertie on Sky/RTE, he believes that independents will play a major role in government formation. This can hardly be interpreted any other way than a preference for smaller party (PD/Green) and independents as a path to government. This was further nailed on by Conor Lenihan speaking to Sam Smyth who said that the [...]

“The Labour Party Will Struggle With Its Conscience. The Labour Party Will Win.” Interesting times for Mr Rabbitte. Wagger believes that, with the aging profile of the Labour TDs, an FF/LAB Government is not out of the question. This is the last chance for such oldies as Costello, Quinn, Higgins, O’Shea, Stagg, and even Rabbitte [...]

A visible blue tide has moved Fine Gael back to 1997 levels.

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