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

Big things are happening in a big week for Irish and European politics and, let’s be honest, most of us don’t really understand what’s happening, or why. The budget to be unveiled today and tomorrow will need to cut spending and increase taxes because of the banks, or something. The European summit being held on Friday will save [...]

The Irish Dail has one major failing; parish pump politics. There are a couple of theories as to why, but it seems the only national level views are to be found in the cabinet, the shadow cabinet and the Seanad. And that scope is why its needed. Its problems (and its expense) is why the [...]

Pat Cox yesterday morning delivered a speech down the country making plain the case for Europe. Of course Cox is running hard with his Ireland for Europe grouping trying to get some traction on the Yes side for Lisbon II as well as getting a credible claim in for credit at the other end. Many [...]

We can see already that there are groups with a multitude of colours sharpening swords for the impending Battle for Lisbon. This time though it appears it will be a battle not of parties but of people. The Yes side has conscripted an array of celebrities to their army including Bill Cullen, Eimear Quinn (Of Eurovision fame, apparently) and [...]

Stephen Spillane has scooped everyone with the news that the bill laying out the Lisbon 2 referendum will be published today and the Referendum Commission will follow on the heels once the bill passes the Oireachtas. From his post: Commission will aim to inform voters of the issue as well as encourage people to vote. [...]

So the new Lisbon deal will be formally agreed with our EU colleagues over the next couple of days.  The media coverage is going be particularly unreliable on this one, because the line to the media from Brian Cowen and Micheal Martin will be to show their efforts in extracting every possible concession and driving [...]

We don’t discuss the topic of electoral reform here on Irish Election, so I thought I’d throw out some crazy ideas I’ve had on how we can reform the process to fix some of the endemic problems in our system of government.

Brian Cowen chose to use his Dail Anniversary speech to forge a link between the first Dail in 1919 and Ireland’s role in Europe. Under the wider topic of republicanism Cowen addressed partition, Europe and the wider economic downturn. It is a starting gun on raising the profile of the EU’s role in stabilising the [...]

Stephen Collin‘s story in the Irish Times today is one of those ones that feeds into a zeitgeist. Political leaders who have let the Social Partnership talks slip, are in charge of an economic slowdown and on 13 weeks of summer holidays receive their final pay increase today. TDs WILL receive a pay rise of [...]

Even before the Irish people’s democratic decision to reject the fatally-flawed Lisbon Treaty, (which would have deepened the democratic-deficit in Europe still further), the source of Libertas funding was a bane of “yes” campaigners. To the elite, the possibility of the ‘mainstream’ parties being so decisively outspent by this upstart pro-business group with financial interests [...]

The WTO talks are a little like the Tribunals. For the most part, progress is confined to a tiny box on page 8 of the Irish Times or Indo unless the leading lights drag it up the agenda. While both are meaningful in themselves and have great symbolic (on the perception of cleansing politics or [...]

The Financial Times’ Brussels blog has a very interesting story about the manouvering taking place on European Commission numbers from next year. As we found out, Nice will govern the makeup of the Commission from January next year – rather than Lisbon. This means there has to be less Commissioners than there are member states, [...]

[Edit: To say hello and welcome stumblers. Take a look around and tell us what you think.] The prevailing mantra of Irish and European politicians, still reeling at the Lisbon ‘No’ vote in Ireland, is that we as a small nation cannot hold up the EU. Apparently, if 26 nations have said ‘Yes’ the breaks [...]

The first poll after the Lisbon result comes with little by way of surprise. The Sunday Business Post/Red C poll finds the Irish electorate looks unlikely to have engaged in a mass volte face with regard to the major parties after Lisbon. Fianna Fail 40% (unchanged) Fine Gael 25% (-3)

So the Irish people have said a resounding No to Lisbon. Already the reasons, indeed some of the consequences, are being debated. I have already seen lists appearing on web sites. They hit many valid points : effective No campaign, inept Yes campaign, fears of militarisation, loss of commissioner, bullying tactics from the Euroelite, lack [...]

In a great day for Irish and European democracy, the Irish people, on a higher turnout than Nice II, rejected the illegitimate and anti-democratic Lisbon Treaty by 53.4% to 46.6%. In doing so, they have struck a blow for freedom and against remote, unaccountable and undemocratic rule by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. They have shown [...]