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

Minister for Environment and Local Government John Gormley has today published the two consultants reports’ into the planning and finance functions at the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (which were previously published in draft form by Fine Gael) and has also accepted — 5 months later — Fine Gael’s proposal that the DDDA should be subject [...]

There’s the old line about the Bourbons when they got back in power after Napoleon that “they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing”.  Then there’s Fianna Fail.  The Willie O’Dea confidence motion debate today was mercifully short because it showed a government that, after years of scandals and concerns about conduct in public office, has [...]

The cold weather, in addition to matching the economic mood, as highlighted some structural issues in Irish local government — issues that have slipped down the agenda with all the focus on the budget and NAMA.  A few things worth mentioning.  The frequent word in government statements about the weather is “local” as in local [...]

If you have a few minutes, read the 2008 Annual Report of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.  The 1st paragraph – We will develop Dublin Docklands into a world-class city quarter, a paragon of sustainable inner city regeneration, one in which the whole community enjoys the highest standards of access to education, employment, housing and [...]

[edit: We were 2 days ahead of the Indo and unlike them, we provide original sources for the quotes.  Read on ...] The Cork flood.  From the technical yet fascinating “Flood risk management through reservoir storage and flow control” (2001) by J. Fitzpatrick and T. Bree of ESB International – A study was undertaken by [...]

The Fianna Fáil second tier are dripping into the count centre as we speak. Sean Haughey was first – arriving about an hour ago. Pat Carey popped in a half-hour later. Mary Hanafin is the latest, she sauntered in quietly under the radar and hugged Maurice Ahern while most cameras wern’t switched on – mine [...]

At 10.07am Newstalk were calling it for George Lee in Dublin South, David McCullough on RTÉ was saying it would be very difficult to beat his former colleague at about 9.45 on RTÉ radio. At present it looks like the Boy George will take the seat on the first count, he’s at 52% with over [...]

2:00 AM Simon McGarr – RT @LE09_PO: I’m a Presiding Officer at a Rural Irish Polling Booth in the Local/European Elections on 5th June 2009. #le09 2:00 AM Simon McGarr – Tomorrow, we’ll have a liveblog for voting day. Anything interesting you see happening, tag the post with #le09 and we’ll try to add it [...]

It is feeling like 2007 all over again, the place is at fever pitch out on the canvass, people are taking politicians down a peg, a whole peg! Fianna Fail are trying but they are being beaten about the head by the news agenda, their partners in government and the party leader’s inability to grab [...]

Well, here comes the Bert. A stint as Mayor before a trip to the Aras? No harm to keeping his profile up. Either way, the government and John Gormley will be giving us another election next year as Dublin gets a directly elected mayor. Some details below the fold – what do you think?

It is likely to be of interest to our readers that Fianna Fail are looking to recruit a web editor. Take a look at the info here. Description below the fold. It looks like an effort to take online organisation more seriously than at present (which is not all that hard on reflection). Do let [...]

A good while back I wrote here about trying to invert the common political process as we know it in Ireland whereby the candidate comes to your home and seeks to impress upon you what it is they are really, really interested in. My idea was along the lines of the public challenging the candidate [...]

Barack Obama’s victory might not have been certain until late on, however his online victory was secured long before this. Anyone who attended the conference last month where Damian O Broin and Zack Exley gave an incredible breakdown of the online campaign would know that Obama’s superiority was borne of simplicity, ruthless organising and intelligent [...]

Labour’s Cllr Dermot Lacey notes over on his blog that Dublin City Council have started their voter registration drive for the new electoral register.  Nice posters, which include messages in English, Irish, Chinese and what is presumably Polish, are up in Smithfield and other areas with high numbers of people who don’t have English as [...]

IF you haven’t glimpsed the Sunday Independent, you can guarantee that the edited extract of a speech given by Junior Minister at the Department of Trade and Enterprise John McGuinness will be dominating discussion of the Social Partnership talks over the coming days. It remains unclear if the governmen is capable of steering a course [...]

Simon McGarr’s post raised the issue of state agency rationalisation. It is an issue we may well not care much for at the moment, as we’re ‘too busy’ with the recession. Yet we should be concerned that some the agencies being tied together and taken back into departments are those ones with a nasty habit [...]