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

It’s going to be a long weekend for Brian Cowen so this will have to be a frequently updated post.  Let’s start with the seemingly damaging Irish Times story that Anglo lobbied Central Bank director and Druid’s Glen diner Alan Gray the day before the guarantee – Anglo had sought a €1.5 billion short-term loan [...]

If you’re old enough, or if you like those old detective shows, you’ll remember the time in every episode when Detective Columbo would have reassured his prime suspect that he was not the prime suspect, step out the door, and then pop back in with a jarring “just one more thing”.   Yesterday in the Dail, [...]

Brian Cowen – The continuing attempt to suggest that the Government’s approach to the affairs of Anglo Irish Bank was influenced by political or any inappropriate considerations is utterly without foundation. The facts in this instance demonstrate that as do the findings of the independent review carried out by Professor Honohan which similarly found that [...]

Bertie Ahern used a bit of Yeats (the municipal gallery poem) in his retirement speech to the O’Donovan Rossa cumann this evening.  The latter-years Yeats liked to tour through the memories and link them and and so it’s not surprising that there were echoes of Bertie’s more difficult moments even in the sanctuary of the [...]

The AIB bonus payment row may be shaking loose some of the practices of the calcified Irish legal-political complex.  The government at first appeared to be in its standard legal paralysis mode when it comes to doing something it doesn’t want to do — claiming that legal advice meant it had no ability to revisit [...]

Good.  Then you’ve completed Step 1 on page 15 of the Health Services National Partnership Forum Tools For Change Through Partnership — “Identify the Problem”.   And going by yet another Friday news dump, it sounds like if you got to Step 6 — “Review the Outcome” — everyone involved got a junket to New York.  [...]

The latest by-election poll from Red C (conducted for Paddy Power) in the Donegal South-West by-election campaign confirms SF on target to take the seat: Pearse Doherty (SF) 40% Brian O’Domhnaill (FF) 19% Barry O’Neill (FG) 15% Frank McBrearty (Lab) 14%

As I type this, I’m on a bus from Dublin to Ballybofey. In all likelihood, I’ll be based there for the next 10 days, working on Frank McBrearty‘s by election campaign. After a crazy week in which I visited Tralee, Tuam, Rathowen and Galway, I finally headed for Donegal South-West last Saturday morning. I’ve never [...]

Thanks to politics.ie. FG 31 (-2) FF24,(nc) LAB 23 (-4) SF 10 (+2) GR 3 (+1) Oths 9 (+3) Underlines volatility of Labour vote. Also public satisfaction with Brian Cowen is 19% to 64% dissatisfied and 17% undecided. 29% are more likekly to vote vote FF with Cowen replaced, including 21% of FG and Labour [...]

Peter Sutherland — former board member of RBS, Goldman Sachs, and BP — calls for more pay cuts on the day that the Dept of Finance shows his 2009 pension from his Attorney General stint at €52,632.32.  It also appears that no former AG did the increasingly common 10 percent pension surrender in 2009.   It’s [...]

Minister engages in excessive expenditure for private jet citing pressures of schedule and lack of commercial options to attend an event.  Resulting public outcry causes minister to resign before he is sacked. It’s France, last month, when the aid minister Alain Joyandet chartered a jet to go a donors conference for Haiti — conveniently located [...]

A little Saturday puzzler.  One likes to believe that the annual report of a financial organisation provides a somewhat comprehensive description of its activities and accounts.  With that in mind, consider the following: Where in the 2009 annual report of the Central Bank of Ireland is there a discussion of its approximately €10 billion loan [...]

July 1st, 2010. A momentous day for Ireland, and one that will be remembered in history for a long time to come. Not as momentous as July 7th, 1993 perhaps, but astonishing that we’ve reached this point just 17 years after Mary Robinson signed into law the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

As we all wait out the diplay of Fine Gael self-indulgence that would shame even the most vain World Cup WAG, it’s worth recalling that there are several sleeper stories floating around that could yet shed further light on our present predicament.  Take in particular the missing millions that the HSE says went to SIPTU [...]

Another day, another confidence motion. Well it may have been if #fgheave was not going on in the background. If you care to watch the main speeches you can watch Enda Kenny here (with James Reilly his new best friend/wannabe deputy leader sitting beside him) , Brian Cowen and him saying sorry for the government’s [...]

Latest Irish Times/IPSOS-MRBI (the newly merged group) poll.  Poll taken Tue-Wed when the banking report drip feed was on but before it became main news.   Last comparable poll (January) in brackets: FF 17 (22), FG 28 (32). Lab 32 (24), SF 9 (8), Green 3 (3), Ind 11 (11). Have at the interpretation in comments.  [...]