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

Clearly picking up from the political ether that the Mahon Tribunal report is coming out next week, Micheál Martin wants it to be known (via the Irish Times) that at least after the fact, there’s a new sheriff in town: There is a view within Fianna Fáil that if the leader is not seen to [...]

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 [...]

There are days when Ireland is a dispiriting place.  Consider the following three seemingly separate issues.  The HSE report into the life and death of TF.  Niamh Brennan’s still under wraps report on the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.  And the latest delay in the Moriarty Tribunal.  They have something in common: legal sensitivities are being [...]

This might appear to be a little behind the curve, thanks to my first effort getting lost on the WP app. Anyway….. The response of Ceann Comhairle John O Donoghue to the reports of his extremely large expenses bills from his time in Arts, Sport and Tourism unveil a couple of things our erstwhile snippers [...]

So, ‘turns out that Denis O’Brien has done interviews with all the Sunday broadsheets, The Sunday Times was just the first to update its website, hence was the centre of all the talk online, including my earlier post. Yes, the O’Brien spin cycle has gone into overdrive. Apart from the (Murdoch-owned) Sunday Times’ interview mentioned [...]

Someone has finally reported on the contents of the Moriarty Tribunal’s Preliminary Report – it has been under media embargo since November. Mark Tighe of the Sunday Times interviewed Denis O’Brien who helpfully revealed some of the embargoed contents. The story is summed up in the opening two paragraphs (a sign of a well-written piece) – [...]

Dan Boyle is on the war path again. A statement released through the Green Party communications office following his speech at the MacGill Summer School today said… Addressing the MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal, the Green Party Finance spokesperson said progress required a prompt end to the culture of ‘No Blame – No [...]

The full Leas Cross Inquiry report is online since 4:00 as the whole of Ireland is obsessed with the Bord Snip report (see our posts here). The report is embedded below the fold. As I read I will add analysis and keep the post updated. Feel free to wade in in the comments.

Michael Lowry released the statement below in the last hour, he’s airing some grievences about how he feels the Moriarty Tribunal is operating. Nobody seems to have done anything with it yet – maybe for reasons I am not aware of – the statement itself is fairly defensive.

Apropos only 19 of 145 judges taking a pay cut, Niall Collins TD for Fianna Fail in Limerick wants a referendum: “This group of elite untouchables should be subjected to the regular procedures administering the pay of higher civil servants. In the modern day being protected by the Constitution is simply not good enough given [...]

The Irish government through the National Pension Reserve Fund’s preference share capital infusion to Bank of Ireland has a 25% voting stake for key decisions in the Bank, including those related to the board.  RTE says that the government and the board have agreed to install Pat Molloy as a director and make him chairman [...]

Dermot Desmond pops up twice in the business pages of the Irish Times today.  Once as sage commentator offering a seemingly pain-free way out of the banking crisis.  Then there’s a convoluted story from the foul rag and bone shop that is the Michael Lowry portion of the Moriarty Tribunal in which the question is [...]

For one thing, AIB is a lot more accident-prone.  There was accidental overcharging that the Financial Regulator might have known about before they said they did.  There was that awkward routing of Goodbody’s transactions in AIB shares through the well-known financial centre of Nevis.  There was those accidental hundreds of millions dollars lost in their [...]

Today its up to a once-off £30,000 which the Tribunal put to Ahern he received from developer Owen O Callaghan after a March 1994 meeting about the tax status of Quarryvale and Blanchardstown shopping centres. When he looks around at the empty press gallery and reads headlines of economic woe, he must think it was [...]

Is there a curse of Mahon? Added to the list of deceased on the witness lists comes today’s announcement that Albert Reynolds has “cognitive impairment” and cannot give evidence to the Tribunal. Albert has had a strange twilight to political career, having inadvertedly given his name to the standard libel defence in English law while [...]

“Ahern said he was not really a gambling man, but he enjoyed attending festive race meetings when he had the opportunity.” So reported the Irish Times at the end of December last year when Bertie Ahern was at the Leopardstown races. Despite that, he appears to have been quite successful at the old gee-gees.