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

Interesting reading in the Financial Times today. First, a short comment piece by Quentin Peel on Bertie and the Lisbon referendum; nothing that we don’t know in Ireland but since it reflects chatter in Brussels, perhaps indicative of growing nervousness amongst the Eurocrats about Bertie’s handling of the vote. Second, an [...]

No two ways about it, the main man Noel Dempsey is having a nightmare of a time in Transport. He has been badly undone by Aer Lingus and the FOI revelations (even though the civil servant took the rap) and now his handling of the driver’s licence regulations is woeful beyond belief. How can one screw up [...]

The report of the 2007 Consituency Commission is out, some would say a little bit too late but how and ever. Kerry is to remain split, with Kerry South a 3 seater while Kerry North joins to West Limerick in also remaining a 3 seater. Dublin Euro is a 3 seater, Dun Laoghaire is a [...]

It seems a happy coincidence that last week John Gormley announced national capacity for waste incineration in 2016 would be 400,000 tonnes and only two plants and today An Bord Pleanala give Indaver permission to increase the capacity of the Meath project and bring the capacity of their two plants in Cork and Meath up [...]

This appeared in one of the Sunday’s yesterday but the Green’s Ciaran Cuffe today announced the party had reservations about the building of an Outer Orbital Route from Drogheda to Naas ahead of improving public transport infrastructure. Cuffe suggests that the Orbital route lies beyond what was agreed in the Programme for Government and appears [...]

Noel Dempsey is no doubt delighted that he is in the position to deliver an outer orbital route that looks likely to considerable help Meath’s commuting voters. The report delivered to him last night suggests building an outer orbital route from Drogheda (south of the new port-so what was the effing port tunnel for?) through Meath [...]

Minister John Gormley recieved a letter from chairman of the Petitions Committee in the EU Parliament. The letter suggests that building on the M3 should be halted following the findings made at Lismullen earlier this year.
The site at Lismullen is a National Monument but as was reported earlier, the recommendation of the National Museum was to preserve [...]

So Dick Roche decided to give the go-ahead on the M3 on Tuesday, around the time it became clear that a Fianna Fáil/Green coalition was going to happen. The decision didn’t need cabinet approval and the Department of the Environment decided not to issue a press release on the matter.  According to the department that [...]

 
Very good vote management in Meath east for FF
 
Wallace on 25 percent, Byrne on 18.2
McEntee 15.9%, Hannigan 11.77%
Regina 9.9 % A. Fitzgerald 5.6%
Finnegan 5.8%
 
65% of the boxes open - prediction for 2 FF 1 FG. But the transfers to play for…

One bit of Sunday election trivia — Meath kept Graham Geraghty on the bench today at Croke Park in the win over Kildare.  While Graham might have liked the face time 4 days before voting, the selectors may have felt that there was a risk of exposing him to a wider than usual range of [...]

Press release titles of the day? For the chuckle factor anyway. Kenny’s appeal goes down the YouTubes in video views stakes - Ambrose. Councillor Siobhan Ambrose, Fianna Fáil candidate in Tipperary South thinks that because more people have seen her youtube video than a version of Enda Kenny’s party conference speech [...]

Taoiseach’s ‘hypocrisy’ on heritage - Meath Chronicle
This is an excellent letter in the Meath Chronicle. It is word reading the whole thing (it’s free but you have to register). Despite the Taoiseach’s words the realities are far different and many of the social problems that the government is trying to fix are created by their [...]

Some times the news can miss the stories from the local newspapers. So here is Irishelection’s top stories from the country.
The Meath Chronicle
Fraud Squad to probe purchase of Navan land
The “investigation will be conducted by Chief Superintendent Austin McNally of the Fraud Squad. The purchase of the land was made by local auctioneers and [...]

FF election candidate for Meath East was savaged in this issue of Village Magazine. Dubbed the “Laziest TD in the Dail” by Village who analysed the sitting Meath TDs contribution to the Dail. She has spoken on only one occasion, welcoming Shane MacEntee to the Dail and has tabled less than ten questions for written [...]

First, a little history. Meath has just been converted from one 5 seat constituency into two 3 seat constituencies. The distribution used to be (eons ago) 2, 2, 1 (i.e 2 FF, 2 FG, 1 Labour). It then changed to 3, 2, (3 FF, 2 FG) and how Labour would love their seat back.
The most [...]

In his 2004 political biography of Bertie Ahern, author and journalist John Downing described a meeting a few years ago of the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party. Downing reported that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern told his party’s Oireachtas members that he’d ‘fuck up’ any of them who ‘undermined’ him.
The Taoiseach is passionate about improving Ireland’s transport infrastructure [...]