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

At the risk of moving Cian’s much more interesting post a little down the screen, it’s perhaps worth noting that the resignation of Peter Hain from Gordon Brown’s Cabinet raises yet again the very different standards for resignation in the UK and Ireland.   Hain, who clearly botched the management of donations to his failed campaign [...]

Update: Finian has been found! On Morning Ireland of all places - god forbid he would put himself at the mercy of Liveline listeners! The promise for the unit for CF patients is contained in Section 5 of the deal document. A new unit is 2/3 years away until completion. Finian is seeking a short [...]

In late November Mary Harney was under immense pressure over the care of cancer-patients and the direction of the health services. There was a small possibility for blood and the opposition forced a vote of no confidence in the Minister. Despite speculation to the converse, the Minister survived and the only overt damage to government [...]

The decision of first-time buyers to defer purchases has seen a boom in the rental market, with rents rising to an all-time average high of €1,400 a month nationwide.” (Irish Independent, 28 November 2007)
…Rents are strong in Ashbourne thanks to its relative proximity to the capital and the major expansion of retail business in the [...]

Well it didn’t take long for Leo Varadkar to join the queue for the ‘Will FG just stop’ treatise that Simon has started. Having watched Dr. Varadkar from afar during some of his student days I’m not surprised. I’m only waiting for Lucinda Creighton to call for women to be charged for post abortion [...]

Property in Ireland - its sale and rental - is not just a social issue, it’s a political issue. And it is covered by journalists as a political issue. Recently we saw a highly publicised campaign by the Irish Times and the Irish Independent to see stamp duty cut. The argument was that stamp duty [...]

James Reilly is calling for the Minister for Health Mary Harney to resign after it was revealed that the misdiagnosis scandal in Portlaoise continued to claim more unfortunate victims. I think the problem is getting beyond the Minister in this case though, Professor Brendan Drumm is also getting roped into the politics of this scandal [...]

Bord Pleanala has laid a bed of nails for Minister Gormley. They have granted permission for the Poolbeg incinerator to go ahead with a capacity of 600,000. The inspector report recommended that the incinerator should only have a capacity of 500,00 tonnes at the most but DCC want the 600,000 to make up the shortfall [...]

It’s unlikely to rate a mention with all the other unfortunate events swirling around the government, but the Financial Times has offered a mixed-bag verdict on Brian Cowen’s job performance relative to the rest of the Eurozone finance ministers (unfortunately they don’t provide a matching table of salaries).  The punchline is that Cowen has slipped [...]

In a case that could prove very interesting, Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy has had over £1.5 million worth of assets frozen and the Times Reports that there may well be £15 million worth of bills accruing. ‘Slab’ Murphy is a huge figure on the Republican landscape, described by Liam Clarke in the Times as “Chief of [...]

Today’s Irish Times has the report (it was always going to happen really, sadly) on the letter sent to Mary Harney’s office in 2005 by a Consultant Peter Naughton who said that radiology in the Midlands Regional Hospital was being provided by those who “had no expertise in the area”.
The ’smoking gun’ as it were [...]

RTE has seen a letter from nearly a year ago from the radiology department to Midlands Regional Hospital management warning of the risk of missed diagnoses of breast cancer due to the out-of-date equipment that the hospital was using for screening — X-ray images on film when state of the art is digital imaging that [...]

With ministerial compensation already an issue after the latest pay review, the latest irritant arrives: a special section inserted into a bill (see below) by Brian Cowen last week to allow former minister Michael Woods TD to retroactively recover pension money for which he had forgotten to apply within the required period.  Two quick defences [...]

Announced this afternoon — the rule requiring that a driver on a 2nd provisional licence have a driver with a full licence in the car is postponed until end of June 2008. 8 months to clear the test backlog (209,000 currently on their 1st provisional, by the way). Statement from the Department of [...]

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 [...]