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

A dog that hadn’t barked up to now — Aer Lingus staff — is barking. Tonight brings news of a 48 hour strike by pilots next week, not in protest against the Shannon withdrawal per se, but the fact that new Belfast base is hiring pilots outside the collective bargaining contract. This arises from the [...]

A day after Michael O’Leary’s letter to the government proposing a joint call for Aer Lingus to retain its Heathrow service from Shannon, Michael Noonan TD puts pen to paper to write an actual letter to Willie Walsh, British Airways chief executive, to ask him to consider a Shannon-Heathrow service. Does this move the [...]

What does a company do when a majority of its ownership wants to pursue a particular policy? This is the issue that Aer Lingus in theory faces with 50.3 percent of its ownership claiming that the Shannon-Heathrow route should be maintained. Thus the hot potato that Michael O’Leary has tossed towards the government.

Over on Orga Sinn Fein’s blog they have released details of
The Shoot to Kill 25th Anniversary Committee has launched a new website. This site has been launched as part of a series of events and activity to commemorate the events of 1982; when 6 unarmed men were murdered by the RUC.
Now I know this is [...]

A Big Day in the North…or so Black Grape had it… back in 1995. So, what’s up next week? Why, the British-Irish Council meet, and as Gerry Moriarty writes in yesterdays Irish Times:
First Minister the Rev Ian Paisley and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness are scheduled to greet Gordon Brown at Parliament Buildings, Stormont, on [...]

So much of what occured after the Belfast Agreement is so hidden from open scrutiny that it is often a case of paying your money and take your choice of who was responsible for who ultimately collapsed the immediate outworking of that deal. Republicans blame unionists, and vice versa.

One of the main victims of the “squeeze” on smaller parties in this year’s General Election was undoubtedly Sinn Féin who ended up losing a seat rather than making gains as predicted.
So what went wrong for the party?

Brian Feeney casts his eye south of the border. He reckons Sinn Fein nibbling on the edges of government will cause much agitation within the DUP. He’s possibly right. However the actual position of the DUP on seeing Sinn Fein walking into a future government may not be as clear cut as he suggests. In [...]

From IOL.
The Irish Government today faced further calls to rejoin the Commonwealth.Following appeals in the North’s Assembly yesterday for Ireland to rejoin the international organisation headed by the Queen after 58 years, the secretary general of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) Dr William Shija, said the time had come for Ireland to embrace the diversity [...]

As if Bertiegate didn’t have enough tentacles already, the Irish Times reports (subs. req’d) on Albert Reynolds putting another cat among the pigeons with his reflections on the events precipitating the collapse of his government over the Brendan Smyth affair.  Albert’s remarks provide valuable context on Bertie’s thinking in late 1994, but also need to [...]

From Reuters last night, Bertie speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations suggested a mechanism not unlike South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission may be necessary to secure progress in community relations up North.
 ”I think we have to find some mechanism. … Otherwise it will never come to an end,” Ahern said. One commission [...]

With all the ballots counted, preferences transfered and seats awarded, the make up of the could-be Stormont Assembly is now known. It was an election of little surprise - the DUP and Sinn Fein grew, the UUP and SDLP shrunk and no major names suffered shock defeats (akin to Trimble in the 2005 Westminster elections).
So [...]

Events across the border will have various implications in the Republic, not least in the attitude of the parties to Sinn Fein and for the type of achievement on Northern Ireland that Bertie will be presenting to the electorate.  So worth keeping an eye on.  Slugger has a team working from each of the count [...]

… for the election. Michael O’Neill is set for release on May 17th.

As always, I struggle with a feeling that I’m somehow not entitled to stick my toe into the murky waters that comprises the political landscape in the six counties because I have no idea what the “sit-EE-ation” is really like up there.
Of course, that will never stop me chucking in my two cents’ worth anyway!
The [...]

I am not sure whether to be amused or nervous about this. One of the Republican Sinn Fein Limerick posse are considering standing as an “abstentionist” member of Dail Eireann.
That is right, he would collect a TD’s salary, but not turn up for work. He would just be changing the place where he [...]