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

The WTO talks are a little like the Tribunals. For the most part, progress is confined to a tiny box on page 8 of the Irish Times or Indo unless the leading lights drag it up the agenda. While both are meaningful in themselves and have great symbolic (on the perception of cleansing politics or [...]

It’s funny how transparent the government’s media trickery is.  Everyone knows that this is the time of year when Cabinet members will be on their holliers, except for the occasional pesky event like the WTO talks in Geneva, or Martin Cullen’s no doubt necessary 3 week jaunt to Beijing.  So what are the ways of [...]

Usually not a fan, but Diarmaid Ferriter’s in The Examiner today is well worth the read.
Some of the end-of-term report cards will make for sorry reading, with the exception perhaps of the Green party leader, John Gormley, who has made the transition from the opposition benches to cabinet with singular ease and who is basking [...]

It may be a catchy means of getting around the 9 and 15 month deadlines that seem to be naturally occuring to the EU leadership, but rerunning Lisbon next June in conjunction with European Parliament and Local elections has been ruled out by most parties. Not least because another ‘no’ vote could seep over into [...]

The news that the ESB is to seek a 20pc price hike will if granted, drive the average annual bill up to a staggering €1,100. It is up to the Commission for Energy Regulation to sanction all such rises. Before it does so, it had better think hard about the hardship they could bring and [...]

The centrepiece of today’s announcement of public spending cuts by Brian Lenihan and Brian Cowen is a claim that the motivation is to cut only current spending while preserving capital spending.  This may make for pleasing-sounding spin and apparent commitment to the NDP but it ignores one simple thing: capital projects don’t exist in isolation.  They [...]

A headline, and article, you don’t see that often from the Indo
Public job salaries falling well behind private sector rates
But wait there is more….
due to agreed terms in Towards 2016…
In civil servant jobs, such as accountants, architects or solicitors, the gap between the public and private sector is vast. Public sector employees can expect to [...]

Missed this earlier today but didn’t spot it picked up here. Jamie Smyth got his hands on the confidential part of the Eurobarometer survey into the Lisbon result. The findings are interesting - also interesting they weren’t released. I would have guessed at who leaked were it not coming from Brussels correspondent.
LISBON: party supporters’ votes
[...]

The Dept of Justice today released the heads of its proposed Civil Partnership Bill (PDF) (not as late as many assumed to be frank). Money quote:
Head 123: Cohabitant and qualified cohabitant
Provide that:
“(1) For the purposes of this Part, unless the context otherwise requires, ‘cohabitants’ means two adults (whether they are of the same sex or [...]

The Financial Times’ Brussels blog has a very interesting story about the manouvering taking place on European Commission numbers from next year. As we found out, Nice will govern the makeup of the Commission from January next year - rather than Lisbon.
This means there has to be less Commissioners than there are member states, prompting [...]

Pardon the spelling if dickying is incorrect but I highlighted a post earlier today on Open Europe - as much for myself to return to later than anything else and yes those links in the sidebar do change!. They have a copy of the original Commission poll(PDF) that informed the awful reporting in the Independent [...]

If it weren’t for the fact that we are in the middle of an international crisis of global proportions in the uncharted waters of unpredictability (ed - that is enough hyperbole), the government would be getting covered in other forms of excrement. Not least due to the admission that:
 ”high proportion of existing schools are in [...]

The first poll after the Lisbon result comes with little by way of surprise. The Sunday Business Post/Red C poll finds the Irish electorate looks unlikely to have engaged in a mass volte face with regard to the major parties after Lisbon.
Fianna Fail 40% (unchanged)
Fine Gael 25% (-3)

Conor and Richard  have spent a lot of time deconstructing the poll “data” that has been circulating around the two major broadsheets in the past few days. Not alone does the data not tally in some cases (under-15s voting?, 105% of the electorate giving a response?) it is still not publicly available to peruse days after [...]

Brigid Laffan gives her analysis of the Lisbon Referendum in today’s Irish Times suggesting that we are in a minority of one, with scepticism rising about our commitment to Europe and the EU. Vincent Browne is not in agreement - it will plod along as usual.
I am minded to agree with him, it will be [...]

Ciaran Cuffe got to publicly announce the Dail sits an extra week to make up for the lost Lisbon week and cover the important issues facing us now. In the release the Greens admit its not as much as they want but its a start and to be honest, it is. Taking holidays from FF [...]