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

The Irish Times leads with is economic recovery plan - heavily weighted toward R&D, knowledge economy and associated buzzwords (not in so far as they are illegitimate only that they have no government backing - making them dead phrases). It occurs to me though that a real kick start plan would start with the sacking [...]

Dan Boyle was selected last night to run for the Green Party in the Euro-South constituency next summer. The senator’s work will be cut out for him getting into one of the three seats.
The field is likely to have two sitting MEPs who won in 2004 and a third who was parachuted in for Simon [...]

Back before the election.Much of the criticism of the green party was that they they would jump ship the first sign of trouble. ( I think some Fianna Failers actually laid this taunt at the feet of the Greens before the election but can’t find the quote.) Well the first sign of trouble was back [...]

Yesterday, in the aftermath of the climbdown regarding the Medical Cards fiasco, I read a post on the weblog of Green Party Justice Spokesperson Ciarán Cuffe, which dealt with the Medical Cards issue.
After reading the post, I gave him my view of the Fianna Fáíl / Green coalition, and put some questions to him and [...]

From RTE News.
Environment Minister John Gormley has confirmed that he made a mistake in appointing a Fianna Fáil councillor from Donegal and a Green party councillor from Monaghan to the board of the Private Residential Tenancies Board earlier this year.
Is this the first time ever an Irish Politician said they were wrong before they were [...]

Via redmum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmqCUrQ4uRA

Back in March of 2007 I queried the professional backgrounds of the then FF/PD cabinet with respect to their experience of the realities of making things and what could be termed the productive sector of the economy. Batt O’Keeffe appears to have revived interest in the topic in recent days by suggesting that we need [...]

ITs a good week for Red C to take the latest tracking poll for the Sunday Business Post. Markets are falling like stones (Friday has the potential to be another massive dead cat bounce) and the government don’t look to have stamped authority on many aspects of policy.

Stephen Collin’s story in the Irish Times today is one of those ones that feeds into a zeitgeist. Political leaders who have let the Social Partnership talks slip, are in charge of an economic slowdown and on 13 weeks of summer holidays receive their final pay increase today.
TDs WILL receive a pay rise of some [...]

Even before the Irish people’s democratic decision to reject the fatally-flawed Lisbon Treaty, (which would have deepened the democratic-deficit in Europe still further), the source of Libertas funding was a bane of “yes” campaigners. To the elite, the possibility of the ‘mainstream’ parties being so decisively outspent by this upstart pro-business [...]

It won’t be a surprise to Suzy but in echoes of Dermot Ahern’s own stated position in 1993, reports in today’s papers have a number of unnamed Senators and backbench FF TDs suggesting that this whole civil partnership thing is a bridge too far. Despite being greeted as one not far enough by all bar [...]

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 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)