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

Opposition is emerging from some Labour and FG TDs, Labour councillors to the prospect of a FG-Labour Coalition. Dublin MEP Proinsias de Rossa has said the party ‘should be prepared to go into Opposition’ if FG refuses to implement elements of Labour’s “Social Democratic Programme”. Former Enterprise, Trade and Employment and Energy and Natural Resources [...]

A week or so ago, as we were in the midst of a deluge of polls, I hazarded that Fine Gael may be on route to a majority or very close to it. While legitimate doubts were raised at the time, the trend for FG since has been upward and tonights margin-of-error beating 3% rise [...]

Lest we continue to get distracted by polls and process, it is definitely noteworthy to point readers to the health policy announced today by Fine Gael. The policy, headlined as abolishing the HSE, reads like a step-by-step dismantling of the public-private divide to replace it with a system of private insurance and universal coverage, semi-private [...]

You can see FF’s here. Others to follow.

This year’s election campaign is less than a week old and already has jumped from the sublime to the ridiculous. Last night’s Nine News, case in point.

Although we’re still in the phoney war stage of the election campaign, it seems that the basic FF strategy is to throw a bunch of, er, stuff, at the wall and see what sticks.  In that regard, we got today in the Senate an interesting and tendentious exchange between Sen. Alex White (Lab.) and Minister [...]

It didn’t seem possible that the Irish political system could look more busted today than it did yesterday but that’s where the version of Lanigan’s Ball from the Greens leaves it.   Michael Lowry — having had the leverage of his side-deal with the Coalition for nearly 3 years in return for his vote, runs to [...]

As I type this, I’m on a bus from Dublin to Ballybofey. In all likelihood, I’ll be based there for the next 10 days, working on Frank McBrearty‘s by election campaign. After a crazy week in which I visited Tralee, Tuam, Rathowen and Galway, I finally headed for Donegal South-West last Saturday morning. I’ve never [...]

As ratings agencies, pundits, and the occasional minister demand that Fine Gael provide political cover for the next 4 budgets — with 3 years of disastrous decions to be taken as water under the bridge — Edward Walsh steps up to the plate in the Irish Times to make the case in stirring historical terms: [...]

Thanks to politics.ie. FG 31 (-2) FF24,(nc) LAB 23 (-4) SF 10 (+2) GR 3 (+1) Oths 9 (+3) Underlines volatility of Labour vote. Also public satisfaction with Brian Cowen is 19% to 64% dissatisfied and 17% undecided. 29% are more likekly to vote vote FF with Cowen replaced, including 21% of FG and Labour [...]

In a week when the use of forged documentation in the asylum-system was highlighted with the rejection by the Supreme Court of the appeal of Nigerian asylum-seeker Pamela Izevbekhai against her deportation, FG and Labour are proposing the allow asylum-seekers to work. Despite 13% unemployment and mass-emigration – Alan Shatter and Pat Rabbitte are now [...]

July 1st, 2010. A momentous day for Ireland, and one that will be remembered in history for a long time to come. Not as momentous as July 7th, 1993 perhaps, but astonishing that we’ve reached this point just 17 years after Mary Robinson signed into law the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

Another day, another confidence motion. Well it may have been if #fgheave was not going on in the background. If you care to watch the main speeches you can watch Enda Kenny here (with James Reilly his new best friend/wannabe deputy leader sitting beside him) , Brian Cowen and him saying sorry for the government’s [...]

Here’s the text of Brian Cowen’s speech entitled “A Decade of Commemorations — Commemorating Our Shared History” to the Institute for British Irish Studies at UCD today.  There are various points to make.  One is that these speeches — and this is not Cowen’s fault — have adopted a psychobabble language since they are written [...]

The final conference in the season is taking place this weekend as the Labour Party head to Galway (Fianna Fáíl will be holding their conference later this year). Already their prescence has drawn a dig from FF’s Deputy Mayor of Galway regarding that campaign and petition of themselves they launched this week. The Labour Party [...]

A curious thing of late is the use of English references to degrade an opponents. Previously it was Alan Kelly MEP with his references to 700 years, Kilmainham Gaol and the Union Jack a press release that even now looking back on is shocking. But that has not been the last of it. In two recent releases [...]