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

Friend of the Blog Joanna Tuffy has a press release today. The government decision to collapse the talks about public service reform and reject union proposals for unpaid leave, is all the more inexplicable given that the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, wrote to all local authorities in June of this year authorising all [...]

The role of a Trade Union is to look after its workers interests to make their lives better. One of the biggest worries for alot of people (public sector workers anyway who don’t have to worry about if next months pay cheque is coming) this time of year is when to get the christmas shopping [...]

Update: Official Press Release here. – In a decision sure to spark furious condemnation from “no” campaigners, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland has announced new regulations on airtime set to grant the political-parties the vast majority of airtime during the campaign. Broadcasters are not required to allocate exactly the same amount of time to both [...]

Labour launched their 2nd Lisbon campaign today, making a start to a summer where all and sundry from across the Irish political spectrum will tell us stories on why we should vote yes for this 2nd treaty. And boy will they be stories. We can see concoctions worthy of the greatest Irish Seanachaí and on [...]

The Fianna Fáil second tier are dripping into the count centre as we speak. Sean Haughey was first – arriving about an hour ago. Pat Carey popped in a half-hour later. Mary Hanafin is the latest, she sauntered in quietly under the radar and hugged Maurice Ahern while most cameras wern’t switched on – mine [...]

Enda and George will be looking to nail the Greens into the coffin on Tuesday. Both men know that the motion of no confidence will not succeed. Both know that if they were to move into government that in the eyes of the international community they’d be committed to supplying €4bn of taxpayers money to [...]

Second in a series of posts. The first post from a member of the Green party is here. Aoife Carroll is a 27 year old Barrister who has been a member of the Labour Party since the age of 16. She is currently a member of the Clonsilla branch in Dublin West and has spent [...]

The early numbers are out from tomorrow’s breakdown of the European race. Keith had some of the early East constituency numbers online a while ago and the rest of the details is clearing up now. Yesterday had Fianna Fail on 20%, Labour on 23% and Fine Gael on 36% – interesting to see how the [...]

Yesterday we had plans for apartment dwellers (can you canvass them?), plans for the unemployed (well 2,000 of the almost 500,000), plans for retraining those on part-time, opposition policies for Dublin and for small business. Calls for tax cuts and incentives – woo hoo for voters! You would think it is a general election. A [...]

Stephen Spillane has interesting details of the Evening Echo poll conducted by Landsdowne in Cork city and county. Fianna Fail – 9% Fine Gael – 23% Labour – 20% Green Party – 4% Sinn Fein – 6% Socialists – 0% Independent/Libertas – 16% No Party/Vote for Personality – 23% Don’t Know – 13%

If there is one thing you should do today it’s buy The Irish Examiner. Go, g’wan, buy it. Even if you’re not from Cork. Even if you’re not from Munster. Feck it, go and buy it if you’ve never bought a paper or watched the news before. Please, for the good of the country, buy [...]

Fintan O Toole has an interesting article in the Times this morning from an electoral point of view. The thesis has been expounded before, at key points in recent electoral history, Labour has stepped forward to prevent the implosion of the civil war division and give either Fianna Fail or Fine Gael the kiss of [...]

After Fine Gael announced its recent FairCare proposals for health service reform I contacted ILR contributor Dr. Gerry Burke, consultant obstetrician & gynaecologist in Limerick’s Regional and Maternity Hospitals and a vociferous campaigner against co-location to see what he thought of the proposals. I first asked him if the proposals would help improve patient outcomes [...]

Another day another Labour press Release to look at. UK nuclear plans, a major worry There are still many unanswered questions about, for example, the link between the incidence of particular cancers in Co Louth Interesting statement depends on how you define the word unanswered.

I think this is worth posting on the day that is in it. As micandidate and other social media ontroponooors trot out meaningless twaddle about fixing politicians up with their yoof social media market (for a small fee per month) the list of those who are getting on fine without spending hundreds on the promise [...]

In a Press Release today from Labour “Broughan demands that Coughlan and Fás facilitate SRT apprentices” Deputy Broughan said: “This is another savage breach of faith by Corporate Affairs Director Stephanie Bennett and CEO Bernd Kessler and their Middle East master, Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum. Why does he highlight the origin of Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum [...]