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 [...]

Were things good, Joan Burton would be roundly accused of talking down the economy. However, things aren’t good and so the answer to her Parliamentary Question on tax reliefs for construction holds some pretty grim reading. In the financial year 2006, the government waved of €464.4m in 19 property based tax exemption schemes. This included [...]

So poll numbers are down. Fianna Fail at 25% in the Irish Times poll.
I am sure there is plenty of commentary about all this already among people. There is a generally held belief that the young are the most likely to be left wing in a society and most likely to be on the Internet. [...]

Finally, a slim ray of light.
‘The problem we have in the public finances is as a result of the fact that the economy is in a recession . . . we have a problem in the economy which has created difficulties in the public finances. It’s not the other way around.’
So said Eamon [...]

Barack Obama’s victory might not have been certain until late on, however his online victory was secured long before this. Anyone who attended the conference last month where Damian O Broin and Zack Exley gave an incredible breakdown of the online campaign would know that Obama’s superiority was borne of simplicity, ruthless organising and intelligent [...]

It is a long running line ‘tax revenues were off predictions’. For good or bad tax revenues repeatedly failed to conform to targets and expectations. On the way up property inflation yielded a massive boon to the exchequer and fuelled increases in state spending and shrinking of the tax base. On the way down - [...]

Those who were left with the fallout from Bertie Ahern’s ten years in office, namely Cowen and Lenihan, were probably impressed by the production value of the Bertie documentary series last night - if nothing else. The programme was exceptionally well put together and surpassed what I had expected it to be. It wasn’t reliant [...]

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 [...]

Is it really a big story? Really? Personal insults do not mark out a quality debater but nonetheless the big picture last night was that many thousands turned out in the hail, sleet and snow to protest at education cuts.
Those cuts have yielded horror stories around the country. Like the school in Cloneen, Tipp which [...]

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 [...]

Where is the radical reform in the civil service ? Sunday Times figures show that almost every civil servant in the country has received a pay increase. The Government seemed happy to let the civil servants write the budget and now we find that the oversight process for employees in the civil service, the Performance [...]

REd Mum has the post on Michael Kennedy TD at the pensioner protest on Wednesday.
He spoke of the money given to single parents and their ‘10 kids’ and, get this, ‘FREE HOUSES’. (They are actual quotes.) Seriously my daughter is 16 years old now and he is saying there are free houses, given what I [...]

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 [...]

We hear that Fianna Fail county councillors are so outraged about the medical cards that they have arranged a regional meeting of an entire Euro constituency of councillors at 24 hours notice for tomorrow. No doubt they are spitting at the prospect of taking the largest of kickings in June for the measure.They aren’t the [...]

I’m talking out of turn here politically, but if anyone is interested in a practical solution to the over 70s medical card fiasco, there’s my tuppence worth.
I might be asking a rather obvious question here but if the GPs charge the state €640 (the figure itself isn’t really relevant at the moment) for giving people [...]