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

Question of the day, and really, we have no pre-conceived answer, why is it that both the Republic and Northern Ireland are having such difficulties with burst water pipes under quite different institutional arrangements for water supply (county councils vs government owned company)?  Note in particular that the problems of Northern Ireland are not mirrored [...]

The Taoiseach’s department has released the text of the Cabinet statement in support of John Gormley which was distributed to the pol corrs last night.  Full text below the fold.  One thing to note – The Government has already decided to impose a levy on incineration. The legislation to allow for this is being drafted [...]

Previously balls, Slang: Vulgar. a. boldness; courage; brashness. b. nonsense (often used as an interjection). A new definition to add. IBEC group Retail Ireland has issued an assessment of the environmental impact of cross-border shopping claiming trips north are releasing ‘tonnes’ of carbon into the atmosphere. Retail Ireland Director Torlach Denihan said: “On the first [...]

Labour recently came out with their new energy policy document . Now it had a few interesting bits and pieces and lots of generic waffle. But they do talk about Nuclear power. We consider that nuclear power is not an option for Ireland at present on financial,environmental or technical grounds. Now that really doesn’t tell [...]

[edit: We were 2 days ahead of the Indo and unlike them, we provide original sources for the quotes.  Read on ...] The Cork flood.  From the technical yet fascinating “Flood risk management through reservoir storage and flow control” (2001) by J. Fitzpatrick and T. Bree of ESB International – A study was undertaken by [...]

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.

One potential area of interest in the handling of the pork scare is that it’s the first big food chain disruption with the Greens in government.  And in some ways, what we know about the problem should be a vindication of the “green” ethos, since as with BSE, the contamination comes from not agriculture in [...]

Over at the Property Pin they have been digging away at the proposals in yesterday’s budget for affordable housing provision. The website set up (homechoiceloan.ie) appears to suggest the government is steppign into subprime mortgages for those refused by banks and building societies as well as stipulating the houses purchased come from the 35,000-50,000 new, [...]

Photo owned by maveric2003 (cc)What caused the latest world economic crisis? Toxic Credit products? Sub-Prime Mortgages, Galway races tent, ninja morgages, Massive bonuses to executives? No none of these were the cause of the latest crisis they were simply the cliffs we were pushed off. But they were not the push that sent us over [...]

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 [...]

So for Europe to fight Climate Change we need the Lisbon Treaty. Are so the story went. Duncan Stewart, Spokesperson for the Environmental Campaign for the Alliance said: “Climate change is the most pressing challenge facing humanity. Ireland cannot solve this problem on our own, it is only as part of a strong and effective [...]

It would be foolish to completely rubbish the newly-announced plans to introduce road safety classes to Transition Year students as any move in that direction is a positive one; but the whole thing does leave you asking ‘is this it?’

From RTE The Government jet, with the Taoiseach and 11 others on board, was struck by lightning this afternoon. The Gulf Stream jet, with eight passengers and four crew, left Dublin this afternoon and was on its final approach to Belfast City Airport when it was struck Flying Dublin to Belfast dear god

I noted this from Labour Press Releases of late. The Labour Party President and Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, Michael D Higgins TD, is in Norway, returning on Friday 11 April as part of a broad-based community delegation including members of Kilcommon parish in Erris All very nice and everything but this bit caught my eye. “The [...]

I posted before about the pitfalls of Nuclear power. The FT highlights the largest. The cost of storage of waste. Energy companies cannot be charged a fully commercial price by the government for disposing of nuclear waste without “killing the prospect” of a new generation of reactors, a government adviser will warn today.

I haven’ty much time to go through all this but if this is true.From Fine Gael. Fine Gael Energy Spokesman Simon Coveney today (Thursday) accused Minister Eamon Ryan of performing a major u-turn on a key Programme for Government promise by announcing he is shelving proposals to transfer ownership of the electricity grid from the [...]