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

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 [...]

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 Corrib gas conflict [...]

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 ESB [...]

This business about the M3 road being run through the hill of Tara is nothing new. It is however back in the news again. This time because a protester has chained herself inside a tunnel under which the roadworks are taking place. Her life is now in danger as the traffic of diggers passing over [...]

Newstalk’s Marc Coleman has a nice perch on the Financial Times comment page today to outline his fairly optimistic long-term view of the Irish economy despite the current property downturn.  His essential argument, to be outlined in more detail in his book, is that Ireland has two key assets for its long-term growth prospects: people [...]

Update: Below is a press release from Solus, the light bulb crowd about their meeting with Minister Gormley yesterday. They are not complimentary;
It was revealed today during a meeting with the Minister that his department had not put any proposals together on what lamps would be included in the ban and how he proposes to implement [...]

Eamon Ryan was on RTE this morning and said that it is time for a full debate on the merits of nuclear power in Ireland. In light of the decision which seems to be coming today in the UK to begin upgrading their nuclear power generators. A debate which has been called for a while [...]

On the day when it also emerged that the proposed ban on incandescent light bulbs might contravene EU regulations, the government has used a classic late Friday news dump to ensure the row over water charges for schools will continue to rumble. The issue is the clarification issued for Bertie Ahern’s pre-Christmas declaration that [...]

Over on Indymedia they have details of the latest escaped by the shell to sea people. This time a group of them “scaled” can’t see any climbing gear in the photos and put in place a banner reading.
PROTECT IRISH NATURAL RESOURCES
Now call me nieve but arn’t we always told that the campaign is to PROTECT [...]

There Is a lively discussion over on politics.ie at the moment about the new Motor tax regime. With many posters pointing out that it will make old cars paying higher motor tax then new ones. Poster noodles
Just checked my car.. Ford Mondeo Diesel 115bhp TdCi, 2004. 154 grammes per Km. That makes me a Band [...]