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

Mary Harney, Mary Coughlan, Maire Hoctor.  That was one of the lines in the Dail this morning.  Here is the Oireachtas record of the debate on the Order of Business.  The Order is typically agreed in a couple of minutes but an unusually unified opposition turned into a scrum on the medical card for over 70s [...]

The whole country to choose from to fill 11 seats in the Seanad, and who has Mr. Ahern gone for? Well, it’s the usual story in terms of rewarding, compensating and back-scratching. Not that the opposition would have done it a different way, so Leo Varadkar may want to watch out lest his words about “independent [...]

In news that removes one minor headache for the Government, Beverly Flynn (artist’s rendition) announced in Castlebar last night that she has settled her debts to RTE arising from her libel action against them. RTE won’t comment, presumably because the matter has not yet been finalised by a court. But having rejected an earlier offer [...]

FF and Greens still in contact

Catherine Murphy and Finian McGrath TD have lost their challenge to the constituency boundaries.  McGrath says that the case was decided on a “technicality” although it’s not yet clear what that is.  One possibility is that neither was from a constituency that was underrepresented according to the 1 TD per 30,000 criterion (one issue being at [...]

Friday’s Irish Times reports on a potential hurdle in coalition formation that while not fatal, will deal a blow to the credibility of several of the independent TDs if/when a dodge is found around it. The issue is that some of them signed a pledge not to participate in any government that allowed the [...]

Interesting piece on the Independents on the Pat Kenny show this morning on RTÉ.
Think back to 2002. Heady days. Fianna Fáil on the point of a significant, but not comprehensive, political victory. Fine Gael recording one of it’s worst polls ever. Both Sinn Féin and the Green Party cementing themselves as more than [...]

With The Irish Examiner giving us our first poll of the actual campaign today, and with polling day just less than three weeks away, I felt it was as good a time as any to compile a poll specifically for Irish Election, one that may be unconventional but just as relevant and reliable as anything [...]

Repost from Mulley.net
A.J. Cahill seems to be the one candidate so far that has a better grasp of the online turf that any other candidate, anywhere in Ireland. AJ is blogging and not afraid to pull some punches with this post about Dominic Hannigan and he is making some quite fresh and original videos and [...]

Tuesday and Wednesday of this week saw members of Dáil Éireann discussing the Labour party’s proposed Civil Unions Bill 2006. (Information also available here.) Those evenings also saw the response from the government and other opposition parties.
- Read the transcript of the debate on Tuesday, 20th February 2007 here.
- Read the transcript of the [...]

One of the perennial jibes cast against Independent politicians is that they are effectively little more than ‘parish pump’ politicians, adrift to some extent upon the whim of their constituents and with no responsibility or obligation to the wider political system. And the problem is there is a considerable element of truth in this. The [...]

News this evening that the long Mitchell presence in the Dail will end next year with Gay’s decision to pursue his MEP career rather than run again as a TD. FG sound optimistic that they can hold the seat with Catherine Byrne, but that still leaves Labour with a battle to get their second [...]

In the course of study, a couple of amazing things stand out about Irish politics. Foremost among these is the incredible continuity shown by the Fianna Fail party in winning seats and maintaining power. Other parties have tried, with mixed success, to usurp the “party of government” and very rarely have Fianna Fail been consistently [...]

The Nenagh Guardian feels the continued profile of our politicians despite the summer recess signals the kick-off of the campaign proper and also gives a fairly handy look at the state of affairs in North Tipp.

Originally posted at Wagging the Dog.
Following the last Boundary Review, several constituencies were redrawn or lost seats. Dublin North Central was one of those dropped from four seats to three.
With two sitting Fianna Fáil TDs, one Fine Gael TD and an Independent, it’s not quite representative of Dublin as a whole (missing, as it is, [...]

Originally posted by WorldbyStorm to the Cedar Lounge Revolution.
An interesting post on IrishElection by Cian [here] raises some very useful questions. Just what is happening on the further left at the moment and how are the various campaigns for a United Left going?
Well if we look at the last twelve months a neutral observer might [...]