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

Wag’s first post on Irish Election. Originally posted on Wagging the Dog.
Sunday’s RedC poll in the Sunday Business Post (with first-glance analysis in that same paper from Pat Leahy and Richard Colwell) makes for interesting reading. Fianna Fáil, who have generally fared best in the polls during Dáil recesses, have failed to make [...]

If today’s Irish Times (subs. req’d) is correct, we should get confirmation of Mick’s story from a few weeks ago: that the Donegal North East merger of Fianna Fail and Independent Fianna Fail is going ahead, but only with an understanding from the fabled “grassroots” that a Letterkenny candidate must be on the ticket.

Originally posted to the Cedar Lounge Revolution
The exchanges in the Dáil last month between Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins pointed up a number of uncomfortable truths about the way the popular opinion works in this country and arguably give us a few pointers as to the future.
Joe is fast assuming the [...]

The newest poll is out.

On the scale of anger in this country about anything the present government has done this issue has been by far the biggest issue. Decentralisation, E-Voting PPARS has never lead to the same amount of anger among the electorate. No issue has been commented on by as many people on this website. So the question [...]

Today I had pause to look at my dictionary.Independent: Affiliated with or loyal to no one political party or organization.
Looks likely however that Finian McGrath does not agree with this definition. Himself and a few other Independents want to create an alliance of independents to fight the next election. They are also working on [...]

Morgan Stack a university lecturer from Listowel is planning to run for the Irish 9/11 Truth Movement organisation. Which believes that 9/11 was an intelligence operation planned and conducted by very senior elements in the current Bush administration(you can see a documentary on some of the common theories here). He is running in the next [...]

I have conducted an interview with independent Senator Joe O’Toole who represents the NUI constituency.
The interview touches on a number of issues including day-to-day life as a Senator as well as Mr O’Toole’s thoughts on Seanad reform.
The interview can be read here.

Ah Finian McGrath not content with just making an ass of himself singing on TV. Now seemingly he is a fan of Fidel Castro and wants him to come to Ireland on a state visit.

By way of a heads up, IE.com is looking to have an interview posted in the coming weeks with Cllr and Dail candidate for Dublin South Central, Labour’s Eric Byrne. The interview is ongoing so if there are any specific questions you want included leave them in the comments.
Our first FF respondent looks likely to [...]

Condoms should be ‘zero-rated’ in next Budget – Fiona O’Malley(PD’s). I have to wonder how much of this is really due to health issues, as trying to jump on the Union of Students In Irelands call for VAT to be cut on Condoms. Are the PD’s courting the youth vote? Indeed should the USI field [...]

Green Party leader Trevor Sargent last weekend described Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats as a disgrace to the men and women of 1916 and the principles they fought for. The current Labour Party constituency newsletter reports that 15% of children in Ireland live in consistent poverty.
 
I believe the ideological divide in Irish politics is [...]

We argued recently that the country’s version of proportional representation was inimical to political accountability because it resulted in a fragmented political opposition, manifested in an increasing number of independent TDs.  Not surprisingly, this issue has been on the minds of the independents.  But the tentative solution contains at least one inherent contradiction: in the [...]

There’s probably a regular cycle of denunciations of the Republic’s electoral system but that doesn’t mean we should shy away from another one. The basic symptoms are well known: despite a long-term downward trend in its voting support, Fianna Fail has been able to maintain a grip on power because of a splintered opposition and [...]

I was watching the documentary “The power of nightmares”(you can watch it here) the other day. Basically what it tells is an interesting but very biased story about how the Neo conservatives in America and Al-Qaeda used fear to get people to vote for them. Very basically it is a Orwellian concept based on the [...]

I hate to bring Finian McGrath into the equation again, but there an issue has arisen in my mind which I feel should be discussed. That is, what do we make of Independent TDs - or, for that matter, Independent MPs in general? The wider issue is particularly pertinent to Ireland, because I’m led to [...]