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

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 [...]

The office of Czech President Vaclav Klaus has published the transcript of what apparently was a blazing row that erupted in a meeting between him and MEPs Daniel Cohn-Bendit (the ‘68 veteran) and Fianna Fail MEP Brian Crowley.  Elements of the row are reported on in the Irish Times today but Klaus has since decided [...]

Ryanair are ratcheting up the pressure on Ministers to sell Aer Lingus to them. They issued an ISE announcement earlier today outlining the details of their meeting with Noel Dempsey today. It includes a commitment to recognise unions at the airline and give the government control of the slots at Heathrow.
I have the full release [...]

Batt O Keeffe announced a €2.7 million fund for education subsitution to cover schools in certain areas until year-end. Batt O’Keefe says an extra 2.7 million euro will pay for a limited number of substitution hours - to facilitate school activities.
Teachers had raised concerns that sports activities and school trips would have to be cancelled [...]

Dow Jones newswires has an interesting story (subs. req’d) about the negotiations for a capital infusion for Irish banks.  There’s a quote from a government spokesman complaining about all the people who are complaining about the private equity interest in the banks –
There has been a rush to criticise private investors as vulture funds. But [...]

Anglo Irish Bank will announce their preliminary full year 2008 results tomorrow (3 December).  Two things to look for.  Will they signal an even worse property market than their forecasts for earlier in the year had indicated (and the exchequer returns today indirectly confirm)?  And will the results be sufficiently bad that the bank will [...]

They are €1billion lower than projected by Lenihan on October 14th in his budget. Already down on last years projections. The latest exchequer figures show a current deficit of 7.8 billion euro.
The Taoiseach told the Dail that the figures mean that even more spending cuts will have to be made.

Ryanair launch a second bid for Aer Lingus, government have been seeking to sell for months now. It is very uncomfortable for the whole company. Shareholders are getting a premium, government end with egg on faces and unions go apoplectic. Not alone that but Ireland’s free-marketeer nabs himself a decent monopoly on air travel out [...]

Enda Kenny and David Cameron met for just under an hour yesterday.  It’s an interesting pairing (photo).  As Enda told the Irish Times, they have the common predicament of being in opposition against a long-standing incumbent party.  The actual common policy areas are tricky.  As Guido Fawkes has emphasized, the un-Labour approach to coping with [...]

Crisis? It’s baby-crunching time. We no longer have the luxury of attacking others’ prescriptions – those issued by the Government, employers’ spokespersons and stockbroker economists. The proverbial punter at the bar is impatient: ‘So what’s your big idea?’ It’s a fair question.
Let’s be under no illusion. The right is [...]

From todays Irish Times
PROTESTANT SCHOOLS appear to be battening down the hatches and cutting spending in response to recent Budget cutbacks. Like all schools, they must absorb the reductions in grants and substitution payments. But for them, the pain goes deeper. Without prior notice, a special support services grant paid to 21 Protestant schools across [...]

Irish Times background on the inevitable Rody Molloy resignation –
Discussions had taken place all day yesterday between officials of the Department of Enterprise, Mr Molloy and the chairman of Fás, the trade union leader, Peter McCloone.
Ms Coughlan, who was on a trade mission to Dubai, spoke by phone to Mr Molloy and Mr McLoone about [...]

Our economic woes may be at an end - Suzy has the scoop.
The package will be all about the three T’s - ‘Timely, Targeted and Temporary’. It will include proposals for tax cuts, fast tracking of Structural Funds to stimulate growth, and a percentage of GDP (maybe 1% or maybe not) from member states. There [...]

The Finance bill that was published yesterday got a lot of attention for getting rid of the JP McManus Cinderella Rule.  But there’s another provision that, to this tax non-specialist, looks designed to get a few London-based non-domiciled residents to move to Ireland.

But Brian Lenihan is ranked 18th out of 19 European finance ministers covered in the Financial Times’ latest ranking of their job performance (his predecessor was 4th last year).  Of course Lenihan is mainly being penalised by things that happened before him, but the “political ranking” will tend to reflect the recent impressions of the [...]

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 [...]