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

In a week when the use of forged documentation in the asylum-system was highlighted with the rejection by the Supreme Court of the appeal of Nigerian asylum-seeker Pamela Izevbekhai against her deportation, FG and Labour are proposing the allow asylum-seekers to work. Despite 13% unemployment and mass-emigration – Alan Shatter and Pat Rabbitte are now [...]

Concerns have been raised at plans by the Government of Saudi Arabia to establish a school with an Islamic ethos in Dublin, according to the Irish Times. The plans have been announced in Arabic on the website of the Saudi embassy in Dublin which opened in September. From the Irish Times on Wednesday: According to [...]

Alarmingly for those of us who value Western freedoms including freedom of speech, the Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, has revealed his intention to make “blasphemous libel” a crime, punishable by a fine of €100,000. From the Irish Times:

The subject of David McWilliams column today is how the GAA transfer index shows a growing trend of emigration from Ireland. According to the GCTI, emigration is on the increase from all over Ireland and it is recurring in precisely the age group that we need most — our young, fit people. What makes the [...]

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 [...]

Just checking out the Fianna Fail Website on the free Wi-fi in Shannon Airport. (Big company of US troops just checking in. A guy just bought a bottle of Middleton Whiskey and then told the CO has said none of them can  buy Alcohol. Poor guy maybe I could relieve him of the 120 Euro [...]

Over on politics.ie an article from the polish radio service is highlighted which says. The Polish community in Ireland appeal to the authorities of that country to make Polish the third official language, after English and Irish. It’s natural, they say. We are now the second largest nation of Ireland, so we should enjoy our [...]

At a conference in the USA last night and again on The Last Word today, Minister for Integration Conor Lenihan suggested that the government was discussing giving immigrants political rights as a means to better integrate them into Irish life. This chestnut has been doing the rounds in the literature for a long time now [...]

It seems Kevin Myres does not surf the net. And still, no debate on immigration, none whatever; and never mind the pusillanimous, left-liberal media classes, what about the rest of you? Why the silence? Why the abject, pathetic, skulking public wordlessness on an issue that — to judge from the way so many people come [...]

In todays independent this was a headline. Irish HIV rates on the up, says new report AN average of 31 Irish-born heterosexual people a year are now being diagnosed with HIV, according to a new report. The report from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre said of the 169 heterosexual people from different countries diagnosed in [...]

Recently I posted in response to Eamon Gilmore proclaim that Labour could get 30 seats an animation from Father Ted basically saying he was in cloud cuckoo land. But if he wants to win 30 seats he need only build on the foundation the Pat Rabbitte laid in Janurary  2006 when he said “There are [...]

I am in Paris at the moment and thus a bit behind the news cycle here, so I am not sure if anyone has made this point yet, but anyway. I always find it interesting the groups that align in these cases. You can get two groups that never unite unite on an issue such [...]

Just listening to the Tom Mcgurk and someone made a point about the deportation of the Roma Gypsies.  If McDowell had been the person who had made the decision which most politicians would have made. People would be crucifying McDowell in the media. Yet Brian Lenihan does it and the media agrees with it.

Update: 57 are being deported 35 remaining. So the tensions are been roused again due the encampment of Roma Gypsies on a roundabout on the M50. With people being critical of the government on all fronts. For not acting fast enough or not giving them homes. First things first. They are on a roundabout. Get [...]

(All figures available from the Central Statistics Office website, here. This is about as definitive as you can get. The census figures show an Ireland that is undergoing huge change, but not quite in the way we have been told. First of all, the actual number of non-nationals employed in construction challenges the “common sense” [...]

I’m not sure how idiosyncratic the issues raised in this post are, so if the title catches your attention, read on.