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

No two ways about it, the main man Noel Dempsey is having a nightmare of a time in Transport. He has been badly undone by Aer Lingus and the FOI revelations (even though the civil servant took the rap) and now his handling of the driver’s licence regulations is woeful beyond belief. How can one screw up [...]

Video from yesterday’s Save Our Slots Rally
I am unable to embed them here, but they can be found at the below link
Link.
Update Simon. Video added below

There was a lively atmosphere on O’Connell Street in Limerick today with a red army again packing the street. Today rather than rugby, it was the issue of Shannon and its slots that were the main event. The press are pulling their punches at the moment but the only FF TD, John Creegan, on the [...]

Two bits of business in this post.  First, the sharp-eyed squid has pointed out that the first hints of an Aer Lingus move to Belfast appeared not in mid-June but in late May.  Below, the rest of the Irish News story to which squid refers.  Second, another interesting thing from the NI media.  Willie Walsh noted as expressing [...]

If the Dail stays on schedule, ministerial questions will begin in about 10 minutes (link to live broadcast) at which time Noel Dempsey will be asked to explain the 6 week gap between his department knowing about the Shannon-Belfast Heathrow slot switch and him knowing about it.  Still unsolved, and perhaps to be explored in [...]

In news that does not seem to be generally available yet, Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal is reporting (subs. req’d) that the European Commission has rejected the request from Aer Lingus to force Ryanair to sell its 29.4% stake in the company.  The key point –
Philip Lowe, the EU’s director general for competition, said the European [...]

Here’s the Tribune story with the key points from Noel Dempsey’s interview with them about Shannon-Heathrow. In remarks that are likely to inflame the crisis, at least in the short-term, Dempsey states that: Shannon-Heathrow is a lost cause for now (consistent with the imminent deadline to have a new route in place); that he [...]

The departments of an Taoiseach and transport have made available the report of senior officials on the Shannon-Heathrow route along with a press release from the government  summarising the report and outlining next steps.  The press release is the usual blather and jargon but the detailed report is actually a little more substantive, indicating that [...]

I believe one motion on Shannon has been defeated by 1 vote. 68 to 67.  Watch or listen live.

Here’s another shoe dropping in the SNN-LHR row.  Ryanair is putting Stansted flights from Belfast City (George Best).  4 a day.  They also want a runway expansion to facilitate additional flights from Belfast City as a new base.  As usual, every move can be spun various ways.  Aer Lingus will now claim vindication: that Ryanair [...]

Noel Dempsey has confirmed that plans for a new port in North Dublin at Bremore, south of Dundalk will be given the go ahead. This was flagged before by the PDs in their plan to redevelop the port area of Dublin City. If the new port ultimately replaces the current port in Dublin City, what [...]

The Shannon thing rumbles on in a dim and distant fashion as the Atlantic Connectivity/local lobby take aim at a cavalier Noel Dempsey and unsupportive Bertie Ahern. Yet Aer Lingus are still not out of the woods by a long way. Their talks today could end up sending pilots back to the pickets over pay [...]

It’s probably not on your regular websurfing list but the website of the Irish Stock Exchange has been very lively recently, as seemingly arcane company announcements can occasionally pertain to fallout from the US subprime mortgage crisis.  But sitting there today is Ryanair’s formal notification to the exchange that it is seeking an EGM, along [...]

A fairly comprehensive statement today from the up-to-now quiet Enda Kenny on SNN-LHR. Perhaps some of the time was spent reconciling the position that FG will now adopt with their non-opposition to the Aer Lingus privatization (although they had complaints at the time about how it was managed). A few interesting things in [...]

Here’s the text of the (hastily written?) press release from the Department of Transport following the Cabinet meeting on Shannon-Heathrow today.  The statement is mostly the familiar litany from the government and avoids the issue of the call for an Aer Lingus EGM or the purpose of the 25 percent shareholding.  But there might be [...]

Here’s an issue that has surfaced briefly at various times in the Shannon-Heathrow-Belfast dispute and has now been explicitly raised by IMPACT: is Belfast in Ireland?  We can probably all recall instances where one of the many usages for the two jurisdictions on the island has had a similar impact as fingernails being drawn across a [...]