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

Yesterday, in the aftermath of the climbdown regarding the Medical Cards fiasco, I read a post on the weblog of Green Party Justice Spokesperson Ciarán Cuffe, which dealt with the Medical Cards issue.
After reading the post, I gave him my view of the Fianna Fáíl / Green coalition, and put some questions to him and [...]

Not that it’s any use in solving the problem, but has anyone done a cost comparison on the storage costs for the e-voting machines versus the cost of having a backup radar system for Dublin Airport?  In a cinematic note, the existence of a backup radar system was of course a key plot twist in [...]

One of Bertie Ahern’s home stretch events today was to launch the Dublin Airport Authority’s plan for Dublin Airport City.   Not to put too fine a point on it, this seems like one of the crazier proposals to have emerged over the last year, and symptomatic of much of what is wrong with governance and [...]

Dublin City Council is considering the merits of imposing a “tourist tax” of €1 per night on beds in hotels, hostels and B&Bs in the city in order to raise additional revenue.
Ignoring the fact that this is the taxation equivalent of licking your plate clean after large a steak dinner, there are many questions that [...]

From RTE.
The Taoiseach has defended the amount of money spent sending ministers and government officials abroad for St Patrick’s Day.
Will we get a clear and consise break down of the benefit these trips gained when they come out and the specific reasons why their WAGs and HABs get to go as well funded by the [...]

One wonders if the Cabinet have decided to collect their deferred pay raises as travel benefits. Just in the last few days: Mary Hanafin postpones a trip to the USA by a day to appear at a Dail debate on autism; Dermot Ahern still says he’s travelling across the world to East Timor even with [...]

The people of the Shannon region probably would have ranked the options for airport hub connections as follows: (1) restoration of the Aer Lingus service, (2) British Midland to Heathrow, and (3) service to a continental hub.  For now they are getting the third, with Cityjet service to Roissy/Charles de Gaulle, meaning connections to the [...]

A quick review of where things stand on Aer Lingus and its services to Heathrow.  First, yet more evidence that Belfast is not the golden goose that EI seemed to think it was heading towards.  Easyjet is beginning European services out of Aldergrove almost immediately, including one to Barcelona that will compete head-to-head with Aer [...]

Announced this afternoon — the rule requiring that a driver on a 2nd provisional licence have a driver with a full licence in the car is postponed until end of June 2008. 8 months to clear the test backlog (209,000 currently on their 1st provisional, by the way). Statement from the Department of [...]

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 [...]

It is funny how Parties like to put stats across. From Fine Gael “4,100 fall in US trips to Ireland should sound alarm bells - Mitchell”.
Now this figure is actually true there has been a fall of 4,100 to Ireland from the US. The strength of the Euro vs the Dollar being a factor is [...]

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 [...]