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

The Taoiseach’s 11 nominees are as follows: Dan Boyle & Deirdre de Burca (Green Party) Ciaran Cannon & Fiona O’Malley (Progressive Democrats) Martin Brady, Ivor Callely, Maria Corrigan, John Ellis, Lisa McDonald & Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fáil) Eoghan Harris (Sunday Independent columnist and Bertieaholic) Link 

The Examiner reckon that Bertie will make the announcement in the next 48 hours, fresh from his soujourn in Ballybrit. The Greens get two, with Dan Boyle and Deirdre de Burca as the selections, as do the PDs with a plethora of options (politics.ie report they are Ciaran Cannon and Fiona O Malley). The FF [...]

UPDATE: The following letter was printed in the July 28th edition of The Irish Times denying links with Justin Barrett, and also denying – to the “almost certain knowledge” – his presence at the election centre count. Senator Mullen also denied the same on Newstalk 106 this morning. This to be welcomed. The original post [...]

And so the counting has begun following the elections, such as they were, to the perennially ignored talking shop that is Seanad Eireann. The campaign to woo the electorate of a few thousand politicians and university graduates has largely been ignored by the media- and for good reason. No body of well paid and intelligent [...]

From Maman Poulet: First Count announced before 11 pm tonight in the exam hall, TCD. The Quota is 4230  – Spoilt votes 60 Total Valid Poll 16917 Bacik 2794 Conway 214 Douglas 183 Efobi 201 Gueret 1155 Hutchinson Edgar 330 McDonagh 684 Martin 223 Norris 5240 O’Connor 514 Ross 5379 Shane Ross and David Norris [...]

Results: Quota 86, Doherty (SF) 103 and Kelly (LAB) 96 elected on first count. Update 24/07: Doherty (SF) 1st count Ryan (Lab) 1st count Moylan (FF) 14th count Walsh (FF) 16th count O’Brien (FF) 16th count 6 seats remaining Seanad results at seanadrcount.ie and the Labour blog.

Rumours trickling out of the very long Seanad Count (due to end Friday) suggest that Alex White is currently topping his respective poll in the Cultural and Education panel. Apparently he is under 10 votes off the quota (around 175) which should see him elected relatively early on. With Labour having 130 odd votes one [...]

According to tomorrow’s Sunday Business Post, Environment Minister John Gormley will soon present a memo to Cabinet with a view to reforming the election process for Senators. The article doesn’t give too much detail on his plans, but the crux of his proposal is the suggestion to make the majority of Senators directly elected by [...]

I am sure this is probably illegal but someone has put their vote for seanad on Ebay . Interestingly enough it seems someone emailed Dan (the resident Irishelection.com candidate ) about it, so I can only guess that someone has emailed all the candidates about this. Surely no one will put a bid in will [...]

Ciaran Cuffe is surprised to learn that ballots for the Seanad election, for the TD/Senator/Cllr pool anyway, are not all that random. Councillor Tom Kivlehan pointed out to me a curious aspect of the Senate Election. Each ballot is marked with a unique number on the back. Before I told him my number, he was [...]

Votes for sale, blatant bribery for votes. Its is all there this year (and every year by the sounds of it). So what should we do about the Seanad? Has it any use at all? Should we abolish the upper house? Or for what purpose can it be reformed? New poll on the right, any [...]

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

The Irish Times are reporting that Labour and Sinn Fein are in talks on a voting pact which will allow them to return an extra candidate each in the Seanad election. The pact would see support for Alex White (Lab) from Sinn Fein Councillors and for Pearse Doherty (SF) from Labour Councillors. The really interesting [...]

Elections are moments of truth- when we get as close as we can to really hearing what other people are thinking, albeit as a collective. And one of the more interesting things I’ve heard from this election was the general feeling (except from some Green party members) that having the Green Party in government could [...]

The lists for those panels where people can vote; (The poll will close on Tuesday 24 July at 11.00 a.m.)

Time for us all to think about our individual winners and losers of the campaign – feel free to do your own lists in the comments – I’m picking a few who come to mind and one for who the jury is still out for as far as I’m concerned. (Note I’m mentioning the Seanad [...]