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

Clearly picking up from the political ether that the Mahon Tribunal report is coming out next week, Micheál Martin wants it to be known (via the Irish Times) that at least after the fact, there’s a new sheriff in town: There is a view within Fianna Fáil that if the leader is not seen to [...]

With Sean Gallagher now taken out of his Presidential hopes, convicted fuel-smuggler and Gallagher-accuser Hugh Morgan has changed his story for a second time. He now says the invite to the FF fundraising event may not have been issued by Gallagher at all, but by former FF TD for Louth Seamus Kirk. Kirk himself says [...]

The Evening Herald has claimed that SF Presidential candidate Martin McGuinness is the main suspect in the murder of two policemen gunned down in an IRA ambush in Derry: SINN Fein Presidential candidate Martin McGuinness is the main suspect in the brutal murder of two policemen, the Herald can reveal. Sergeant Peter Gilgunn (26) and [...]

Update: Gallagher on facebook denying he is man in a 1992 photo cited on David Cochrane (of politics.ie)’s twitter page. Sinn Fein’s allegations linking Gallagher to a cheque for €5,000 for FF have been undermined following the revelations that the accuser has convictions for cross-border fuel-smuggling and tax-evasion and leased his General Election HQ to [...]

Opposition is emerging from some Labour and FG TDs, Labour councillors to the prospect of a FG-Labour Coalition. Dublin MEP Proinsias de Rossa has said the party ‘should be prepared to go into Opposition’ if FG refuses to implement elements of Labour’s “Social Democratic Programme”. Former Enterprise, Trade and Employment and Energy and Natural Resources [...]

A couple of semi-formed thoughts of issues that perhaps deserved a little more attention in all the relentless punditry.

A week or so ago, as we were in the midst of a deluge of polls, I hazarded that Fine Gael may be on route to a majority or very close to it. While legitimate doubts were raised at the time, the trend for FG since has been upward and tonights margin-of-error beating 3% rise [...]

Not as focussed on the leader as the others.

Edit at 14:00The full manifesto is available here. It is really hard to read the Irish Times report on today’s Fianna Fail manifesto launch and avoid thinking three, cynical thoughts. 1) All well and good, but you were in power for the last 13 years. Whither the new found reform zeal? 2) The Green Party [...]

Lest we continue to get distracted by polls and process, it is definitely noteworthy to point readers to the health policy announced today by Fine Gael. The policy, headlined as abolishing the HSE, reads like a step-by-step dismantling of the public-private divide to replace it with a system of private insurance and universal coverage, semi-private [...]

You can see FF’s here. Others to follow.

In case you have better things to do on a Sunday, you may not have shown up to hear FG present their HSE aboliton policy today (its the same one as before, with detail promised for the manifesto). Rightly so, there was a lot of sport on. In case you missed it, Enda offered reason [...]

This year’s election campaign is less than a week old and already has jumped from the sublime to the ridiculous. Last night’s Nine News, case in point.

Just announced.  Laois-Offaly was 3FF, 2 FG in 2007.  Could FF be looking at 1 now? (Maybe not — see below).   Hopefully that little issue of the caretaker Taoiseach not being a TD is sorted out by now, presumably on the grounds that he was a TD when he was given the status.   Anyway, [...]

Following @shaymcdaid on twitter from the slection conference in Donegal NE where Neil Blaney has given a speech declaring he is bowing out of the race meaning right now Fianna Fail are to run a single candidate, Charlie McConalogue. HQ will decide on a 2nd tomorrow. As pointed out by @faduda this is the first [...]

As the dissolution of the Dail nears, many leaders took the opportunity today to outline their focus for the campaign ahead. While the debate issue has put Enda Kenny on the backfoot at a national level, within the party today he spoke to all of Fine Gael’s #GE11 candidates and delivered a speech outlining the [...]