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

How long before she is “that woman” in the corridors of Leinster House?  An all-guns-blazing statement from Deirdre de Burca in response to the Sunday broadsheet spinning about her resignation.  It’s one little detail after another (going back to Dermot Ahern’s blasphemy bill) but including this nugget – The Green Party had favoured Pat Cox [...]

A couple of days ago, we had a discussion about whether a Fiscal Policy Council could work for Ireland.  There is one basic problem: as such a council would imply reduced power for Fianna Fail, they’d never go for it.  Anyway, move along to another power that FF governments will never surrender: appointments.  Today the [...]

Before we allow too much distance behind us, I wanted to pen a few thoughts on the year gone by, and the political highs and lows, as seen from my (quite openly subjective) perspective. As a practising Fianna Fáiler my comments will reflect mainly on government / party fortunes during the year but I will try [...]

Budget 2010 has drawn outrage from most sides but perhaps a word should be devoted to the 20-24 year olds. For younger people it looks like you take any job your offered or face a cut in your jobseekers allowance. This is despite many going to college – as instructed and incetivised to do – [...]

[Cross-posted on TheStory - please appreciate I wrote this at 1.30am after a day spent reading official documents. Mistakes are a possibility, I'm open to discussion in comments section] It’s about a year since An Taoiseach announced plans to develop ‘The Smart Economy’ (the successor to ‘The Knowledge Economy’, remember that?). In those twelve months [...]

The way Cowen, Gormley, Lenihan and Harney have set to restructure civil service pensions in today’s Budget is strange. They’ve danced around the details using a fudgey term – “career average”, I’m trying to figure out exactly what they mean… It appears the Government will restructure the way civil servant pensions are paid from its [...]

The figures are out the deficit is €22bn going into December 9th budget. The figures suggests a levelling out of the deficit at the €22bn mark in advance of the budget but tax figures are a major hammering.

From RTE Taoiseach Brian Cowen said: ‘This overwhelming negativity needs to stop because it’s not in our national interest to see that continue. ‘It is portraying our country as incapable of coping when in fact all of the success we had in the past was not illusory. ‘It is the community spirit that I have [...]

Maire Geoghegan Quinn’s statement on her nomination to be Ireland’s next commissioner is below the fold.

On the day it emerges that AIB will merge the position of chief executive and chairman – contravening pretty solid principles of corporate governance – and install Dan O Connor in the position from within the bank, Brian Lenihan’s credibility takes a further dent as he comes bottom of the pile in this year’s ranking [...]

Fianna Fail will nominate Cllr James Carroll – Louth County Councillor and parliamentary assisatnt to Margaret Conlon for one of the two Seanad seats to be filled at the forthcoming Seanad election. You might remember him from his scintillating blog posts during the local elections (he is also one of Suzy’s stepford candiates).

The Government is said to be a little ‘optimistic’ about our prospects for next year. This is despite the slow slippage of budgetary targets in data released last week and to be followed up with the pre-budget outlook tomorrow. We know that the target revenue for this year is already €2.75bn behind the April budget’s [...]

The EU explicitly acknowledge that our budgetary strategy is like chasing the rabbit down the hole. They are going to give us an additional year to get our public finances in order. We will now have until 2014 to bring our public finance under control. It isn’t a ringing endorsment for our budgetary strategy that [...]

McGarr solicitors are currently engaged in an interesting process of over and back with the Dept of the Taoiseach regarding the government’s claims of a EU-sanctioned formula for the fair value that NAMA would pay for assets. In the course of which we learn that the High Court has again given direction to the scale [...]

He was one of my potential movers. Is John McGuinness lining one up? He has been stirring it within Fianna Fáil and critical of party leadership but has yet to do anything about it, as far as I remember… “There will come critical times or moments or events that will determine whether a new leadership [...]

As Cian points out, the Government’s majority is potentially down to the vote of one TD after Sligo-North Leitrim TDs Eamon Scanlon and Jimmy Devins resigned the Fianna Fáil whip today. The Government now has 83 votes, including Jim McDaid but not today’s two. It consists of 72 Fianna Fáil TDs, 6 Greens, two former [...]