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

From Fine Gael Ireland reliant on imported fuel due to Govt inaction - Coveney
Fine Gael Spokesman on Energy, Simon Coveney TD, today criticised the lack of progress by the Government on its Energy White Paper, which is leaving Ireland with an overexposure to imported fuel and at risk of energy supply shortages.
Seriously what does he [...]

Tánaiste accuses FG of witch-hunt

A sizeable portion of the Moyross housing estate in Limerick is located in Limerick County Council territory. This area could now be a part of the city as early as next week when, as recommended by the Fitzgerald Report on regeneration and tackling social exclusion in Limerick.
However, twenty years after the estate was built, [...]

From RTE.
Tánaiste Brian Cowen has accused Enda Kenny of sounding more and more like Napoleon in Elba, drawing up plans for wars he lost, as he criticises the Taoiseach.
Didn’t Napoleon escape Elba and eventually lead France again?

A few months ago, t’was all the rage to make up your own Young Fine Gael poster. Now you can do it for real. In previous European Referenda, Young Fine Gael ran provocative, pro-European campaigns, notably the Better 2B Inside poster below, stressing the theme of European integeration. And this time, the intention is to [...]

This afternoon Fine Gael followed up last night’s debate and passport revelation that Bertie Ahern has helped Norman Turner apply for a passport while he was lobbying for the construction of a casino in Phoenix Park with allegations that Ahern was never really opposed to the Casino in the first place. On Vincent Browne last [...]

Following today’s already embarrasing u-turn on his affairs with Revenue, looking like he was trying to bore a hole in his shoes with his eyes. Phil Hogan has released the results of a PQ which reveal that Bertie Ahern helped Norman Turner (of Tom Morrissey fame) to apply for a passport in 1994. Over this [...]

Bertie-hooray, Enda & Eamon-boo. Below is the Fianna Fail response to the gains it has seen in the Irish Times and Sunday Business Post over the week. As you can see, it is thrilled with its performance but it strikes me that this is also a boot that they have been waiting to apply for [...]

The trend since the election has been the return of the 2+ party system and this poll does little to dispel that impression. Following closely on the Irish Times poll midweek, there is good news for both of the big parties in today’s Sunday Business Post poll. Fianna Fail are up four to 36% while [...]

There is a major ruck going on in the Republic over the rather convoluted and, frankly, highly dodgy account the Taoiseach has given the Mahon Tribunal concerning his tax affairs. Cian has the Enda Kenny statement that the Irish Times re-published in full in yesterday’s paper. Mr Ahern responded by calling the opposition leader a [...]

Briefly, Enda releases a statment calling on Cowen to act on Bertie if he refuses to step aside and they reply against his ‘increasingly personal’ attacks. Both statements below the fold.

We had this up yesterday about the Fine Gael proposals on Schools and the piece about cheap laptop provision to all students. Hanafin has laughed off the possibility of supplying laptops to all 344,000 secondary pupils for a total of €23m – or just under €67 each. The main reason is the requirement for software suites [...]

Already they have said that they will get 69 euro laptops. Now John Gormley has joined them.
Phil Hogan T.D.”>Three Green Ministers Adopting Three Monkeys Approach to FF Attacks on Tribunal - Gormley. (It should be Hogan)
Usually they have the name of the releaser on the headline like.
Portlaoise commuters pay 113% more than those in Carlow [...]

Pat Leahy writing in the Sunday Business Post the other day noted something that I’d missed. When talking about the ‘fate of the opposition’ parties over the next twelve months he suggested that ‘…there is [a] significant cleavage emerging between the two main opposition parties following the failure of the so-called ‘Mullingar Accord’ to deliver [...]

I missed this on Wednesday. Flanagan seeks to ban samurai swords after spate of attacks
Edit. What have Fine Gael to fear.. Youtube embeding not really working so click here. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdLCEwEFCMU

Well it didn’t take long for Leo Varadkar to join the queue for the ‘Will FG just stop’ treatise that Simon has started. Having watched Dr. Varadkar from afar during some of his student days I’m not surprised. I’m only waiting for Lucinda Creighton to call for women to be charged for post abortion [...]