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Maurice Ahern – Is in he, is he out, is he in, is he out…

The Fianna Fáil second tier are dripping into the count centre as we speak. Sean Haughey was first – arriving about an hour ago. Pat Carey popped in a half-hour later. Mary Hanafin is the latest, she sauntered in quietly under the radar and hugged Maurice Ahern while most cameras wern’t switched on – mine [...]

All Sorts of Double-speak

Enda and George will be looking to nail the Greens into the coffin on Tuesday. Both men know that the motion of no confidence will not succeed. Both know that if they were to move into government that in the eyes of the international community they’d be committed to supplying €4bn of taxpayers money to [...]

Euro elections: Why you should vote for the Labour Party

Second in a series of posts. The first post from a member of the Green party is here.
Aoife Carroll is a 27 year old Barrister who has been a member of the Labour Party since the age of 16. She is currently a member of the Clonsilla branch in Dublin West and has spent most [...]

Irish Times TNS/MRBI European Constituency Polls

The early numbers are out from tomorrow’s breakdown of the European race. Keith had some of the early East constituency numbers online a while ago and the rest of the details is clearing up now. Yesterday had Fianna Fail on 20%, Labour on 23% and Fine Gael on 36% – interesting to see how the [...]

Announce, Announce before it is too late

Yesterday we had plans for apartment dwellers (can you canvass them?), plans for the unemployed (well 2,000 of the almost 500,000), plans for retraining those on part-time, opposition policies for Dublin and for small business. Calls for tax cuts and incentives – woo hoo for voters! You would think it is a general election.
A cautionary [...]

The Collapse of a Fianna Fail vote

Stephen Spillane has interesting details of the Evening Echo poll conducted by Landsdowne in Cork city and county.

Fianna Fail – 9%
Fine Gael – 23%
Labour – 20%
Green Party – 4%
Sinn Fein – 6%
Socialists – 0%
Independent/Libertas – 16%
No Party/Vote for Personality – 23%
Don’t Know – 13%

Party-Political Funding Blown Wide Open

If there is one thing you should do today it’s buy The Irish Examiner. Go, g’wan, buy it. Even if you’re not from Cork. Even if you’re not from Munster. Feck it, go and buy it if you’ve never bought a paper or watched the news before. Please, for the good of the country, buy [...]

O’Toole on Ending Coke and Pepsi Politics

Fintan O Toole has an interesting article in the Times this morning from an electoral point of view. The thesis has been expounded before, at key points in recent electoral history, Labour has stepped forward to prevent the implosion of the civil war division and give either Fianna Fail or Fine Gael the kiss of [...]

Are FG’s FairCare Proposals a Boon for Private Health Insurance?

After Fine Gael announced its recent FairCare proposals for health service reform I contacted ILR contributor Dr. Gerry Burke, consultant obstetrician & gynaecologist in Limerick’s Regional and Maternity Hospitals and a vociferous campaigner against co-location to see what he thought of the proposals. I first asked him if the proposals would help improve patient outcomes [...]

Labour Scaremongering on Nuclear.

Another day another Labour press Release to look at. UK nuclear plans, a major worry
There are still many unanswered questions about, for example, the link between the incidence of particular cancers in Co Louth
Interesting statement depends on how you define the word unanswered.

Candidates Do not need “Obama Juice” or “Obama Tools” they just need a bit of cop on

I think this is worth posting on the day that is in it. As micandidate and other social media ontroponooors trot out meaningless twaddle about fixing politicians up with their yoof social media market (for a small fee per month) the list of those who are getting on fine without spending hundreds on the promise [...]

Labour Playing a dangerous card.

In a Press Release today from Labour “Broughan demands that Coughlan and Fás facilitate SRT apprentices”
Deputy Broughan said: “This is another savage breach of faith by Corporate Affairs Director Stephanie Bennett and CEO Bernd Kessler and their Middle East master, Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum.
Why does he highlight the origin of Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum and not [...]

Labour populism over morgages

A few Years ago Fine Gael had the idea that investors in Eircom should be compensated At the time Labour’s Ruari Quinn said. 
 
The Labour Party leader said on an interview on RTÉ Radio that the proposal had “introduced a form of auction politics that would do great damage to the body politic”.
Mr Quinn said that the [...]

Labour on food

From Labour 
Labour’s Food Spokesperson, Sean Sherlock TD, has stated that the proliferation of fast food outlets in these recessionary times will have a negative impact on the health of Irish citizens.
So their solution?

Donate to Local Election Candidates by PayPal (?)

Interesting aside at the web briefing from micandidate.eu tonight (more of which when my brain has digested it, thanks to Alexia for Qikking it though, many more insights on twitter). They plan to allow candidates to solicit donations via their website, which I think has issues with regard to Standards in Public Office over and [...]

Labour – A Party Moving Toward Power?

Three very interesting articles in the wake of the Labour Party conference from Saturday (as well as the liveblog of the day). None of them are the pre-written tripe based on a script and some well chosen comments (e.g. “it was a well receieved speech”), Simon McGarr was down there and his takes makes for [...]

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