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

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 [...]

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?

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 [...]

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 [...]

WE saw last night the very interesting announcement of Susan O’Keeffe for Labour’s euro candidate in North-West as Labour kicked off its conference. The whole thing has a really nice sub-site on Labour.ie and as you would expect from them full streaming on ustream, lots of pics and blog posts as well as a substantial [...]

The Labour Party start their conference weekend off with the announcement that they will be running a candidate in the North-West constituency for the forthcoming European Parliament Elections. Susan O’Keefe is a journalist who broke the story on a World in Action programme on the Irish Beef Industry which led to the formation of a [...]

Celebrity economists George Lee and Jim Power are both linked to running for Fine Gael in the Dublin South by-election to fill the seat vacated by the late Seamus Brennan. Jim Power instantly dismissed it, while George Lee isn’t even commenting. RTE dismissed it out of hand for him. Other notables that are mentioned in [...]

I am posting below the fold the unedited attachment to a Labour press releases questioning Brian Cowen‘s originality when it comes to parts of his speech. The accusation of cogging is no small matter, considering it was his fourth state of the nation speech. The one might not really want to be associated with the [...]

Henry McDonald at the Guardian covers Eoghan Harris’ idea that the economic crisis is such as to demand the formation of a national unity government. Haven’t seen it anywhere in the papers this morning but Cynics, and in Dublin’s media class they are legion, will scoff at the notion of national government. But as Harris [...]

Miriam Lord is having the best economic crisis of all – the amount of fodder makes her column a must read every day. Today’s is exceptionally good. Fair play to Joan Burton – Coughlan has been an unmitigated disaster as Tanaiste and it is to everyone’s disadvantage – not just Cowen/FF. Clipped bits below but [...]

I am sorry to say it, but as far as I can see, Ireland is no longer a true Republic because the present Government, and its two immediate predecessors have killed it, culminating with their wreckless nationalisation of a bank propped up by their friends. As far as I can see, this means that if [...]

The Government has refused a pensioner a fuel allowance because he’s 4c over the limit.  Does everything they touch right now turn to a PR disaster? Joe Costello: The Minister for Social and Family Affairs has taken over the role of Scrooge this Christmas. Henry Porter, a resident in the North Inner City and ninety [...]

Were things good, Joan Burton would be roundly accused of talking down the economy. However, things aren’t good and so the answer to her Parliamentary Question on tax reliefs for construction holds some pretty grim reading. In the financial year 2006, the government waved of €464.4m in 19 property based tax exemption schemes. This included [...]

So poll numbers are down. Fianna Fail at 25% in the Irish Times poll. I am sure there is plenty of commentary about all this already among people. There is a generally held belief that the young are the most likely to be left wing in a society and most likely to be on the [...]

Finally, a slim ray of light. ‘The problem we have in the public finances is as a result of the fact that the economy is in a recession . . . we have a problem in the economy which has created difficulties in the public finances. It’s not the other way around.’ So said Eamon [...]

Where is the radical reform in the civil service ? Sunday Times figures show that almost every civil servant in the country has received a pay increase. The Government seemed happy to let the civil servants write the budget and now we find that the oversight process for employees in the civil service, the Performance [...]