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

Although we’re still in the phoney war stage of the election campaign, it seems that the basic FF strategy is to throw a bunch of, er, stuff, at the wall and see what sticks.  In that regard, we got today in the Senate an interesting and tendentious exchange between Sen. Alex White (Lab.) and Minister [...]

There is understandable amusement at the constitutional contortions involved in Gerry Adams resignation from the UK House of Commons so that he can concentrate on his candidacy for Louth in the 2011 general election.  But before presuming that there is something uniquely republican about the problems created by the resignation procedure, consider the list of [...]

Capping the worst 5 days work from a Taoiseach in Irish history, Brian Cowen has gone from being a reaffirmed leader of FF and sitting on his preference for an extended election campaign to losing 7 ministers (8 if you count the non-replacement of Micheal Martin) and the leadership of Fianna Fail, along with the [...]

Brian Cowen last discussed the government side-deals with the 2 independents on 10 November.  We’ve got the whole exchange below the fold, but the key point is that the Michael Lowry and Jackie Healy-Rae agreements are with the leader of Fianna Fail, not an Taoiseach.  Brian Cowen inherited them from Bertie Ahern but they are [...]

It’s going to be a long week. Presumably we all know by now that Brian Cowen has reversed his position of one week ago that the positions of Taoiseach and party leader should not be separated and has resigned as leader of Fianna Fail.

One of the over looked aspects of the last week was the calling of the election for the 11th of March. The significance of that date is that it is a Friday. Now traditionally Irish general elections are on a Thursday. Back around the time of the last general election we started a campaign called [...]

  “They’ve changed the arrangements that apply to coalition governments” … Brian Cowen on the Greens just now on Six One.  Apparently there’s an unwritten constitution for such governments.  His tone of lecturing the Greens on how government works is not going to go down well.   He is also mingling his roles of Taoiseach and [...]

From the start, there have been questions about the government’s number10.gov.uk style website,  merrionstreet.ie.   Despite the presence of special advisers, media affairs units, and handlers in government offices, there’s supposed to be a clear line between political boosterism and the provision of taxpayer-financed official information.  Yet within an hour of the Taoiseach’s unscheduled Thursday statement [...]

Resignations from Mary Harney, followed by Noel Dempsey, Dermot Ahern, and Tony Killeen.  As Brian Cowen appears to have been sitting on at least one of these letters for over a week, we don’t know the timing.  But Mary Harney correctly pointed to the problem with TDs intending to retire from politics — and thus [...]

Sez DDP. The vote count — as far as gossip can determine – will be important in determining the fallout, but so will the respective reputations of Micheal Martin and Brian Lenihan within the party after today’s events.  Cowen now says (to RTE News) he has accepted Martin’s resignation.  Any chance that Cowen takes the foreign affairs portfolio [...]

And then backing away. A great sequence on RTE Radio 1 News at One just now. Brian Lenihan said his position has always been that there is no vacancy for leadership so the question of his interest in it did not arise. Right afterwards, John McGuinness said that Lenihan had encouraged him and other backbenchers [...]

As Brian Cowen announced earlier today that he would himself table a motion of confidence in his leadership at the PP meeting on Tuesday (statement here), this evening Michael Martin held a presser announcing his own decision to vote against the motion and that he has put forward his resignation to the Taoiseach. Cowen will [...]

Quote from Brian Cowen — “In normal times you don’t see a diversion (sic) of interest between national interests or national advance if you like and political advance. So we live in very transformative times”. (11 minutes in) So during 1997-2007, there was no difference between the national interest and that of Fianna Fail.  Remarkable.

If you’re old enough, or if you like those old detective shows, you’ll remember the time in every episode when Detective Columbo would have reassured his prime suspect that he was not the prime suspect, step out the door, and then pop back in with a jarring “just one more thing”.   Yesterday in the Dail, [...]

Bertie Ahern used a bit of Yeats (the municipal gallery poem) in his retirement speech to the O’Donovan Rossa cumann this evening.  The latter-years Yeats liked to tour through the memories and link them and and so it’s not surprising that there were echoes of Bertie’s more difficult moments even in the sanctuary of the [...]

The latest Red C poll illustrates a dynamic that could prompt some Machiavellian thoughts in Fine Gael, if they are not there already.  Specifically, from a FG perspective, what other party should you have tacit cooperation with, not so much in terms of a future partner, but one whose expression of positions you could facilitate? [...]