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

A curious thing of late is the use of English references to degrade an opponents. Previously it was Alan Kelly MEP with his references to 700 years, Kilmainham Gaol and the Union Jack a press release that even now looking back on is shocking. But that has not been the last of it. In two recent releases [...]

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 we’ve [...]

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 current [...]

Today’s Wicklow Times is reporting that Senator Deirdre de Burca is packing her bags and heading for Brussels to work in the cabinet of Ireland’s new European Commissioner Maire Geoghegan-Quinn . Now you may remember the last time Senator de Burca hitched the parachute to her back and flew. This time she is [...]

Friend of the Blog Joanna Tuffy has a press release today.

The government decision to collapse the talks about public service reform and reject union proposals for unpaid leave, is all the more inexplicable given that the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, wrote to all local authorities in June of this year authorising [...]

Green Party National Executive Committee member Andrew Murphy, not content with calling emigrants quitters, now calls journalists lazy.
@greenparty_ie I love how you bolded the key points so journos have to do the very least amount of work possible.I’m sure they’re v grateful
And I’m sure they’re very grateful to you too, Andrew.

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 seen throughout the [...]

The role of a Trade Union is to look after its workers interests to make their lives better. One of the biggest worries for alot of people (public sector workers anyway who don’t have to worry about if next months pay cheque is coming) this time of year is when to get the christmas shopping [...]

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 [...]

Photo owned by norwichnuts (cc)
Email doing the rounds today:
Greetings.

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 [...]

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 [...]