If you are thinking of donating to a charity this year you might consider the Kerry Rape Crisis Centre for their support of a victim of sexual assault subject to horrific community bullying in Listowel.
A day after George Lee’s departure, we can see a situation that would have warranted another George politician to say “Heckuva job”. Lee’s departure obscured the implosion of the year-long government talking point that NAMA would increase bank lending: the IMF had told them, quite sensibly, that it wouldn’t. According to Enda’s statement yesterday, Lee [...]
Gordon Brown statement to House of Commons on Hillsborough Agreement –
None of this could have been achieved without working closely with the Irish government – and I pay tribute to Brian Cowen, the Irish Foreign Minister, Micheal Martin and to the Taoiseach’s predecessors Bertie Ahern and Albert Reynolds.
Who’s missing from that list of predecessor Taoisigh?
So Boy George has bit the bullet. Fallen on his own sword, hoist by his own petard, crashed and burned, came a cropper.
At 1pm today former RTE economist and more recently celebrity by-election candidate, George Lee, announced he is resiging his Dáil seat and his membership of the Fine Gael party.
It wasn’t happening fast enough [...]
Red C poll capturing post-budget reaction for Sunday Business Post with previous poll (22nd Nov) in parentheses: FF 27% (23%), FG 34%(36%), Lab 17%(17%), SF 8%(10%), Green 5% (5%), Ind. 9% (9%).
These results are not easy to interpret.
Before we allow too much distance behind us, I wanted to pen a few thoughts on the year gone by, and the political highs and lows, as seen from my (quite openly subjective) perspective. As a practising Fianna Fáiler my comments will reflect mainly on government / party fortunes during the year but I will try [...]
Paul Gogarty is not the most famous Irish TD. Certainly not the most famous in the Green Party. Of their 6 TD’s he probably is the 7th more famous (Senator Dan Boyle) . But now he will be at least 6th most famous. The advent of the internet means that what might of been a 1 [...]
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 [...]
Dan Boyle sheds the green jersey. His Sunday Tribune comments (which only got a weblink late in the day) are noted by Reuters.
Ivor the Driver — full Seanad report. It was nice of Bertie to send Ivor’s letter of appointment to his Cork address.
How ossified is Irish politics? In the blink of an eye, Australia — which had no recession — replaces its Prime Minister.
I’m a victim of unique Irish blame culture, says Harney
Things Ministers don't do part 2: Harney is not really responsible for these clinial fuck-ups. Sure kick her over policy but not failure. Typical Irish begrudgerry.
