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

Brian Cowen is talking to the EU Legal Service about drafting opt-outs and protocols to make the Lisbon Treaty “palatable to the Irish public” according to Jamie Smyth and others this morning.
Cowen, who said the France, which is the current president of the EU, had also asked the Council of Ministers’ legal services “to see [...]

Detail is a little light at the moment, bankers pay and bonuses look like being tied to good behaviour though. Will we see departures like those in the UK?

Over at the Property Pin they have been digging away at the proposals in yesterday’s budget for affordable housing provision. The website set up (homechoiceloan.ie) appears to suggest the government is steppign into subprime mortgages for those refused by banks and building societies as well as stipulating the houses purchased come from the 35,000-50,000 new, [...]

On the back of the solidarity being shown by Ministers in taking a 10% pay cut for next year, a source got me wondering whether those Ministers with additional income streams - like teachers’ pensions - might not be convinced to forgo these also. What with them spending enough time in the Dail to qualify [...]

Suzy brings up an interesting point on the White Paper/Estimates and the budget cut for government agencies. Mergers and abolitions are taking place in 41 agencies and budget cuts/logistic sharing is the order of the day as well.
However some have fared better than others.
The Equality Authority’s budget has been cut by 43% and the Irish [...]

AT this rate it is the last dose of humour we will see today. Keep an eye out here for details of liveblogging around the ’sphere.
Update: Live blogging of the budget will be taking place over at Suzy’s scribblelive plot.

Enda Kenny wanted to show leadership today, so at his party’s pre-budget announcement he let it be known he has asked the Dail to cut his pay by 5% for next year. Bold. Decisive. Leading.
Only that on Wednesday he was speaking on that very topic on Today FM’s The Last Word. Paul Gogarty suggested that [...]

From RTE News.
Environment Minister John Gormley has confirmed that he made a mistake in appointing a Fianna Fáil councillor from Donegal and a Green party councillor from Monaghan to the board of the Private Residential Tenancies Board earlier this year.
Is this the first time ever an Irish Politician said they were wrong before they were [...]

PD local councillor Cait Keane has joined Fine Gael in Dublin South. There is by-election coming up and with Tom Kitt steppign down in 2012 Fine Gael might lick their chops at a potentail third seat.

Anyone know why the ESRI shifted their embargo on the Quarterly Summary to 09.30 tomorrow? Conspiracy theorists would have a field day with the possibilities but it seems odd to deny the Irish Times their splash headline tomorrow.
News is bad by the way, contraction wll break 1% of GNP this year.

Via redmum

In a statment released this morning, the Government signalled that it will “safeguard the Irish Banking system”. The world fell apart yesterday and surely some of our most famous banks are hanging on by a thread. Their stock pummelled and - in private at least - their reputation is now in tatters, they need security [...]

Back in March of 2007 I queried the professional backgrounds of the then FF/PD cabinet with respect to their experience of the realities of making things and what could be termed the productive sector of the economy. Batt O’Keeffe appears to have revived interest in the topic in recent days by suggesting that we need [...]

ITs a good week for Red C to take the latest tracking poll for the Sunday Business Post. Markets are falling like stones (Friday has the potential to be another massive dead cat bounce) and the government don’t look to have stamped authority on many aspects of policy.

Good riddance. Or as WorldbyStorm writes over at Cedar Lounge Revolution, ‘The PDs get a a four week reprieve. Then they die.’ Can’t come soon enough. The only downside is that we’ll have to endure a plethora of obituaries telling us how the PDs made a difference, how they shaped whole [...]