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

The Indo sounds the first real note of realism so far this election by asking the very pertinent question “what if there is a down turn?”. We noted earlier that the Green Party went with a 4% average estimate for growth in the coming years while FF are also below 5% on [...]

I happened to be walking by Bertie’s constituency office in Drumcondra this morning, when I came across a protest by the parents and teachers of Gaelscoil Cholmcille. I asked them what it was about, and this is what they told me - below the fold.

Will look something like this it seems, Pat today announced a 100 day in office plan (modelled on this?). Below are the ten priorities (from labour.ie):

We have it, two weeks late and with rebuttal already out there. Protecting the Prosperity is the most important document to date in the Fine Gael-Labour pact (pdf). Interestingly the document signals a commitment to equality and social solidarity and rejects them as the price of prosperity. I knew there was a social-democratic wing of [...]

Suzy mentions that some of the Irish NGOs are preparing some online election-blogs. Of note is the National Womens Council of Ireland who are keeping an election blog and have launched their election manifesto for 2007 (you are all invited to the launch by the way-lovely part of the world it is in too). Theirs [...]

In the last few days there has been much talk about TD still being paid for being teachers even though some of them have not taught in decades. Indeed some of them like Finian McGrath use the money they get as a political donation. Why should he simply due to his previous job get extra [...]

To me education is the most important thing that a state does. More important then Health even. Maybe it is the right winger in me. But for instance I have no problem with for profit health care as the left tend to term it. If a guy/girl set up a hospital hire staff etc etc [...]

All politicians love jumping on an old band wagon. The latest being the kids in New Zealand he showed that Ribena did not have as much Vitamin C as they said. So now Mary Upton has come out and said. Our schools must be equipped to test for Vitamin C
“We’ve just seen the case in [...]

This is just a quick note to follow on from this post.
The video of the press conference which took place yesterday is available here.

Green Party Education Spokesman Paul Gogerty TD with Limerick East candidate Patricia Forde Brennan at at the launch of the Green party’s policy on physical education, which was held at the Pery hotel in Limerick this morning. Picture: limerickblogger.org

Well auction politics or poker politics, it is all academic. He saw the opposition, by equalling commitments on the standard rate (down to 18% - originally Labour), the pension (€300 over the five years of government - originally PDs), lower the higher rate of tax (down to 40% - not as much as the PDs).
And [...]

Mary Hanafin the person who single-handily has made me not care to vote Fianna Fail. Is again continuing her dislike of anything to do with children with disabilities. Firstly the department attitude to dyslexic students and the stigmatising of them. Where they mark a persons leaving cert if they got a special dispensation for being [...]

While our Limerick East Fianna Faillers spent last week calling each other names through the local media, one Limerick West Fianna Fail election candidate thought he was do a little childish behaviour of his own, by teasing some young children.
Niall Collins was probably hoping people would remember his name come election time when he sent [...]

That was the part of the dual themed speech he gave to conference on Saturday night. While we were at the blog awards, Gerry was explaining to the country how far Sinn Fein has come on both sides of the border. I personally found the following section of the speech interesting. If only in light [...]

In his speech at the National conferance . Colm O’Gorman said.
We must ensure that real choice exists in primary education, that all families have an opportunity to send their children to the kind of school they wish to attend. In an increasingly multi-cultural Ireland, choice must stop being considered as a middle class luxury. [...]

OK – time to nail my colours to the mast. There are many politicians I dislike, but there are few for whom I hold little or no respect. Of those few, bottom of the pile has to be Micheál “The Chicken” Martin.
For me, he epitomises all that is wrong with Irish politics, particularly the stereotypical [...]