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

In the past ten years the construction of houses and other dwellings has far outstripped demand, yet prices have grown at unprecedented rates.
From 1996 to 2006 the number of occupied households in Ireland (dwellings with one or more residents), increased by 346,300 units. At the same time, 611,961 new dwellings were constructed. This leaves a [...]

(just a quick observation on the emerging result which can probably be filed under the “state the obvious” category)
This election’s campaign was laden with criticism from many who felt that there was no choice for voters. On issues like income tax, stamp duty, hospital beds and Gardaí numbers this was largely true but it is [...]

Rumble in Ranelagh

One of the worst acts that this government has done is said that it will cover much of the catholic’s church’s cost in clerical sex abuse compensation deals with the liability of the catholic church being capped at 128 million euros. While we the people who did little wrong will possibly be forced to [...]

Also known as Saturday’s Irish Times. The story most politicians and backroomers will chew over this morning is the dramatic figures which suggest nearly 3/4 of the electorate will not pay more tax in order to fund services. The data prior to this from Red C polls in the Business Post had the figure at [...]

Today is Tax Freedom day. That means that all the working you have done so far in the year has paid all your taxes. This means that finally you are earning for yourself. Well done you.

Having spent so long giving out and setting himself against the Sunday Independent, Fine Gael, Labour and the PDs on this, it seems unlikely this was always in the plan for the manifesto. Some of the questions buzzing around my head on this this morning;

Harry McGee in the Irish Examiner highlights the main plank of today’s Fianna Fail manifesto launch. Who thought stamp duty in all it’s forms would be so popular this campaign? More on Irishelection.com later no doubt including coverage of the Labour manifesto launch which also takes place today.

This morning we got two further announcments from the two major parties and Sinn Fein launched their transport policy;

With all the talk of Stamp duty I amazed with how little coverage the issue of Value Added Tax gets. The only person I heard go on about it is Vincent Browne. None of the parties are going on about even though VAT is more regressive and hits people harder then stamp duty (21% of [...]

It’s not easy to think of a precedent for the PD’s promise today to have their stamp duty proposals at the top of the order of business of a next government of which they would be a part — a proposal with budgetary implications and yet having been not included in the recent budget to which [...]

They are getting it from both sides today. Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou McDonald reckons that Fianna Fail and the alternative government were engaging in a little bit of auction politics today. She took the opportunity to state the party’s position on stamp duty and broader tax policy (including a minimum wage of E9.90. She stated [...]

Good news, the election kicks up a gear with the Government launching a document on Economic Policy.
Second bit of good news ; “Today’s document will also contain a commitment to review the regulation of the energy and the telecoms sectors to deal with concerns over rising energy costs.” An implicit admission that rises in [...]

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 [...]

While the proposal itself is no doubt well known at this stage*, there is a throw away line by Mark Hennessy in today’s Irish Times that should probably concern voters slightly.
“In addition, the profile it hopes to gain will rebalance the relationship between Fine Gael and Labour, who scored significantly when Labour Party leader Pat [...]

After meeting with staff this morning, it was announced by Procter and Gamble that 280 jobs are to go in a cost cutting exercise. The jobs are to be cut from skincare to a plant in Poland.