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

In the grand scheme of reminding the electorate of your greatness, Bertie Ahern’s brainwave for a referendum on children’s rights is even more inspired than his attempts to have a similar vote on the North. In both cases it’s questionable that change is needed as there is no obvious fault in the text as it [...]

Simon was right: Bertie wants a children’s rights referendum in the spring, which therefore might join a potential St. Andrews ratification on the ballot, although the latter process looks stalled at the first hurdle right now.

It is incomprehensible that when Gardai are cracking down on drug barons, pills five times stronger than ecstasy can be bought over the counter in Ireland by anyone over the age of 18
So begins the Irish Examiner editorial on the legal availability of “mind altering drugs” in Ireland. It is, of course, old news. The [...]

I just thought I’d reference my article from today’s SBP over here and see what people thoughts are on the issue:
Eighteen-year-olds would be free to run for seats in the Dail should a policy adopted by Fine Gael this week lead to constitutional change.
Article 16.1.1 of the Constitution (PDF file) states that only citizens over [...]

Reading this weekend’s Sunday Business Post, there was one article which focused on a major problem for political parties in Ireland - the lack of new members.

As we prepare for the next general election it’s time to put alcohol advertisement and sponsorship back on the agenda. It seems clear that there is no deeply-rooted societal reason for deciding not to ban alcohol advertising: if it could be done so successfully with tobacco companies then why not also with alcohol? The answer is clear: vintners. Smoking is an infinitely easier societal evil to target through regulation because less people smoke than drink and most people realise that smoking has a detrimental effect on individual health, the health of those around them and the health service itself; but we’re all a bit more blasé when it comes to alcohol.

Politics in this country is at most times selfish. We are increasingly driven by greed and that is not necessarily a good thing. Now I know many of ye are going finally after all this time Simon has renounced his evil low tax ways and joined the shiny happy world of Socialism That I am [...]

The Labour party has picked an interesting time to put forward its plans for Irish sport but like most things in the world politics it is by no means a coincidence.
Yesterday was a day for sporting finale’s; the Wimbledon tournament came to an end with the mens final, the world-class arena of Croke Park played [...]

Alcohol consumption in this country is of major concern. Yet when the accompanying picture was taken were people up in arms at one of our politicians engaging in the very activity that is the surge of young people in this country. We expect young people to curtail their activities and we then show politicians drinking [...]

Regarding the latest hiccup in Irish jurisprudence, I’m with Simon: the political consequences for election are hard to discern. If the coalition continues to take a battering on other things, this episode may weigh heavily on them. . But, as Fionna has argued, the issue should not go away. The law as it stands is a mess (if not an ass). This crisis, more than than anything else, reflects a general unwillingness to meet difficult policy issues head-on.

On the scale of anger in this country about anything the present government has done this issue has been by far the biggest issue. Decentralisation, E-Voting PPARS has never lead to the same amount of anger among the electorate. No issue has been commented on by as many people on this website. So the question [...]

The Bill is online here.
You can watch the debate here
The important bit
It shall be a defence to proceedings for an offence under this section for the defendant to prove that he or she honestly believed that, at the time of the alleged commission of the offence, the child against whom the offence is alleged to [...]

Much has been said about the recent supreme court decision here and I wouldn’t go back over it as others on this site have made excellent posts on the subject. Much of it has highlighted Michael McDowell’s management of the affair and indeed he does have a major question to answer. Like why there was [...]

Below the fold we will place the complete text of the Irish Times article from 13 July last year that should have signalled to the powers-that-be that the statutory rape crisis was looming.  Of course this was not the first warning of a problem, as recent Irish Election posts indicate.

The case which has lead to the voiding of a section of law intended to protect children from sexual predators is another example of a failure to plan or anticipate outcomes. Surely, the judicial system including the AG’s office and the dept of justice was aware that this case was coming before the Supreme Court. [...]

Last week the Supreme Court held that the current crime of unlawful carnal knowledge (also known as statutory rape) was unconstitutional leading to a tidal wave of recriminations, worries and hyperbole (judgment). Doubts had been expressed about the constitutionality of this law for some time, and this decision shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone in government. As a result it is true that, as Joan Burton argued on Monday’s Q&A, the law should either have been amended at some stage between the 1990 report of the Law Reform Commission identifying this difficulty and the present, or there should have been draft legislation on hand to be introduced immediately should the court reach this (almost inevitable) decision. That emergency legislation would have allowed protection to be introduced for young people as quickly as possible while also creating an enabling environment for debate around the deep moral and social issues this Supreme Court judgment has forced us to consider. As it stands, the lack of any such emergency legislation means that we will now have a Bill before the Dail in two weeks time that will equalise the age of consent at 16 years (RTE News) and allow Ireland to continue to play the ostrich in relation to the sexualisation of young people. Some people never learn…