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

So Enda Kenny wants and election.
He said whoever the new leader of Fianna Fáil is, he or she should seek a mandate from the people and let them decide what kind of government they want to lead them.
Thing is you have to be careful what you wish for. With the country in the state it is you [...]

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Listening to Willie O’Dea on RTE seems that they are blaming the resignation on the fact that the Mahon Tribunal is distracting the government from operating successfully and thus for the benefit of the country he resigned. Interesting way of putting it playing the Martyr card.
Certainly seems that this might not be over and that [...]

The main points from Bertie Aherns speech delivered seconds ago outside government buildings. He will be stepping down on May 6th. (Forgive the jump from 1st to 3rd person and back, it was typed on the go).

So he was for turning after all. I didn’t take long for Ahern to turn ‘I will not be making a statement’ into ‘I will in fact, ah, be making a statement’. The Indo reports this morning that he will make use of Dail time on Wednesday to make a speech which will attempt to [...]

Noel Ahern doesn’t give much weight to John Gormley’s worries aired yesterday and captured here by Green Ink. He reckons that Gormley was only following Harney and anyway he is Minister with responsibility for tribunals so should be keeping counsel. Well it is only “small money” we are talking about here so perhaps the partners [...]

Irish Election: The dog barks?
Greens join calls for Ahern statement

Bertie Ahern’s brother Noel Ahern –
Fifteen thousand is no big deal. There might be a very simple explanation. I understand he may have given the wrong details for a wrong lodgement … There’s nothing special about the amount…
He’s referring to the £15,500 Sterling.   In early 1994, a punt bought about 96p Sterling so that’s [...]

The Irish Independent revealed today that the Taoiseach will tell the Mahon tribunal that he converted his salary cheques into sterling, and then back into punts, before lodging them into the three accounts he kept at the Permanent TSB branch in Drumcondra. This is in response to Grainne Carruth’s devastating evidence to the Mahon [...]

Junior Minister John McGuinness gave an interview on Newstalk’s Lunchtime Show regarding this week’s proceedings at the Mahon Tribunal this afternoon - Newstalk have press released the interview with quotes after the jump. The overall tone of the interview was less than convincing in it’s endorsement of the Taoiseach.

As Bertie works his way back Washington, yet another interesting development at Mahon.   It seems that the relevant manager of Bertie’s accounts at the Irish Permanent is a bit less reticent than his counterparts at the AIB, who were nearly as effective at the strategic memory loss as Bertie himself.   The man from the Irish [...]

At the Saint Patrick’s Day reception –
President, as we say good-bye on this occasion, but hopefully we’ll keep in touch over the years, I will remember — and I hope that everyone in Ireland will — how kind, how favorable you’ve been, how really open you’ve been to helping us, and the amount of time [...]

During a discussion back in 2002, John Gormley certainly didn’t hold any punches when it came to a sum of £30k and a Taoiseach who misled the Dail. Ah, how times change. I guess Gormley would now say “That was then and this is now.”

Tánaiste accuses FG of witch-hunt

Am I right in thinking that there are two distinct ‘party lines’ emerging as Ahern continues to get hauled through the Mahon Tribunal?
The first is the all-out defence of Martin Mansergh et. al. refusing to even countenance any possible wrongdoing by Ahern and willing to defend to the hilt Ahern no matter what evidence emerges [...]

Says Cllr Maurice Ahern - brother of Bertie - of the Sunday Tribune front page story which suggests he has been critical of Dublin Central Fianna Fail’s accounting practices in the past, adding weight to concerns raised on Friday;
“The story states that I was critical of financial accountability in Dublin Central Fianna Fail.
This is [...]