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

BBC Radio 4 with another scoop that should probably have been dug up by an Irish media outlet first.  The Manx2 crash at Cork Airport with the plane coming from Belfast.  The “airline’s” response to all queries — nothing to do us, sorry, we only sold the tickets.  A question for regulators both sides of the [...]

Today in Commercial Court – Mr Justice Peter Kelly was told today that the [M1] tolling company is claiming it had a legitimate expectation, including a promise from the Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey, that tolls would go only up. The court heard that the Minister told the Dáil in June last year that the by-laws [...]

Resignations from Mary Harney, followed by Noel Dempsey, Dermot Ahern, and Tony Killeen.  As Brian Cowen appears to have been sitting on at least one of these letters for over a week, we don’t know the timing.  But Mary Harney correctly pointed to the problem with TDs intending to retire from politics — and thus [...]

Minister engages in excessive expenditure for private jet citing pressures of schedule and lack of commercial options to attend an event.  Resulting public outcry causes minister to resign before he is sacked. It’s France, last month, when the aid minister Alain Joyandet chartered a jet to go a donors conference for Haiti — conveniently located [...]

Previously balls, Slang: Vulgar. a. boldness; courage; brashness. b. nonsense (often used as an interjection). A new definition to add. IBEC group Retail Ireland has issued an assessment of the environmental impact of cross-border shopping claiming trips north are releasing ‘tonnes’ of carbon into the atmosphere. Retail Ireland Director Torlach Denihan said: “On the first [...]

This might appear to be a little behind the curve, thanks to my first effort getting lost on the WP app. Anyway….. The response of Ceann Comhairle John O Donoghue to the reports of his extremely large expenses bills from his time in Arts, Sport and Tourism unveil a couple of things our erstwhile snippers [...]

A report in the motoring supplement of the Irish Times on Wednesday told of how The Dublin Port Tunnel will not be taking part in a major European tunnel safety assessment scheme because there was a “missing email between the National Roads Authority” and the group carrying out the report. It was headlined “No Record [...]

Here we go again.  Aer Lingus is withdrawing more services from Shannon.  But this row is going to play out very differently than the end of Shannon-Heathrow.   The latter row caught the government on the hop but also featured an Aer Lingus in a very different mood, confident that it could launch a sub-hub in [...]

Ryanair are ratcheting up the pressure on Ministers to sell Aer Lingus to them. They issued an ISE announcement earlier today outlining the details of their meeting with Noel Dempsey today. It includes a commitment to recognise unions at the airline and give the government control of the slots at Heathrow. I have the full [...]

Ryanair launch a second bid for Aer Lingus, government have been seeking to sell for months now. It is very uncomfortable for the whole company. Shareholders are getting a premium, government end with egg on faces and unions go apoplectic. Not alone that but Ireland’s free-marketeer nabs himself a decent monopoly on air travel out [...]

Yesterday, in the aftermath of the climbdown regarding the Medical Cards fiasco, I read a post on the weblog of Green Party Justice Spokesperson Ciarán Cuffe, which dealt with the Medical Cards issue. After reading the post, I gave him my view of the Fianna Fáíl / Green coalition, and put some questions to him [...]

Today’s Financial Times carries a bleak interview with Aer Lingus CEO Dermot Mannion, which of course is part of a pattern of bleak economic news these days.  One part of it brings us back to the uproar that surrounded the departure of Aer Lingus from Shannon for the El Dorado of Belfast –

The above is a picture of a toll plaza on the Dulles Toll Road in the US state of Virginia. Note the structure: barrier free lanes on the left with an overhead gantry for transponder (EZ Pass) users with separated toll lanes on the right giving a choice of exact change payment or full service. [...]

Not that it’s any use in solving the problem, but has anyone done a cost comparison on the storage costs for the e-voting machines versus the cost of having a backup radar system for Dublin Airport?  In a cinematic note, the existence of a backup radar system was of course a key plot twist in [...]

The RPA released a consulation document today on the feasibility of a new Luas line ‘E’ from Dundrum to Christchurch, covering Terenure and Harold’s Cross. The proposal for line E was not included in Transport 21 but the RPA are hoping that the study will be included in a later revision of the project. It [...]

It would be foolish to completely rubbish the newly-announced plans to introduce road safety classes to Transition Year students as any move in that direction is a positive one; but the whole thing does leave you asking ‘is this it?’