How remarkably convenient that the Fianna Fáil election post-mortem – 18 months late – should conclude that the party’s miserable performance at the polls at the last election was really the fault of pro-life TDs, and not at all the fault of Micheál Martin and his leadership. One might almost get the impression that a […]
Nobody told Micheál Martin that Katherine Zappone was to get the big job in New York until it arrived at Cabinet, in the form of a behind the scenes agreement amongst Fine Gael Ministers, and the hapless Taoiseach was bounced into going along with it. In the immediate aftermath, he had the look of a […]
We are now a week into sustained media coverage of the fake polling practices conducted by all of the major political parties in the State. Some, like my colleague John McGuirk, have argued that the story is being blown out of all proportion, that it is otherwise inconsequential and is only continuing because of a […]
The great paradox of modern Ireland is that the more power Irish liberals acquire, the more illiberal they become. We had, yesterday, a collection of taxpayer funded NGO’s in to visit the Oireachtas committee on Housing and Local Government, which is responsible for how Ireland runs its elections, amongst other things. Kitty Holland picks up […]
Credit where it is due: this is an interesting, and what Sir Humphrey Appleby of Yes Minister fame would have called “courageous” proposal, first reported by Hugh O’Connell of the Independent: “speaking at Government Buildings on Tuesday, Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys said she had asked her officials to examine “pay-related benefit” where a person’s […]
No, seriously now, what were they thinking? The Bourne Election has just been released @DeirdreConroyIE @JohnLahart @lichamber @NiallCollinsTD @NiamhSmythTD @Fiona_Kildare @MarcMacsharryTD @PaulMcauliffe @cardagh @fiannafailparty #TeamDeirdre #ByElection2021 pic.twitter.com/LetEurASXz — Jim O'Callaghan TD (@OCallaghanJim) May 23, 2021 As a piece of political communication, the only redeeming feature of this video is that it is so bad that […]
Every time we report one of these polls, the comments on Facebook and Twitter and other social media platforms are the same: “fake poll”, or “they didn’t poll me”, or words to that effect. And that is understandable, nobody likes to be in the minority, or feel the country is against them. Least of all, […]
Photo credit: Houses of the Oireachtas There are, perhaps, few better jobs in Ireland than being a member of Seanad Eireann. It’s true, of course, that the salary (basic pay of €69,474) is not quite at the level of a TD (basic pay of €98,113), but that ignores quite a few other advantages. For example, […]
An interesting move, on a number of levels: We are delighted to announce that @colettebrowne will be joining the #SocDems as our Communications Director pic.twitter.com/1fZpWA4cOE — Social Democrats (@SocDems) April 2, 2021 On one level, it’s a really excellent career move by Browne. The Soc Dems are, for better or ill (let’s face it: ill) a party on the […]
On the one hand, everybody’s talking about Stephen Kenny’s job performance after a 1-0 defeat at home to Luxembourg. The team seemed lacklustre, toothless, and lacking in any kind of identity. The best thing you could say about the Irish performance on Saturday night is that all eleven players were definitely there, on the pitch, […]
With additional reporting from Gary Kavanagh. Photo: The four final draft logos for the Green Left. An array of dissident Green activists have been working for six months to launch a new political party, with the aim of undermining the Greens, according to documents leaked to Gript. Putative members of the new Group include ex-Green […]
Somebody said to me yesterday that living in Ireland at the moment had pushed them to the point where they were wondering if they were the ones who had gone mad, and everybody else was still perfectly sane. “You start to ask yourself that”, this person said, “when nothing makes sense any more”. They were […]