Former Labour Party chair applies to defect to Fianna Fail…

Interesting developments in the south. East Galway TD Colm Keaveney, the former chair of the Labour Party, has applied to join Fianna Fail (whose parliamentary are currently invovled in rapidly prepared meeting to discuss his application). Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn has expressed disappointment at news. Mr Quinn said the move was a personal decision for the Galway East TD, but he said he was sad that Mr Keaveney had left the Labour Party, and sad that he had now …

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#Seanref and Northern nationalism’s missed opportunity.

Today voters in the Irish Republic will head to the polls to decide whether to abolish their second chamber, the Seanad. This issue has dominated political debate in Dublin. The Fine Gael/Labour coalition, in alliance with Sinn Fein, has come out for abolishing Ireland’s second chamber. While the main opposition party, Fianna Fáil have come out against abolition. However, as this debate has been going on south of the border, people in Northern Ireland, particularly nationalists seem to have a …

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Wither the SDLP-Have they a future?

Conall McDevitt’s resignation from the assembly this week has provoked some debate about the future direction of the SDLP. With this in mind, I thought I would take this issue head on and ask the crucial question do the SDLP even have a future? When you take a look at the figures of every assembly election since 1998, you can sum up the SDLP’s fortunes in one word; decline. In 1998, the party took more first preference votes than any …

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“…ridiculous for Sinn Fein to tell people they have a strategy but it’s, y’know, nod, nod, wink, wink?”

Brian Feeney is on form today in the Irish News (£). He’s taken the time to read Micheal Martin’s long (and policy detailed) speech at the Merriman School. His conclusions are less than complimentary… At various times Sinn Fein ministers have been in a position to present an agenda for all Ireland development and they haven’t even tried. They claim they have plans but what are they. It’s like the strategy they claim to have for achieving a united Ireland. …

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Alex Kane on how Unionism can learn from Sinn Féin

Are we seeing more signposts to the future of unionism today? The Newsletter’s Alex Kane has a piece out on “Unionism can learn from Sinn Féin” while it appears to suggest that, in reality, it is currently trying to learn from Fianna Fáil. Kane trots out the same line about ‘cultural war’ that was raised at the field on the Twelfth  by the Orange Order. Somewhat diminishing the point, the BBC usefully led this story with Edwin Stevenson’s comments at the …

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Irish Government does have detailed documents around the bank guarantee scheme after all…

One for the archives, I guess. The Journal have had some information given them by Fianna Fail, which seems to run contrary to the Taoiseach’s claim that there are no documents in his possession which explain the rationale of the bank guarantee scheme that was rushed through the Dail in September 2008… Of the 146 documents 106 have been withheld, 31 have been released in full and four have been partially released. Many of the records are withheld under section …

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Conned

Unnerving. This is a must read in today’s Irish Times. It was originally printed last week in the German newspaper ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’. Entitled, ‘Conned’: a German view of Ireland, it gives an insight into the ‘conning’ of Ireland – over several decades – by its political masters with some added comment and footnotes by Derek Scally. Drawing a line through failures to negotiate an equitable fisheries deal with the EEC in 1973, through Ray Burke and Bertie Aherns giveaway of …

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Latest Polls: FF slumps in the city and amongst the young and the indebted…

At the weekend, Fiach Kelly of the Irish Indo, noted that in the two weekend polls at the weekend, there was only one mover in one (RED C)… Fianna Fail is down from 26pc to 22pc, while Fine Gael is up from 26pc to 28pc, and back on top after a period when they were neck and neck. There were no changes in the ratings for Sinn Fein (17pc), Labour (12pc) or Independents (21pc). The poll by Red C for …

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#Anglotapes: If they saw the enormity of it up front, they might decide they have a choice.

Following the release of tapes of Anglo staff discussing how they present their case for support, in the lead up to the bank guarantee, there are more revelations in todays Irish Independent (which has been breaking the story). You can listen to the tapes via the Indo’s website (at the links above), but here are a couple of key quotes, as transcribed by the Journal.ie: Bowe on what the actual monetary requirement could be: That number is seven [billion] but …

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Why any near term coalition between FF and SF is unlikely…

World By Storm has come to the following conclusion… …it is very very unlikely that while the FF party has a heartbeat, so to speak, that it will enter into a unity government with FG. Indeed the very most that might occur would be a sort of reverse ‘Tallaght strategy’. And as demonstrated by FF in recent times they’re not above getting the digs into FG and the government even now in our supposed time of crisis. Still, the Phoenix …

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Fianna Fail’s ‘new’ leader building for a ‘new era’ Fianna Fail?

So, beige says Miriam of the Fianna Fail leader’s closing speech to his party’s Ard Fheis. Not wrong, of course. Steady as she goes, the weekend’s national conference was business like and not prone to much in the way of story telling or narrative. More like a business meeting, in fact. If anything the leadership was focused as much on playing down polls and playing up the amount of work still to be done before next year’s local government elections. …

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Martin opens the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis with some hints of the game ahead…

At the Fianna Fail Ard Fheis, nodding through the officers on the volume of applause from delegates was new to me. Then again, Fianna Fail evidently likes its leaders to lead rather than follow polls or focus groups. But the reality of running a modern political party is rather different. As the Sussex University Professor Tim Bale told the faithful, polls may tell them they are in recovery, but they also tell them how far they still have to go …

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Micheál Martin: Legacy of 1916 is to build rather than to divide the Irish nation…

Just out of embargo, here’s today’s speech from the Fianna Fail leader made just now at Arbour Hill church, where the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising were buried. The added emphases are mine: Every state should take time to commemorate and celebrate the people and events of their founding. This commemoration is organised by Fianna Fáil the Republican Party, but we come here as Irish men and women to fulfil our responsibilities to the great generation of 1916. After …

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Eighty years later Sinn Fein belatedly attempts Dev’s transformation

Great piece by Harry McGee in the Irish Times which raises some critical questions that may be exercising Sinn Fein delegates in Castlebar today.. Sinn Féin is not experiencing a New Departure, rather a long drawn-out process of change – mainstreaming, as we inelegantly describe it. As evidenced by the rapid growth of Fianna Fáil from 1926, a large swathe of the population shared its vision, believed as it did that the party was pursuing a reasonable programme based on …

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Micheál Martin in Belfast: “There is nothing inevitable about peace and progress”

This evening, Micheál Martin gave the following speech to Queens University Politics Society and Ógra Fianna Fáil in the Canada Room that was by all accounts was pretty packed to the gills. It’s long and detailed, and picks out some policy areas (not least north south development) where Martin argues there has been a shortfall by what passes in Northern Ireland for the ‘political establishment’. More detailed comment will follow tomorrow, but in the meantime, I’d appreciate your own thoughts: As we …

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Millward Brown Poll: Scary buns for Fine Gael?

No polls for a while then three or four come along at once. News broke tonight of the Sunday Independent’s Millward Brown poll.. MB have done a few polls on politics for the Sindo, but the last comparative poll that I have figures for was last May… These figures are proportions of voters after eliminating the undecided, which stands at a high figure 27% ; Fianna Fáil 27% (17), Fine Gael 25% (36) Sinn Féin 20% (20) Labour 13% (12) …

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Fine Gael drop back towards Ireland’s large political peloton

Let’s get one thing straight, polls do not increase or decrease the size of a political party. They are nere snapshots of opinion, not predictors of the future. So whilst Sinn Fein was never the second largest party in the state, neither is Fianna Fail currently the largest. Of course both, if trends continue, are set to make gains in the next big elections, which are the Locals and Europeans. But all we can say at the moment is that the …

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Zombie Republic of Ireland (2010-2013)

Tonight, on #promnight, the winding-up has been announced of the Zombie Republic of Ireland, formed in 2010 when the former sovereign state became a ward of the Bundestag’s finance committee. The end-of-life processes of the former Republic were accompanied by rushed late night decision-making and ill-considered legislation. The death notice, issued from ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet, has never been made public. The zombie successor state was artificially kept in an animated state as a toxic repository where 1% of the EUs population has been assigned 42% of the European banking debt. Tonight, this European banking debt is poised to be consolidated as sovereign debt in late-night …

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Micheál Martin – opportunism and cynicism of the very worst kind

The award for opportunist of the week must surely go to Micheál Martin. His hastily written opinion piece in Wednesdays Irish News was a timely reminder of Fianna Fáil’s cynical approach to both the peace process and to politics. For weeks Belfast city centre has been brought to a standstill by illegal loyalist blockades. Night after night the same protestors have returned to their own neighborhoods and engaged in running battles with the PSNI causing real disruption to their own …

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Micheál Martin: “If the Executive is not making progress on child poverty, or economic inactivity, or sectarianism”

Okay, so one of the good things about a political crisis in Northern Ireland that it draws a multiplicity views on our general situation (riots will always divide opinion). Not all of that has been bad by any means. Allan Massie in the Scotsman is generally sanguine about Northern Ireland’s future, if not David Cameron’s. But it’s brought the leader of Fianna Fail back on the local news pages too. In an op ed in today’s Irish News Micheál Martin …

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