Looks like Bertie’s taking out an old kite to see if it can still fly. PA: “It is understood the ground breaking proposal set to be put before the Dail would see the formation of a new joint committee on the peace process made up of members of the Irish parliament, but with seats available to Northern Ireland`s Westminster representatives”. No votes, no actual power… and a subject matter that’s about as woolly as they come… so it might just …
Damien notes that the guys behind blogorrah are looking at setting up the Irish version of the Huffington Post in time for the election. There is certainly space in the blog market, for now at least… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
Martin Kettle has been reading Nick Cohen‘s book What’s Left?, and finds that, “Socialism is dead. There now remain only socialists.”Some of the crisis in the left, Kettle argues is that it has been too successful: If leftwing Britons of 2007 saw themselves more clearly than they do, they would notice two big things. First, they would see what the leftwing Britons of 1907 would have grasped – that much of what the left of a century ago yearned for …
There appears to be a strange convergence on both sides of the Irish Sea in terms of the much needed reforms of the respective health services of the UK and the Republic. And the long term reputations of two senior players may rest upon their success, Tony Blair and former Tanaiste, Mary Harney. On the face of it, Harney may prove the more adept at picking her fights.The Bagehot column in the Economist does not think that the signs of …
Whatever the blogosphere does (or does not) think, Peter Robinson welcomes the Republic’s spending promises under the new National Development Plan. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
Sammy Morse, sometime denizen of the Slugger comments zone clearly has a nose for a good story… Can’t believe we missed this one. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
There are two points to note from Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s comments on RTÉ today. The first is at the end of the RTÉ report here where he rules out a formal coalition with Sinn Féin after a May or June election, but does not rule out accepting their support in the next Dáil. The second is in the detail of this report where he calls for clarity, “I think that judgment has to be made in the next few days, …
For those of you thoroughly fed up with Northern Irish politics (or the endless procrastination that passes for NI politics), here’s an interesting snippet from the Republic. Enda Kenny has clearly done the maths on this year’s general election and found his Mullingar pact with Labour wanting, and is inviting the Greens into a possible Labour/FG government. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media …
You may never have heard of Thomas Byrne. He’s a 29 year old solicitor, who is also a Fianna Fail candidate in Meath East for the next General Election in the Republic. And he’s quietly getting to grips with how to use new media, effectively. He doesn’t have a seat yet, so he can’t really be ‘deselected’. But he shows what, as a politician, you can do to make your relationship directly with the people you want to vote for …
According to the RTÉ report, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said “he regrets signing blank cheques that were used by the late Charles Haughey to misuse public funds.” but that it was “common practice at the time”.. However, the tribunal’s view was This was a practise which has to be viewed as both inappropriate and imprudent, having regard to the nature of the account (being one used to administer funds provided from the public purse), the skills and experience then possessed …
A companion piece to the main story from the Moriarty Report on Charles Haughey’s irregular finances noted by Mick which reflects more on the current political scene, namely the then-Finance Minister, now-Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, whose own financial irregularities were called into question recently. From the Irish Times breaking news Taoiseach Bertie Ahern facilitated the misuse of party funds by Charles Haughey by signing blank cheques for an account designed to receive funds for the party leader from the Exchequer, the …
The Moriarty Tribunal has finally issued its report into the financial irregularities of former Taoiseach, Charles J Haughey and other politicians. All along Haughey claimed ignorance of his own finances, something the judge dismissed entirely. Moriarty ruled that Haughey’s most generous donor, department store baron Ben Dunne, received lobbying support from the prime minister in his company’s successful battle to avoid paying a €49 million (US$64 million) bill to Ireland’s tax collection agency. The judge noted that Haughey received about …
All talk of an imminent move across the border for the big guns of Fianna Fail died with the SDLP’s unexpectedly resilient performance in last year’s Westminster election. But Adam Maguire’s been catching up with one Northern Irish party member who plans to organise an unofficial Cumman in Mid Ulster are well underway. Eddie Espie is keen to fast track the mainstream party’s plans to organise north of the border ‘when the time is right’. However, the main party seems …
In the Dublin High Court, Mr Justice John Quirke has ruled that the trial of prominent Provisional IRA member Brendan McFarlane will go ahead. McFarlane had launched a second attempt to have charges against him – in relation to the kidnapping of businessman Don Tidey in 1983 – dropped in May this year after the Irish Supreme Court overturned a 2003 High Court ruling. Update Sinn Féin have released a statement on the ruling.From the RTÉ report But this morning …
An Irish Times report picks up on comments by Maurice Hayes in the Seanad, asking for postponement of a debate on the Oireachtas committee report on the bombing of a Dundalk pub in the 1970s, which go some way towards revealing how The Process™ works[subs req] [or doesn’t – Ed].From the Irish Times[subs req] This was an issue that would not go away or be forgotten. Dr Hayes said he respected Mr Walsh’s concern arising from the Kay’s Tavern bombing. …
Interesting that the British pre budget statement and the Irish budget came on the same day. It’s hard to compare them, since they are not exactly like and like, and both governments are in different stages of their respective cycles. Aside from a major tax hike on cigarettes, the Minister of Finance did the populist thing, and gave pensioners a benefit hike. Fundamentally though, Cowen had the kind of fiscal slack Brown dreamed he would have only a few months …
Whatever the schadenfreude some may feel, the spate of poisoning recently, at least one of them involves the Republic, if only indirectly. Today Yegor Gaidar tells his story of what happened to him that day he collapsed in Maynooth. The phone call that apparently saved my life came at 5.10pm. A representative of the organisers reminded me that my book presentation was in five minutes. Would I be taking part? I considered saying no. Had I done so, and had …
There may well be a story in the unpublished Barron Report, but it is one that, for reasons best known to itself, the Irish Government is reluctant to make public. Instead, we have had a drip feed of committee and sub committee reports hinting at what it might have said, or what it could hint at. As Brian Feeney says in his column yesterday, “another report to the Oireachtas was as much use as emptying a bucket of water into …
Stephen Coleman has been warning for a few weeks now that despite bouyant polling figures for the Republic’s government, they will need to score every bit as well as current polling figures indicate, plus the full extent of the Bertie factor on lower preference transfers before the status quo can be maintained. Today he has some intriguing permutations (subs needed) if they don’t come up to the mark.Firstly the Greens: One option would be to bring the Greens into government …
There was a fascinating piece by Martin Kettle in the Guardian last weekend, about the degree to which citizens owe allegience to the state (complex, but well worth reading in with several local contexts in mind). It’s a serious question, that is rarely debated honestly in Northern Ireland, where political agendas of all types abound. It seems that Sinn Fein has belatedly backed An Garda Síochána’s battle against drugs and racketeering, but apparently retaining some interesting caveats. Mick FealtyMick is …
