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

26 February 2016 it is. One note at the outset. Irish opinion pollsters have already convinced themselves that it’s Move Along Folks Nothing to See Here regarding the failure of opinion polls in the UK election last year. But they might want to read the actual findings of the review. It’s not just about specific demographic issues that were at play in the UK; it’s a broader issue of oversampling particular types of voters. Are the Irish pollsters really sure that in a saturated polling environment that the media demand for polls to fill space creates, they’re getting a representative sample?

British Columbia female viagra will be having a referendum on the 12th of May on the question of introducing a form of PR-STV closely similar to our own. Now, this would have escaped me, but for a comment from David Schrenk on my blog the other day.

In British Columbia on May 12th we are having a referendum on whether to change how we elect members of our provincial legislature by changing to the single transferable vote. I oppose making that change. Proponents of STV in BC argue that it makes political parties weaker, but from what I’ve read about Irish cialis side effects politics buying kamagra in the uk (including the posts here), it looks like the central offices of Irish political

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parties have more power than anything we see in BC. Please let me know what you think about the power of your political parties, either here or by email to Schreck@Strategicthoughts.com

David’s website, Strategic Thoughts is clearly on the side of maintaining the existing, First-Past-The-Post electoral system that currently operates in kamagra store British Columbia. He highlights a number of perceived problems with our system, such as it decreases accountability, is unfair and complex. buy cialis David sets forth many of his arguments in this piece. Now, I am viagra side effects not a hundred per-cent gone on london kamagra our variant of proportional representation. There are certain flaws within it, but I believe it is a more equitable and accountable system than a FPTP system would offer. Furthermore, FPTP endears a high level of instability in medium and long-term policy making. My plan is to do a number of blog pieces putting forth my views on the claims for and against PR-STV which are emerging in the British Columbia debate. Ireland, along with Malta are the only two countries where the main election is fought on PR-STV. Given that, I would encourage other bloggers to set forth to offer their own views and experiences of PR-STV to help inform the British Columbia debate. Indeed, there is a hint of real change in the air at the moment, with the apparent demise of Fianna Fáil, and mass demonstrations on the streets. Maybe we too should look at our own political and electoral systems, and see what changes we could make.

The age of consent, statutory rape and related issues are viagra price not just in the news here. PrawfsBlog has a piece on foot of over the counter viagra two incidents cialis in the US, where; 1) A sixteen-year-old girl and a seventeen-year-old http://peterlawgroup.com/blog/online-viagra/ boy who took “racy pictures of themselves” and ended up being prosecuted for possessing child porn.

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both being prosecuted for sexual offences.

There has been plenty of commentary over the viagra price past week or so about the two impending by-elections in the Seanad to fill the vanancies caused by the death of Fianna Fáil Senator Tony Kett and generic viagra the election to the European Parliament of Labour’s Senator Alan Kelly. Seanad by-elections are an unusual beast, with the electorate comprising of the viagra online members of both Houses of the Oireachtas – and as Keith has shown, the numbers stack up quite clearly in favour of two Fianna Fáil/Green candidates being elected. The logic of such

plain and obvious numbers has dominated nearly all of

the commentary on who may be elected to fill the two vacancies. In the There is nothing wrong with such an approach, and many of best advocates in the Seanad cialis vs viagra are individuals cialis who stood in the last General Election and will in all likelihood stand in the next. However, over the past year few bodies have come under greater attack than the Seanad. It was been frequently castigated in print, on radio and television as an irrelevant talking shop

Today’s Irish Times carries an interesting story about Libertas. The main thrust of it is that a substantial proportion of the founders of Libertas are linked to Ganley’s company Rivada with the story stating ” A spokesman for Libertas yesterday confirmed that five of the seven members of the Libertas Institute Ltd are employees of the Galway subsidiary of Rivada Networks LLC, a company registered in Delaware.” However, for me the most interesting bit was about the Libertas accounts filed at the start of May, which I commented about yesterday. Continue reading ‘’ »

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Two figures from the European stage kick off this round-up. Firstly, My Opinion is back from Germany and is out on the canvass looking

for a Yes vote, while BBC European Editor and blogger Mark Mardell enters the fray with commentary on a German think-tank’s report on what may happen if Lisbon is rejected. Simon of Dossing Times accuses the Yes side of hyperbole on the consequences of a No vote, and Jonathan Brazil offers three reasons to Vote No. Booming Back is concerned about the lack of interest in the referendum amongst the general public, while the Irish Eagle ponders the questions of representative nature of representative democracy. The Cedar buy viagra online Loungue Revolution gets on board for a Yes vote last week, and this week sees the Yes campaign faltering. Neil Ward examines in detail the question if we are giving up our viagra online

soverignity for little reward. Posters have come in for a bit of interst with Simon McGarr putting together a collection of the No posters, and Jazz Buscuit offering an interesting, scientific analysis http://peterlawgroup.com/blog/online-viagra/ of the whole thing. More seriously, Noel Rock looks at postering strategy of the Labour party. Continue reading ‘Lisbon Round Up – Part III’ »

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open at 7am tomorrow morning (less than nine hours to go!!), and will close at 10pm. Remember buy cialis to bring a form of ID with you. If you don’t cialis vs viagra have it, you viagra side effects may well be refused your opportunity to vote and your polling car will not suffice. And last of http://peterlawgroup.com/blog/online-viagra/ all, and most importantly, remember to Vote Yes!!

Stephen Collins is a quality political analyst of long-standing and deserved repute. His analysis in today’s Irish Times,( 31 May, 2014) however, makes the classic mistake of (a) blaming ‘media negativity’ for the drubbing taken by the coalition parties in the local and EP elections and, consequentially, (b) exhorting the government parties to up their communications game as a means of addressing it. He assumes that we, the people, take what we  see, hear and read in the media as gospel and that we’re so undiscriminating in our intelligence that we’re capable of being beguiled  by political ‘spin’.  He’s wrong. The expectation of the electorate, and rightly so, is that the government elected in 2011 would get the economy and fiscal policy back on track, that it would safeguard the provision of public services and that it would radically reform its own governmental and regulatory processes to ensure such calamity could not befall us again. The mid-term election results are a verdict on that performance; nothing more and nothing less. Continue reading ‘Recovery for the mainstream parties is not about PR palaver of ‘better communications’ or ‘getting the message out’, it’s about having a credible message in the first place.’ »

Story over at one of our other outposts.

The people have spoken,as the old cliché goes. Of the 1,026,374 valid cotes in the Seanad Referendum, 591, 937 voted in favour of Seanad abolition, and 634, 437 voted against. Every constituency in Dublin voted against Enda Kenny’s personal crusade to abolish the Upper House, thereby concentrating more power in the Executive, with a flimsy promise to reform the Dail by way of compensation for driving a coach and four through our political institutions. The margin of defeat for Kenny’s personal demolition project was small – 51/7% against to 48.3% in favour – but the message to his government should be clear:  Either reform the system, as faithfully promised by the two government parties during Election 2011, and do so in a way that brings all other political factions on board with you, or squander the remainder of whatever political capital you have left in this vital area and reap the consequences of your negligence.

Continue reading ‘People vote to retain Seanad: Action on reform is warranted’ »

By Jane Suiter

On Friday October 4th voters will have decided whether or not to abolish Seanad Éireann. Voters Parties and Elections are delighted to invite you to an open debate on the campaign and result. It has been a colourful campaign with allegations of populism and power grabbing levelled at the government by political parties and campaign groups on the No side. The Yes side have focused on the cost of the Upper House and have tapped into public hostility towards politicians and the political system. However, the campaign has been dominated by elites and seems to have largely passed the public by. Concerns about apathy and a possible low turnout are moving to the fore in the closing days of the campaign.

Come along to hear from all sides on Thursday 10 October 5.30pm

• The debate will be chaired by Dr Jane Suiter (DCU)

Our expert panel includes:

Campaign Participants
Regina Doherty, TD (Leading the Fine Gael campaign for the abolition of the Seanad)

Prof Gary Murphy, DCU (Chair- Democracy Matters)

And campaign experts

Prof Michael Marsh (TCD

Prof David Farrell (UCD)

Dr Theresa Reidy (UCC)

Places are limited, so please email us on voterspartieselections@gmail.comto reserve a seat:

Date: 10th October
Time: 5:30 – 7:30pm
Venue: European Parliament Offices, Molesworth Street, Dublin 2

 Last evening I attended a public meeting on next Friday’s referendums, organised by our local Fine Gael TD, Leo Varadkar. The poster on the pole at the entrance to our housing estate advertised economist Colm McCarthy as the ‘guest speaker’. I went along, not out of any prospect of being enlightened about anything by the venerable Mr.McCarthy, but mainly because I felt ill-informed about the proposal to establish a new Court of Appeal and assumed there’d have to be something said about that.

Continue reading ‘Myopic focus on Seanad costs does no service to democracy’ »

Right now all the indications are that Enda Kenny’s personal pet project to eliminate  one of  key institutions of Irish democracy, the Seanad, will be endorsed by the public in the forthcoming referendum.

The micro-politics of the debate on the referendum and some of its more substantive arguments include variously–:

• that the proposal emerged from Kenny’s personal pique, back in 2009, at being overshadowed in political performance by the Labour leader, Eamon Gilmore;
• that a ‘yes’ vote will enhance his reputation as an effective leader, whilst a ‘no’ vote may undermine his personal credibility, and by extension, reduce Fine Gael’s prospects of securing a second term in office after the next election (a hoped-for ‘first’ in that party’s history);
• that the claims of saving 20 million euro a year by abolishing the Seanad are a deliberate and demonstrable falsehood, and in any case it’s anti-democratic to put a ‘price’ on a key political institution in that way, as if democracy were a mere commodity that you can buy in a shop;
• that an elitist Seanad, in the nomination and election of whose members the public have no direct ‘voice’, is unreformable and surplus to requirements to run the state efficiently, (even though only the ‘government of the day’ has the power to reform the Seanad or any other part of the system);
• that if the Taoiseach was serious about making our dysfunctional political institutions work, he would have reformed the Dail first to lessen the stranglehood of his own government’s power over it, before decreeing that the Seanad is no longer required;
• that Ireland, as a small country, is somehow out of line in having a bicameral system, with two chambers of the Oireachtas (even though where we’re really out of line is in having such an appallingly deficient and dysfunctional powerless system of local government);

 Beyond these arguments, it’s worth giving a few moments’ thought to what Kenny’s objective of abolition actually says about what’s happening in our democracy at this time and what it signifies for the integrity of our democracy into the future. In all that’s been said, and written, and read, about the referendum question, to date, that’s the core issue. Or it would be, except that it barely gets a mention.

The year before he died, the great American social scientist, Charles Tilly,  wrote an essay ‘Grudging Consent’ in which he pondered the fate of democracy and what happens when the ‘voice’ of the public is no longer vigilant enough in, or capable of,  holding its elected leaders in check

  Continue reading ‘Democracy be damned! Abolishing the Seanad a further step towards de-democratizing our society’ »

The Labour MEP for Ireland East, Nessa Childers, has announced her resignation from the party and her intention to contest the European Elections in 2014 as an Independent.

Continue reading ‘Nessa Childers resigns from Labour Party: will contest European Elections in 2014 as an Independent’ »

The  Seanad is a ‘luxury we can no longer afford’ and its abolition offers the Irish people an opportunity to ‘make a radical difference to our political system’.

So say, respectively, Minister Richard Bruton, Fine Gael’s Director of Elections for the forthcoming referendum and his Deputy Director of Elections, Meath TD, Regina Doherty. The great delight of such vacuous spin is that it’s so easily turned on its perpetrators. For example: this government is ‘luxury we can no longer afford’ and its removal would ‘make a radical difference to our political system.’ Or the Dail; or the Fine Gael Party; or even Mayo, God help us! – there’s no end to the uses to which such phraseology may be put.

Continue reading ‘Defeat of Seanad Referendum may be only hope of achieving real political reform’ »