Image via Wikipedia The Labour Party published its Electoral (Gender Parity) Bill today (See RTÉ for details) which will cut state funding to party who dont put forward a certain percentage of female candidates. From what I see from my expeirence in political parties, that when women put themselevs forward for candidature they invariable get selected, not because women vote for them but because men vote for them! I attended conventions for three electoral areas for the upcoming local...
Image via Wikipedia So Cork County Councillor Deirdre Forde (Carrigaline/Harbour Electoral Area) has switched from Fianna Fail to Fine Gael. She has many reasons to do so, but the on that isn’t mentioned in the Press Release is her main reason for changing. In the PR she gives her reasons as follows: Over the last number of months I have sensed that the current Government were moving in a direction that I was not happy with. The Budget in...
Well Roddy Molloy the head of FÁS, and possibly related to Brian Cowen, resigned last night after what is being termed FÁSgate by some. It is scandelous the opperation going on in FÁS. I also heard a story of how things are done in FÁS today. A friend of mine does quotes in the area for tools for a number of companies and organisations. FÁS is one of these. On average with quotes of this nature in Cork there...
There is a poll in the Irish Times tomorrow and I have been sent the topline figures. I assume it has been carried aout by TNS/MRB which bears out the poll in last months Sunday Business Post Fianna Fail: 27 (-15)Fine Gael: 34 (+11)Labour: 14 (-1) I’ll update this with the other parties when I get the times tomorrow. Leader satisfaction ratings show a big drop for Brian Cowen plummeting 21% to a satisfaction rating of 26%. Enda Kenny...
So we have had two major(ish) u-turns on the latest budget. One on medical cards, but still 5% of pensioners will lose their medical card and one on the 1% “Lenihan Levy” which means that if you earn €17,540 you don’t pay tax but if you earn €17,541 you do as P. O’Neil points out over in Irish Election. I’m still not happy with that as I work in retail so therefore have to work Sundays and public holidays...
I have written an article over on Newsvine on this. I have reproduced it below. The Governments decision to scrap automatic Medical Cards for the over-70′s is still reverberating around the News websites and the papers letters pages. I have heard one theory on why the Government is not backing down on this issue despite the disquiet on the backbenches and with the coalition partners. Do they want the Government to fall? This is my fathers theory. Basically Fianna...
Below is Enda’s Speech that he has given in response to Budget 2009. I must say I agree with it whole heartedly! Yesterday’s budget was disgraceful in what it contained. It was deplorable in what it did not contain. And it was fascinating in the response it created. Never in my political life have I seen such a universal rejection of a budget. One by one the statements came out. IBEC condemned the budget. ISME condemned the budget. The...
Today I witnessed, from work, part of the protest in Cork against the reintroduction of third-level fees. According to the Evening Echo story 6,000 students took part in the protest. Strangely enough on the same day, the Irish Universities Association has been outlining its case for the reintroduction of third-level college fees before the Oireachtas education committee. Good timing on behalf of the students! My first involvement with student politics was on a similar, but smaller, march against fees...
I’m fed up with news stories like this one from RTÉ.ie this morning, ‘Libertas may run candidates for Europe‘. This story gets trotted out every now and then but nothing ever happens with it. There is no talk of registering as a political party or anything like that, as of yet. The Euro’s are only eight months away and any political party (new or old) would basically want to be picking there candidates this month or next so that...
Another opinion poll….
This time Ireland! Its an interesting one too. The Party Breakdown is as follows Fianna Fail 36% (down 4)Fine Gael 28% (up 3)Labour 9% (down 1)Sinn Fein 9% (down 1)Greens 7% (no change)PD’s 3% (up 1) (June poll available here in PDF) In another question in the poll 50% of people are not confident that the government can get the economy out of the current downturn. Its nice to see FG up and FF down below the 40% (the...
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