Posted by Eoin O’Malley (21 February, 2013) A poll released today by the Pro-Life Campaign seeks to ‘challenge the notion that there is broad middle ground support for abortion in Ireland.’ This polls claims to show that two-thirds of Irish people want ‘legal protection of the unborn’ and suggests that this means Irish people are…
The 2012 Annual Conference will be hosted by the University Of Ulster, Magee Campus, Londonderry, and will take place on 19-21 October 2012 in the City Hotel, Queen’s Quay. The headline theme for this conference will be “Politics, Culture and Society in a Changing Ireland“. Full Details available at http://psai.ie/conference.asp
A link here to the RTE Player’s version of ‘Inside the Department’, a documentary that provides some interesting insights into the realities of governance in today’s Ireland. Among other things, it documents the difficulty of leading a department that you have verbally eviscerated in opposition (“malevolently dysfunctional” is a particularly good catchphrase).
Here is a link to the ‘The Week in Politics’ coverage of the political reform debate on RTE last night – Brian Dowling’s report touches on a lot of key themes, and much of the discussion explores important ideas. Definitely worth a watch IMO. I’ve posted some reactions of my own below…
Eoin O’Malley (26 October 2011) We might be interested in betting markets as a rival to polling for measuring shifts in support, particularly in Ireland where polling is comparatively infrequent and irregular. The idea is that people putting real money on a result may know something, and that those who do have information will see…
By Eoin O’Malley The latest opinion poll (analysed here) indicates that the Labour party is bearing the brunt of governing whereas Fine Gael and Enda Kenny seem to be enjoying an extended honeymoon with the electorate. This is backed up by the analysis of polcors in Ireland, one of whom reported here that Gilmore was seen as…
Ken McDonagh 06.09.11 Enda Kenny’s 20th of July speech on Child Protection was broadly positively received by Irish public opinion. That it was given by a practicing Catholic and leader of a conservative and Christian democratic party only amplified the message that a final straw had been reached as regards child protection and the responsibility…
A topic that emerged rather unexpectedly from the We the Citizens event that I attended in June was the importance of civic education. At my table, the argument for focusing attention on this topic was that citizens need to be politically well-informed in order to understand the powers of political offices and the consequences of …
By Eoin O’Malley (10 May 2011) How many times in making an argument do we rely on the eminence of a person holding a position to back up our own point of view? You’ll regularly read in the pages of the Irish Times that a ‘Nobel-prize winning economist says X’ and we are expected to…
Jennifer Kavanagh (7th May 2011) This week Minister Hogan annouced plans to reduce the number of TDs in Dail Eireann: “Minister Hogan said: “The new Government intends to lead by example and start change at the top. Irish politics needs to start delivering for the Irish people and this Government is determined to make real,…
Irish Politics Forum 