Eoin O’Malley (25 January 2011) Last night Fianna Fáil selected two candidates to run in the four seat Dublin Central constituency. Given that the party polled less than 13 percent of the vote in the 2009 by election, and there are no reasons to believe its vote will have increased since then, this is a…
Adrian Kavanagh, 23rd January 2011 Today’s Sunday Independent poll produced some interesting figures and were reflective no doubt of Fianna Fail and Brian Cowen’s recent travails : Fianna Fail 8%, Fine Gael 27%, Labour 29%, Sinn Fein 8%, Green Party 3%, Others 11% (doesn’t include Don’t Knows). As this poll was just based on 200 responses, it is not…
Eoin O’Malley (22 January, 2011) Brian Cowen’s decision to stand down comes mainly because he showed a lack of political judgement in pursuing a cabinet reshuffle to renew his party just weeks before an election. Cowen claimed he should have been allowed to reshuffle his cabinet as he wanted. He said it was the convention that party…
Neil Ardiff
Liam Weeks* Reading the calls for reform from afar, there seems to be one overarching theme: a desire to improve the calibre of parliamentarians. To date, most of these calls have been misguided as many from outside the political science community persist with the notion of electoral reform as a panacea that will transform the…
Eoin O’Malley (UPDATED 17 January, 2011) The fact that Cowen has pushed for a vote of confidence in his leadership would seem to indicate that he is secure that he has the numbers to win it. He has the advantage of having spent the previous three days canvassing support openly, whereas Micheál Martin was unable or unwilling to…
Eoin O’Malley (10 January, 2011) A bit like democracy, motherhood and apple pie, everyone is in favour of the separation of powers. But how does it work in Ireland and what happens when there’s a conflict between the branches of state power? What should happen?
John O’Brennan (10 January, 2011) It is somewhat perplexing for many Irish citizens when they find that individuals elected to political office very recently decide to jump ship, once a seemingly better career opportunity presents itself. It is only 18 months since the elections to the European Parliament took place in July 2009. The Parliament’s…
David Farrell (January 10 2011) Former Attorney General John Rogers has returned to the theme of electoral reform. In a presentation on The Week in Politics on RTE last night and also in today’s Irish Times he set out the latest version of his ideas for a new electoral system (for discussion on the previous…
By Michael Gallagher Like most contributors to the site, I’m unconvinced by what little rationale has so far been offered for the abolition of the Seanad. First, no-one has seriously, or even flippantly, suggested that bicameralism is the cause of the current economic difficulties. Just what is the problem that abolition of the Seanad is…
Irish Politics Forum 