Tag Archives: politics

FOUR years on from the last general election, the Clare constituency has almost 10% more voters than it did in 2016. This time there are 91,120 people registered to vote, up from 82,965 last time. It is a very sharp increase, but besides a growing population, the redrawing of the electoral boundaries with Limerick has seen another 4,488 voters come into the constituency. The county is divided into five municipal districts for local government purposes. On Saturday there will be 40 ballot boxes in the Ennis Municipal District, 35 in the Shannon Municipal District, 32 in the Killaloe Municipal District, 43 in the Kilrush Municipal District and 29 in the Ennistymon Municipal District. The redrawing of the county’s borders helps Fianna Fáil’s Cathal Crowe, the Meelick man now having significantly more people in his local area who can vote for him. The feeling is that he will have enough votes to comfortably take a seat in his first general election. …

ON Monday, Dr Michael Harty announced that he is not looking to be re-elected to the Dáil and in an interview with The Clare Champion, he said the outgoing Government has failed rural Ireland, while the administration didn’t accept obvious solutions to major problems facing the country. Dr Harty also revealed that he had turned down invitations to stand for established parties in the General Election. “Obviously, the economy has recovered and that brings benefits to everybody. But I think there is still a huge dissatisfaction within rural Ireland that they are being left behind, that services are still being withdrawn to rural Ireland,” he commented. As it stands now, he feels that the likes of Leo Varadkar, Simon Harris and Eoghan Murphy do not understand the needs of a county like Clare. “I think that the Government is urban-orientated. We have the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Health, the Minister for Housing, who are all urban-based …

With General Election 2016 polling day fast approaching, Thinkhouse, the youth communications agency, has published highlights of an in-depth study around ‘Youth + Politics’ in Ireland today. The research was conducted by The Youth Lab, Thinkhouse’s insights and trends division, and it reveals the views, attitudes and influential factors that will shape how today’s 18-35 year olds respond to the forthcoming election. Following are some of the key findings: Young people more active than ever On the back of a successful Marriage Equality Referendum campaign last year, young voters are more engaged than ever. 92% of those surveyed are registered to vote, with 83% saying they plan to vote in the upcoming election on 26th February. This projection would be a huge increase on the 70% turnout figures for the 2011 General Election. Lack of true leadership in political parties When asked which of the party leaders they liked best, the vast majority (45%) reported that they did ‘not like …

WEAPONS have been routinely carried through Shannon by the US military, it was claimed at Ennis District Court on Tuesday, during a hearing into a case against TDs Mick Wallace and Clare Daly. During evidence, Irish Times security analyst, Tom Clonan played a recording taken from a plane at Shannon, which advised soldiers to leave their weapons on board. Also, a former Irish army officer warned that missiles that were brought through the airport on one occasion could have resulted in it being blown up, along with much of the adjacent Shannon Industrial Estate. Mr Wallace, 59, of Clontarf Road, Dublin 3, and Ms Daly, 46, of Elmwood Drive, Swords, Dublin, are accused of climbing a perimeter fence at Shannon Airport and entering a part of the airport to which they were not permitted on July 22 of last year, contrary to the Airport Bylaws of 1994. While the case is being contested, neither have denied that they entered restricted …

A MINISTER for Justice who slept with a gun under his pillow, the very nemesis of Charles Haughey and the founder of a political party that exercised influence way beyond its size throughout the 1980s and ’90s, Des O’Malley wasn’t struggling for material for his book Conduct Unbecoming: A Memoir. Much of O’Malley’s career was defined by his enmity with a certain former taoiseach, an era that was revisited in the recent RTÉ mini-series, Haughey. O’Malley feels it was a relatively fair exploration of the time. “You have to take it as a drama, rather than a factual documentary, but a great deal of it is factual. It is of course based on fact but, for dramatic purposes, certain things are written into it and the chronology of some of the things changes, they happened in a different order. But I thought it was a fair enough representation of the atmosphere at the time, the atmosphere of fear and intimidation.” …

ALREADY contentious, Shannon based Fine Gael Senator Tony Mulcahy has turned up the political heat regarding the potential sale of the State’s share in Aer Lingus, as he has vowed to resign the party whip if the Government does sell to IAG. He made his comments after IAG CEO Willie Walsh addressed the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and Communications. Mr Walsh told the Committee that in the event of an IAG takeover, Shannon would get a five-year guarantee of Heathrow connectivity. However, after being quizzed by Senator Mulcahy, he acknowledged that he was not offering any guarantees around the preservation of the Aer Lingus services between Shannon and the US. While Mr Walsh did say that transatlantic services from Shannon have “huge potential” and that the numbers travelling on them are likely to increase in the summertime, this didn’t cut much ice with Senator Mulcahy. In a statement released shortly after the Committee sitting he said, “I cannot support …

THE current Aer Lingus ownership structure gives no guarantees on the provision of Shannon-Heathrow services, group strategy director of Shannon Group, Patrick Edmond said at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and Communication. Various political interests have called for the State’s shareholding in Aer Lingus to be retained, claiming it ensures connectivity for the Clare airport. However, Mr Edmond said that is not the case, pointing out that in 2007, Aer Lingus management, under the same ownership structure as exists now, transferred all of the Heathrow slots serving Shannon to Belfast. While Clare TD Timmy Dooley challenged him, Mr Edmond stood firm on his observations. In his first contribution to the sitting, Mr Edmond said that if the Government does opt to dispose of its 25% holding, it should make sure it gets some guarantees around connectivity. “We would, therefore, expect that any Government decision to sell the State’s Aer Lingus stake to IAG would be conditional on an enforceable …

THE establishment of an EU-wide Anti-Bullying Day is on MEP Sean Kelly’s Christmas wish list for the New Year. “The introduction of an EU Anti-Bullying Day would generate huge awareness-raising opportunities around the issue of bullying, and particularly that of young people in school or online right across Europe on an annual basis,” the Ireland South MEP said. The Fine Gael MEP who has led a national and European campaign against cyber bullying, and intends to hold further anti-cyber bullying forums in 2015, says the effects of bullying on young people are severe: “Research shows 1,700 young Europeans are at risk of death by suicide every year due to bullying and cyber-bullying. “These are preventable deaths and the EU has a responsibility to protect young people from the scourge of bullying in any form it takes – online, physical or emotional battering,” Mr Kelly, a former teacher,continued. “I want to see an anti-bullying campaign involving key stakeholders rolled out under …