Party leader says voters want change as poll puts it in top position for general election
Sinn Féin has stepped up its criticism of Ireland’s political establishment as polls show the party poised for a historic breakthrough in Saturday’s general election.
Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Féin’s leader, said on Tuesday that Irish people wanted a change from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, centrist rivals that have dominated Irish politics for a century.
Continue reading...From the outside, Leo Varadkar may seem like a leader on the crest of a wave, but as elections loom the tide is turning against him
Leo Varadkar, youthful leader, elegant dresser, liberal lion, responsible economic steward, banisher of Brexit clouds – what’s not to love? That, at least, is how many outsiders view Ireland’s taoiseach.
“Leo, Leo, Leo! We love you!” trilled some Chinese tourists who recently encountered him on Dublin’s Grafton Street, as he canvassed with Fine Gael party colleagues for votes in the 8 February general election.
Continue reading...Mother of victim urges Netflix to be respectful and truthful as people still grieving today
The mother of a boy murdered by the IRA alongside Lord Louis Mountbatten has appealed to the makers of the The Crown to accurately depict the atrocity in the next season of the Netflix series.
Mary Hornsey said she hoped the drama would show sensitivity in portraying the events of 27 August 1979, when a bomb blew up Mountbatten’s fishing boat off Mullaghmore, a village in County Sligo on Ireland’s north-west coast.
Continue reading...Country was among first to declare climate emergency but health and housing take priority at ballot box
Ireland had seemed poised for its first climate-centric general election, with concern about carbon emissions and species extinction expected to shape the battle for votes on 8 February.
Last year, after all, Ireland became only the second country in the world to declare a climate and biodiversity emergency. “Great news from Ireland!! Who is next?” Greta Thunberg tweeted at the time.
Continue reading...Holly Cairns is standing against partner Christopher O’Sullivan in rural Cork constituency
To the duelling lovers in Ireland’s general election it feels like a “badly written romcom” but Hollywood is not involved … not yet anyway.
Holly Cairns, a Social Democrats candidate, is running against her partner, Christopher O’Sullivan, a candidate for Fianna Fáil, for the Cork South-West constituency.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen
Here is the Times’s Steven Swinford on the significant of the PMOS’s comments on fishing.
No 10 spokesman suggests access to Britain’s waters for EU fishing boats *will* be the subject of negotiations over future trade deal
‘We are taking back control of our waters
‘It will be for the UK to determine for the best interests of the UK who fishes in those waters’
The PMOS is not talking about some of the post-Brexit Whitehall arrangements.
He says there will be 40 officials working in government taskforce on the EU future partnership.
Continue reading...Woman taken to hospital after bodies of two boys and a girl found in Newcastle house
Irish police are investigating after three children were found dead in a house.
A woman in her 40s was taken to hospital after the bodies of two boys and a girl were found in a home in a small housing development in the village of Newcastle, south-west of Dublin.
Continue reading...Dublin court to consider European arrest warrant for Ian Bailey over unsolved murder of French woman
Ian Bailey, an English journalist-turned poet, has said he is trapped in Ireland because of an attempt to extradite him to France where he faces 25 years in jail for allegedly murdering a French film-maker, Sophie Toscan du Plantier.
A high court in Dublin will hold a hearing on Monday into a European arrest warrant issued by a Paris court, the latest twist in a legal saga over Ireland’s most notorious unsolved murder.
Continue reading...Total monthly applications exceeded 100,000 in January, March, April and May
Almost a million Irish passports were issued in 2019, the country’s government has announced.
The figure is a new record and represents a 7% increase on 2018. Simon Coveney, Ireland’s foreign affairs minister, said: “2019 was another bumper year for the Passport Service. The award-winning Passport Online [service] expanded in 2019 to include first-time applicants in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Great Britain and Europe. Irish citizens including children can also renew their passports online 24/7, from anywhere in the world.”
Continue reading...Irish PM says UK must pay for any bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland
Ireland’s prime minister has said he will not dismiss the idea of building a bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland, but insisted the UK must pay for it.
Boris Johnson and the Democratic Unionist party have spoken in favour of the idea.
Continue reading...When Megan Nolan received her invitation, she wasn’t convinced of the importance of a shared name. Could 20 Nolans change her mind?
In June this year I received an email inviting me to Carlow, Ireland, to receive an award from the Nolan clan. The award was in recognition of my writing career, a little gesture of thanks for promoting the Nolan name in the world. I was dimly aware of Irish clans, largely from gift shops near tourism hotspots, where you can sometimes buy a horribly expensive sweater or scarf emblazoned with the family crest of your choice. I had no idea that they were a real-life concern.
I wasn’t living anywhere in particular. I had recently left my house in London because I couldn’t easily afford it and had tired of sharing with other people. So I answered my invitation from the clan immediately, accepting a little out of curiosity and a lot because in my transient state I would take any excuse to make my way back to Ireland, where I could loaf in my parents’ homes and not think much about money for a week.
Continue reading...Foreign minister challenges Johnson’s claim about goods moving from Northern Ireland to Britain
Simon Coveney, Ireland’s foreign minister, has challenged Boris Johnson’s claim that under his Brexit deal there would be no checks or controls on goods moving between Northern Ireland and Britain.
Coveney insisted that under the terms of the withdrawal agreement the prime minister negotiated with the European Union there would be inspections on goods moving in both directions.
Continue reading...Action by city authority for ‘public safety’ reasons provokes social media outcry
The idea was simple: ask Dubliners to hang warm coats on the Ha’penny footbridge for the city’s burgeoning homeless population.
Shortly after #warmforwinter notices appeared on lampposts near the popular landmark last week, an array of anoraks, parkas and fleeces started to line the railings.
Continue reading...An initiative against tax havens has been voted down by states who cannot afford to lose the revenue such status brings
For the time being, the European commission has lost its battle with the EU’s tax havens for greater visibility on how much tax multinational companies pay and where they pay it.
A proposed rule would have forced multinationals to reveal the revenues and profits they make, and how little corporate tax they pay, in each of the 28 member states.
Continue reading...Environmentalist Rick Small says he gave away boat now on display in community garden in Ireland
The wooden houseboat washed ashore on Ireland’s Atlantic coast three years ago, prompting two questions: how did it get there? And where was Rick Small?
The 20ft (6-metre) craft, made with driftwood and polystyrene and fitted with solar panels, had no one at the helm when it turned up at Drum beach, near Belmullet in County Mayo, in November 2016.
Continue reading...Proposal would have forced firms to reveal profits made and taxes paid in each EU country
Twelve EU countries, including Ireland, have blocked a proposed new rule that would have forced multinational companies to reveal how much profit they make and how little tax they pay in each of the 28 member states.
The proposed directive was designed to shine a light on how some of the world’s biggest companies – such as Apple, Facebook and Google – avoid paying an estimated $500bn a year in taxes by shifting their profits from higher-tax countries such as the UK, France and Germany to zero-tax or low-tax jurisdictions including Ireland, Luxembourg and Malta.
Continue reading...Simon Coveney says ‘law must apply to all’ after Conservative promise to end ‘unfair’ trials
Ireland has expressed concern over a Conservative party pledge to change the law to protect former soldiers in Northern Ireland from possible prosecution over deaths during the Troubles.
The Tories have promised to end what they describe as “unfair trials” of soldiers accused of unlawful killings in Northern Ireland by amending the Human Rights Act to exclude any case dating from before the act came into force in 2000.
Continue reading...PM says there will be no checks on goods going from Northern Ireland to rest of UK
Boris Johnson has been accused of misleading the public about his own Brexit deal, after footage emerged of him telling exporters in Northern Ireland they will not need to fill in extra paperwork.
After a rocky start to the general election campaign in which Jacob Rees-Mogg had to apologise for his comments about victims of the Grenfell Tower fire, and the Welsh secretary, Alun Cairns, resigned, footage emerged of the prime minister regaling businesses with the benefits of his deal.
Continue reading...Kevin Lunney says kidnappers had sadistic ‘checklist’ in latest and most brutal act against QIH executives
The business executive who was abducted and tortured near the Irish border has spoken for the first time about a crime that has shocked and bewildered Ireland.
Kevin Lunney said the gang that kidnapped him went through a checklist of sadistic acts which left him in agony.
Continue reading...Boys, now 15, are youngest people in Irish history to be convicted of murder
Two teenage boys have been sentenced to life and 15 years respectively for murdering a schoolgirl who was lured to an abandoned house, savagely beaten and sexually assaulted in a case that has horrified Ireland.
A judge in the central criminal court in Dublin on Tuesday sentenced one boy to life in detention, with the sentence to be reviewed after 12 years. The other received 15 years, with the sentence to be reviewed after eight years.
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