Article Category: Last Refuge

SF’s right to choose

February 8, 2018
LOUISE O’REILLY’S compliment to Leo Varadkar’s statement on the referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment was apt but surprisingly amicable coming from a Sinn... Read more »

McDowell v Ross

February 8, 2018
LEGAL EAGLES can be as bitchy as politicians when they fall out and former justice minister Alan Shatter – a mere solicitor – was... Read more »

MATTIE McGRATH’S LEGION OF THE REARGUARD

January 25, 2018
FRESH from his mischief making at the Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment, Mattie McGrath is now creating discord in Fianna Fáil following Micheál... Read more »

LEO THE PROVO

January 25, 2018
SURPRISINGLY little comment followed the sharply contrasting responses in the Dáil from Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin to blundering Sinn... Read more »

Israeli Embassy

January 25, 2018
THE withdrawal of the Israeli Embassy from Dublin indicates just how ineffective the government’s softly-softly diplomacy on recognition of the Palestinian state has been.... Read more »

SAVING PASCHAL DONOHOE

January 25, 2018
THE recent nomination of Mary Fitzpatrick as sole Fianna Fáil candidate in Dublin Central at the next general election marked the final rout of... Read more »

Taking on Michael Twee

January 11, 2018
THERE will be a presidential contest, regardless of current incumbent Michael D Higgins’ agenda, and Fianna Fáil will face unbearable pressure from its members... Read more »

NIMBY: NOT IN MURPHY’S BACK YARD

January 11, 2018
FRESH from the PR blunder of Conor Skehan’s reappointment as chair of the Housing Agency, the minister for housing, Eoghan ‘Tory Boy’ Murphy, has... Read more »

MICHAEL NOONAN’S LEGACY

January 11, 2018
DESPITE Fine Gael’s national poll lead, Fianna Fáil apparatchiks claim that polls on the ground in various constituencies show seat gains for the party... Read more »

MARTIN TO PULL PLUG?

January 11, 2018
THE chances of an early election have been dismissed by all and sundry in the media/political bubble, but the debate inside Fianna Fáil still... Read more »

GLOVES OFF IN THE DAIL BAR

December 14, 2017
WHO needs a Strategic Communications Unit (SCU) when the Fine Gael press office is so adept at the dark art of media spin against... Read more »

PROVOS V FRANCES

December 14, 2017
FRANCES FITZGERALD was forced to resign by Fine Gael TDs withdrawing their support rather than the pious claims of acting in the national interest... Read more »

Billy Timmins’s return

December 14, 2017
BILLY TIMMINS re-entry to Fine Gael has upset calculations in Wicklow and may prove to be particularly upsetting to local junior minister, Andrew Doyle.... Read more »

PESCO PARANOID NEUTRALITY PESTS

December 14, 2017
THE government’s decision to join Pesco, the EU’s Permanent Structured Cooperation (a military alliance but not an army at all, at all), has been... Read more »

COVETOUS CORK BLUESHIRTS

November 30, 2017
THAT most earnest of journalists, Newstalk’s Chris Donoghue, has joined equally earnest foreign minister Simon Coveney as special adviser and his responsibilities will be... Read more »

MICHEÁL MARTIN GETS OUT OF JAIL

November 30, 2017
THE discovery of documents buried within the justice department and which destroyed Frances Fitzgerald saw Micheál Martin leap from bungling Fianna Fáil leader to... Read more »

Alan Kelly’s leadership race

November 30, 2017
THE Frances Fitzgerald/Maurice McCabe crisis threatened the leadership of both Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin in the event of poor results for either in... Read more »

Fine Gael’s military ambitions

November 30, 2017
TUCKED away on page 7 of The Irish Times recently readers of the paper of record were informed in a short article of the... Read more »

MICHAEL McDOWELL GIRDS HIS LOINS

November 2, 2017
SEANAD leader, Fine Gael’s Jerry Buttimer, was quick to point out to the House that Michael McDowell had recently circulated a full colour brochure... Read more »

Letters to the Editor

November 2, 2017
Dear Editor In your edition (20th October) you suggested that I have “flitted around the Left, including Sinn Féin, in recent years but always... Read more »

Little Confidence

November 2, 2017
MICHEÁL MARTIN and the Fianna Fáil leadership have become increasingly anxious to reassure Fine Gael ministers that the party will adhere to the confidence... Read more »

VARADKAR WHIPS RINGER INTO LINE

November 2, 2017
HAVING finally made it into cabinet as rural affairs minister, Michael Ring has become disillusioned to the point of rebellion against his new leader... Read more »

TERRY LEYDEN’S DYNASTY BID

November 2, 2017
SENATOR Terry Leyden (aka El Tel) is busy master minding what he describes as the saving of the single Fianna Fáil seat – held... Read more »

VLAD’S EYES AND EARS

October 19, 2017
CONGRATS to the universally liked former senator Jim D’Arcy, who has been appointed to the role of northern advisor to Leo Varadkar, working out... Read more »

Labour Poll

October 19, 2017
LABOUR’S latest poll rating (4%) will have disappointed SIPTU boss Jack O’Connor, not merely because he is party chairman but also because he plans... Read more »

MARTIN FLEES FROM VARADKAR

October 19, 2017
FIANNA FÁIL ard fheis delegates and the media have been obsessing about the wrong argument inside the party. The real debate is not about... Read more »

15 EXTRA FINE GAEL SEATS?

October 19, 2017
IT was no accident that Leo Varadkar told the Fine Gael think-in that Tipperary is the party’s number one on a list of targeted... Read more »

Ogle’s New Party

October 5, 2017
BRENDAN OGLE’S putative plans for a new quasi party or movement of the Left are well advanced. Resources have been secured from his union,... Read more »

ZAPPONE ON THE MOVE AGAIN?

October 5, 2017
WHAT a dependable and supportive cabinet member the ‘Independent’ minister for children, Katherine Zappone, is turning out to be as her weekend remarks on... Read more »

FIANNA FÁIL AND THE NORTH

October 5, 2017
THE Vlad v. Mary Lou WWE show in the Dáil is the latest blood sport to grip the body politic. It is working out... Read more »

DARA MURPHY’S EURO JOB

October 5, 2017
THE post of director of elections for the European People’s Party (EPP) at the European elections in 2019 sounds like a most responsible position,... Read more »

FF TARGET TEN DUBLIN SEATS

September 21, 2017
IF the latest Sunday Times poll (Fine Gael 33%/Fianna Fáil 25%) was to translate into real electoral figures then Fianna Fáil could forget about... Read more »

MARTIN WILL DEAL WITH SINN FÉIN

September 21, 2017
MICHEÁL MARTIN delivered yet another thundering disavowal of any coalition deal with Sinn Féin at this week’s Fianna Fáil think-in in Longford. But his... Read more »

WILD COLONIAL MINISTER

September 21, 2017
JUNIOR minister, Brendan Griffin, has played a blinder in the last few years, starting with a selfless public gesture on his first general election... Read more »