Stephen Spillane | The blog of a Technophile and Political Junkie with too much time on his hands

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Campaign For Children – Cork Meeting Wednesday 25th

January 24, 2012

Campaign For Children – Cork Meeting Wednesday 25th

The Campaign for Children will be holding a public meeting tomorrow, Wednesday 25th, at 6pm in the Geogrpahy Lecture Hall in UCC. It is part of a series of public meetings to inform people about the work of the campaign. The Campaign is chaired by Former Supreme Court Justice Catherine McGuinness. Its board also contains some influential people, including Fergus Finlay of Barnardos and Olivia O’Leary. The Campaign raises very important issues and more importantly has suggestions to how they should be solved....

Romney “wins” Iowa

January 7, 2012

Romney “wins” Iowa

A lot has been posted about Mitt Romney’s win of the Straw Poll at the Iowa Caucus on Tuesday night. While he beat Rick Santorum by 8 votes, how many of his supporters stuck around to be voted as...

Reaction to Budget 2012: Part 2

December 6, 2011

Reaction to Budget 2012: Part 2

Image via Wikipedia For Part 1 see here Minister for Finance Michael Noonan TD today announced the rest of Budget 2012. The main points are as follows: VAT: Raised by 2% to 23% 1.4c increase on Petrol 1.6c increase...

Reaction to Budget 2012: Part 1

December 5, 2011

Reaction to Budget 2012: Part 1

Today we got a look at the first part of Budget 2012 . Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin today announced a series of measures that add up to the €2.2bn in cuts. The main points that...

Wave Change Cork

November 22, 2011

Wave Change Participants

Over the 12th and 13th of November I spent time in the Cork School Music on the Wave Change programme from Social Entrepreneurs Ireland which I blogged about here. Over the two days there were speakers, such as Bill Liao and Myles...

First Junior Minister Resigns

November 15, 2011

First Junior Minister Resigns

Willie Penrose TD and Minister of State at Department of Environment, Community & Local Government with responsibility for Housing & Planning has resigned from the Cabinet and from the Labour Party. Penrose was a Super Junior Minister meaning he was...

Time for More Europe?

November 14, 2011

Time for More Europe?

A group of nine Spanish Bloggers have come together and written a Manifesto on things to improve Europe. There isn’t any political slant to this apart from trying to improve democracy within the European Union and improve the...

End of an Era

November 10, 2011

End of an Era

Tonight at midnight Mary McAleese finishes her Presidency after 14 years as President of the Republic of Ireland. While I do not remember much of her election or the campaign preceding it, I do have a memory of...

The Next Referenda

October 31, 2011

The Next Referenda

On Morning Ireland this morning Fianna Fail TD Dara Callaery suggested that the Government had a series of referendums planned for next year. The question is what will these be on? Two we know of. They are the...

EU split on Palestine

October 31, 2011

EU split on Palestine

Today’s vote at UNESCO’s General Conference on full membership for Palestine gives an idea of how a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) vote could go if the membership bid gets that far. More worrying for me is the complete...

The Count 2011!

October 28, 2011

The Count 2011!

Its all over. The candidates can lie in this morning as its now the turn of the political hacks who all across the country will be turning up to the count centres across the 43 constituencies to start tallying the Presidential Election....

Asking the Candidates: If elected will you continue to use Facebook/Twitter

October 19, 2011

Asking the Candidates: If elected will you continue to use Facebook/Twitter

After thinking about all the tweets and facebooking from the Irish Presidential Candidates, I decided to ask them if they would contine use Twitter/Facebook if they were elected President of the Republic of Ireland. I asked the question on...

Presidential Election Broadcasts – Mary Davis & Sean Gallagher

October 19, 2011

Presidential Election Broadcasts – Mary Davis & Sean Gallagher

A feature of any election campaign, is the election broadcasts. This year is no different. So far only broadcasts from Mary Davis and Sean Gallagher have been aired. I will endeavour to post the others as they are aired....

The Forgotten Referendums?

October 17, 2011

The Forgotten Referendums?

With all the focus on the Presidential Election on October 27th, the two Referenda on the Constitution seem to have slipped under the radar. At home we received the the Referendum Commission’s booklet to the referenda and much like...

Pollwatch: Sunday Business Post/Red C October 16th

October 15, 2011

Pollwatch: Sunday Business Post/Red C October 16th

Tomorrow the Sunday Business Post have a Red C poll for the Presidential Election. The comparison is with the Red C poll for Paddy Power on October 6th. The field work for this poll was done between Monday and...

Wave Change

October 13, 2011

Are you aged between 18-25? Do want to see Social Change in Ireland? Do you want to change something in Irish Society? Check out Wave Change. Wave Change is a new programme being launched by Social Entrepreneurs Ireland for 18-25...

Pollwatch: Catch up, October 6th Polls

October 11, 2011

Pollwatch: Catch up, October 6th Polls

Its been a busy week here and I have managed to miss to polls that were published last Thursday, the 6th of October. The first poll was in the Irish Times and was carried out by Ipsos MRBI. The...

Diary of A Canvasser: #Aras11 Edition

October 2, 2011

Diary of A Canvasser: #Aras11 Edition

As with every election campaign, I am out on the streets and talking up my preferred candidate or cause. This time out, just like with Lisbon 2, I have left Fine Gael behind to support a different group. If you weren’t...

The Presidential Debates

September 28, 2011

The Presidential Debates

As the Campaign gets under way the attention turns from the nomination process to the debates. RTÉ and TV3 have organisied debates on Radio and TV. No sign yet of an Irish Debate on TG4, or news if Newstalk...

David Norris is now an Official Candidate

September 27, 2011

David Norris is now an Official Candidate

Senator David Norris this evening secured his fourth and final nomination to contest the Irish Presidential Election. Dublin City Council joined Fingal County Council, Laois County Council and Waterford City Council and gave a nomination to the Senator. Senator...

Dana Rosemary Scallon is an Official Candidate

September 27, 2011

Dana Rosemary Scallon is an Official Candidate

This afternoon Dana Rosemary Scallon secured the nomination of her fourth council ens uring her appearance on the ballot paper on October 27th. Following on from the nominations yesterday from Carlow County Council and Roscommon County Council, Ms Scallon...

Timeline of Council Meetings Tuesday 27th and Wednesday 28th

September 27, 2011

Timeline of Council Meetings Tuesday 27th and Wednesday 28th

Eight councils are still to meet before the deadline at midday on Wednesday to discuss nominations for the Presidency. Below is the timeline of the council meetings and who they will be discussing. Both Senator David Norris and Dana...

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