From November 7th Gay and Bisexual men in England, Scotland and Wales will be able to give blood. Any Gay or Bisexual Man who has not had homosexual sex in 12 months will be able to give blood. While its not the most ideal of situations, it is better then a blanket ban on gay and bisexual men. Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service national director Keith Thompson said: “We are pleased that this new donor selection criteria has been...
This morning I awoke to the sad news that former Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald had passed away. “Garret the Good” as he was known was always someone held in high regard in my family. He is one of the Giants of Irish Politics. He gave his all to Irish Politics and was a shining example of active citizenship in this country. He was the founding fathers of Young Fine Gael as part of his reorganisation of Fine Gael in 1977....
This year the people of Northern Ireland will go to the polls to elect 108 MLA’s to the Northern Ireland Assembly on May 5th. The current standings of the parties are as follows: Democratic Unionist Party: 36 Sinn Fein: 27 Ulster Unionist Party: 18 Social Democratic and Labour Party: 16 Alliance Party: 7 Green Party: 1 Independents: 5 The campaign is well under way since the Assembly was dissolved on 24th of March and a number of issues have...
Image via Wikipedia This Evening the House of Commons will be debating the Loans to Ireland Bill which will allow the United Kingdom to give a loan of £3,250 million to Ireland. The plan is that the bill will finish off all stages today. It will pass the Committee stage in the whole House. Already today the issue has been raised four times in the House of Commons. The first time by Mark Reckless, MP for Rochester and Strood,...
Image via Wikipedia A statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt. Hon. Mr George Osborne. From Hansard: With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a statement regarding financial assistance for Ireland.I hope Members will understand that an announcement had to be made at the weekend, ahead of markets opening this morning. Last night, I spoke to the Chair of the Treasury Committee and the shadow Chancellor to keep them informed of the latest developments. The...
Image by fatedsnowfox via Flickr So tomorrow will see the polls opening for the UK General Election. I have been following the campaigns in my spare time but not really blogging about it. Mainly as I didn’t know where I stood. I do now. I am hoping for a Liberal Democrat surge tomorrow. But enough of who I want to do well, on to some predictions. Some of these are random, others are obvious. I will be up late...
Image by Iabcstm via Flickr A bit late in the day then normal but still at least its getting done! A friend has started blogging and she takes a look at racism in Ireland Jason O’Mahoney has the improved Spoofers Guide to the Lisbon treaty Beruit is getting on the Map, the openstreet map that is. Cool idea Joe points out that us Eurobloggers are suffering an identity crisis! Welcome to NAMAland Why we love google, twitter and texting,...
I put a post up on think about it website about the European Elections in Northern Ireland. To me, Northern Ireland is going to be one of the interesting constituencies in Ireland and UK where recent events and changes to parties and the split to the Unionist vote. Its all going to ve very interesting! Something that seems to have escaped mention on this blog is the change that could come about in Northern Ireland during the European Elections...
Sir Reg Empey leader of the Ulster Unionist Party recently gace a speech to the UUP AGM back at the end of last month. Now I did not see this being reported in the mainstream media, which is shocking as it is an excellent speech on the future for the UUP and unionism in general in Northern Ireland. I found it via the UUP page on facebook. The speech was excellent and will make me listen very carefully to...
Via Gay.com Northern Ireland is “ the hate capital of the West”, according to new university research, with an astonishing 44% of its citizens proving disturbingly homophobic. The research from University of Ulster, to be published in economics journal Kyklos, said that Northern Ireland matches Greece in their significant animosity toward gays and immigrants. Vani Borooah, Professor of Applied Economics of University of Ulster and John Mangan, Professor of Economics at the University of Queensland collaborated in the study,...
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