Waterford

• No of Seats: 4
• No of Male Candidates: 14

Wexford

• No of Seats: 5
• No of Male Candidates: 13
• No of Female Candidates: 1
• Total number of GE11 candidates: 14
• No of TDs standing: 5
• No of Senators standing: 1
• No of Councillors standing: 3
• No of MEPs standing: 0
• Population (2006): 131749
• Population per TD: 26349.8
• Average Population per TD: 25541
• Variance (from average): 808.8
• % Variance: 3.17%
  

Wicklow

• No of Seats: 5
• No of Male Candidates: 22
• No of Female Candidates: 2
• Total number of GE11 candidates: 24
• No of TDs standing: 4
• No of Senators standing: 0
• No of Councillors standing: 7
• No of MEPs standing: 0
• Population (2006): 130,356
• Population per TD:  26,071.2
• Average Population per TD: 25,541
• Variance (from average): 530.2
• % Variance: 2.08%
  

Carlow-Kilkenny

• No of Seats: 5
• No of Male Candidates: 15
• No of Female Candidates: 4
• Total number of GE11 candidates: 19
• No of sitting TDs: 4
• No of sitting Senators: 1
• No of sitting Councillors: 6
• No of sitting MEPs: 0
• Population (2006): 133,745
• Population per TD*: 26,749
• Average Population per TD*: 25,541
• Variance (from average): 1,208
• % Variance 4.73%
  

The civil society group Claiming Our Future has launched a petition today demanding that political parties promote greater participation by women in politics.  [Pictured: The nine People Before Profit election candidates, four of which are women]

Limerick candidates from the larger parties have pulled an Enda Kenny by avoiding a public debate organised for the Pery Hotel Thursday evening at 7:30pm. (The debate will be streamed live on Politico.ie).

A spokesperson for the Claiming Our Future group of community and voluntary organisations said Sinn Fein's Cllr Maurice Quinlivan is the only elected politician so far to confirm he would be attending to set out his policies and take questions from the public.

A new website, launched tomorrow, Tuesday 8 February, will allow Irish emigrants to cast a symbolic vote in the Election 2011.

Ballotbox.ie will open for voting from Tuesday 15 February and will remain open until Tuesday 22 February. It will feature a full list of constituencies and candidates.

The Sunday Tribune newspaper, which has struggled financially for several years, has been placed in receivership. Dublin receiver firm McStay Luby was appointed yesterday (February 1), the company announced.

The move was precipitated by Independent News & Media (INM), which owns 29.9 per cent of the Tribune - the upper limit imposed by a 1992 Ministerial Order intended to prevent INM from gaining full control of the newspaper.

"Government policy has been increasing the income of the richest ten per cent of households and widening the gap between these and the rest of society", a study by Social Justice Ireland reports. The report predicts that current Government policy will "produce a dramatic increase in poverty and social exclusion".

(Pictured: Sean Healy of Social Justice Ireland. Download the report by clicking here)

Below is a Wordle infographic of Micheal Martin's statement yesterday on becoming eighth leader of Fianna Fail. It highlights  the words used most by Mr Martin in his speech. 'Party' is the word used most in the speech, followed by 'election', 'country' and 'politics'. The text of the speech (from Micheal Martin's website) appears here: