Politics

The seven-year presidency of Michael D Higgins will see transformations that he will not welcome, but which he will be powerless to influence. By Vincent Browne.

For the past 34 weeks, people in the north Cork village of Ballyhea have met up every Sunday and walked the length of the village in quiet protest at the decision to hold the Irish taxpayer liable for monstrous bank debts. Diarmuid O’Flynn is one of those who has marched in Ballyhea every Sunday for the past 34 weeks. He is now calling for people all over the country to down tools at noon next Tuesday (1 November) in protest at the $1bn unsecured, unguaranteed Anglo bond due to be paid the following day. Below, he explains why.

Week 25 of Dáil sittings since it began a lifetime ago in early March started with my day in the High Court with ACC on Monday, the operation on my shoulder in Beaumont on Tuesday, and back to the Dáil on Wednesday morning to challenge the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton on Ireland’s failed approach to job creation over the years. An extract from my address:

The last major opinion poll - the Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll - was published on Monday and showed Seán Gallagher with a strong lead. However, three online polls conducted after the final presidential debate tell a quite different story.

We are being asked to vote on Thursday on whether or not we should give the government further power by enabling it to hold inquiries into anything except its own conduct. We should say no. By Vincent Browne.

In the early days of the presidential race, Pat Kenny held an illuminating interview on the value of social media in an election campaign. On September 5, he interviewed Ewan McIntosh, a social media strategist who co-directed a “digital election arms race” that helped the Scottish National Party (SNP) sweep to an historic majority in May of this year. The strategy involved a “daily cycle of news", which "enthused volunteers" and "allowed people to feel ownership of the party”.

Siobhán Brett reports on Ireland's "first truly digital presidential debate", held this afternoon in Google's European HQ in Dublin.

We are lucky to have the option of voting for Michael D, given the calibre of the alternatives. By Vincent Browne.

Martin McGuinness is the best-qualified person to be president of Ireland. His first qualification, which distinguishes him from all the other candidates, is that he doesn’t want to be president, thereby confirming a psychological normality, which perhaps is an asset, even in the presidency.

Just six days from the 2011 Presidential election, Helen Lucy Burke has reignited the controversy surrounding comments made by David Norris on pederasty in a 2001 interview. Ms Lucy Burke provided audio tapes of the interview to RTE which were broadcast on the Joe Duffy show. [The audio is below].     

The 30th amendment to the Constitution, if approved, will give our politicians unprecedented power at a time when politics as a whole suffers from unprecedented cynicism. By Colin Murphy.

The amendment is designed, with good intent, to allow politicians hold inquiries into matters of public interest.