Fine Gael and Labour’s parliamentary parties will be asked to agree to a general election voting pact at their upcoming think-ins in a Coalition bid to fight off growing political competition.

Labour edged a step closer to agreeing a vote-transfer pact with Fine Gael ahead of the looming election as Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan refused to rule out the contentious move.

After eight years, €64bn in bailout money, dozens of banking inquiry witnesses, and one hugely controversial blanket guarantee, former taoiseach Brian Cowen will finally give his side of the story on what caused the economic crisis.

TDs such as Stephen Donnelly and groups like People Before Profit look set for roles in any new government, writes Adrian Kavanagh

THE appalling vista for Fine Gael is that the ultimate outcome of the debacle involving Alan Shatter, Martin Callinan and An Garda Síochána will be that it allows Sinn Féin to make its most significant, strategic electoral gains yet in the Republic. Compared to the rise of Sinn Féin, the reputational decline of Shatter is small stuff.

What else can I be, all apologies?” Brian Cowen is hardly a fan of Kurt Cobain, but perhaps he empathises with the line from the Nirvana song, ‘All Apologies’.

Newstalk presenter Chris Donoghue battled cancer at 23, and the death of his mother when he was just 14, he tells Jonathan deBurca Butler

STRANGE times in Belgium as the country enters its 55th week without a Government and one of its few cultural exports, The Smurfs, are outed as racists.

FINE GAEL MEP and former GAA president Sean Kelly confirmed yesterday that he would not seek the party’s nomination to contest the Presidential election.

MY NAME is Caroline and I am a blogger.

BERTIE AHERN and Éamon de Valera share one incredible accomplishment — winning three successive elections for Fianna Fáil.

THE Labour Party has been derided for failing to produce viable economic policies, but voters do not appear to care.

THE US embassy in Dublin believed the Irish Government clampdown on the use of Shannon Airport for military flights was a political move to “dampen public criticism” ahead of the 2007 general election.

A former US Ambassador to Ireland believed the Government imposed strict military inspections at Shannon Airport over fears it would hurt them at the polls, leaked documents revealed today.

The Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern has announced that he will not be contesting the next General Election.

THE exit of Jim McDaid was in keeping with his career, his public persona and his political path. It left a bitter taste.

THE Health Service Executive (HSE) will not be proceeding with its planned €40 million redevelopment of Ennis General Hospital, it emerged yesterday.

“THIS is a big inconvenience for me.”

ONE of Fianna Fáil’s senior figures has said she has had enough of Ivor Callely’s antics and asked for a friend or family member to talk him into leaving politics and the party.

I USED to be an inveterate funeral goer – several per week. I hadn’t been to one for the past two years until the unexpected death of newspaper man and former schoolmate, Alan Ruddock.

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen has lashed out at those who rewrite history by seeking to selectively blame his term as finance minister for the economic crisis.

The Labour Party claimed today that its signing of a poll-topping independent councillor in Roscommon will help boost the party in the county.

The Labour Party will today unveil a new recruit - Independent Roscommon councillor John Kelly.

THOSE imagining any Sinn Féin Santa Claus would carry a Christmas box in one hand and an armalite in the other are clearly out of tune with the times.

MISSION Mary Lou, Sinn Féin’s campaign to move beyond its Provisional past, is in mortal danger.

“THE best fighter money can’t buy” was how Joe Higgins described himself on his black and white election posters scattered around Dublin in recent weeks.

ONCE again the trials of the tribunals have proved an election asset for those who have been dragged through it but still want to further their political careers.

THE legacy of the late Tony Gregory helped his election agent of more than 30 years, Maureen O’Sullivan, win his Dáil seat in the Dublin Central by-election – signalling the end of the Ahern-dominated era in the constituency.

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen retreated to the safety bunker of his native Offaly at the weekend where the Fianna Fáil local council vote increased while it was decimated in the rest of the country.

Turnout in the local and European elections could be as high as the general election two years ago, it emerged tonight.

THE Taoiseach’s response to the horrific findings of the Ryan report encapsulated many of the characteristics that have left him in so much trouble with voters — it was belated, ill-thought out and proved once again he is unable to read the public mood.

FIANNA FÁIL local election candidate John Sheehan quotes German physiologist Rudolph Virchow as a hook to hang his political ambitions on — “Politics is nothing more than medicine on a grand scale”.

THE number of seats up for grabs in this electoral area has increased from three to four a result of a boundary revision which saw the addition of Ballincollig.

THE major talking points in this area centres on a split in Fianna Fáil which saw the unprecedented defection of Deirdre Forde to Fine Gael.

FIANNA FÁIL has failed to disclose to the ethics watchdog tens of thousands of euro in corporate donations.

REFORMING the murky world of party political financing is often touted but rarely given serious consideration by elected groups content to keep their accounts secret.

In the first of a three-part series on Brian Cowen’s 12 months as the nation’s leader, Political Correspondent Paul O’Brien asks his friends and foes for their verdicts

The Labour Party tonight set down an ultimatum for the Government to hold a by-election in the constituency of the late Seamus Brennan by the start of the new year.

As the Dáil resumes after its 11-week summer break today, one TD called for a national conversation to plot a roadmap for the parliament in the 21st Century.

Cowen runs the risk of being seen by the public as the principal apologist for Ahern (with the obvious exception of Martin Mansergh) if he continues to defend the indefensible.

The Labour Party will begin to plan its future today after a disappointing General Election.

The first results of the 2007 general election will be compiled overnight and released on RTÉ tomorrow morning.

Beaumont Hospital was tonight finalising its contingency plans ahead of the notified work stoppage by nurses on Friday.

IT’S said that the best way of getting a story out is to tell a politician a secret.

COMMUNICATIONS Minister Noel Dempsey has become the second Fianna Fáil member of Cabinet to say he would have no difficulty holding talks with the Green Party in post-election coalition negotiations.

IRELAND’S economic performance could hardly be rosier, judging by yesterday’s buoyant Exchequer figures showing the Government coffers are €2.5 billion better off than even the most optimistic forecast.

LABOUR leader Pat Rabbitte’s high-risk strategy of forming an electoral pact with Fine Gael before the next general election last night received a significant endorsement from Ireland’s largest trade union.