Opinion polls in the welter of accusations over whistleblowers are not a reliable guide to the outcome of an ensuing election, warns Gerard Howlin.

Razzamatazz came home this week when the IRFU launched its bid to host the 2023 World Cup.

The current political stalemate is not unique, suggests Ryle Dwyer, who argues the past may provide the solution.

The only combination that has nowhere near a majority is the outgoing Government, writes Fergus Finlay

Micheál Martin has categorically stated that he will under no circumstances enter a coalition with Fine Gael or Sinn Féin.

As leader of the Green Party, Eamon Ryan is looking to a general election campaign after five years on the sidelines, writes Alison O’Connor.

Struggling opposition party Renua is set to position itself as the ‘watchdog’ to larger political groups during the imminent general election in a bid to mirror the Progressive Democrats role in office.

A new book traces the rise of modern Sinn Féin and how it moved from supporting armed Republicans in the North to constitutional politics. It has gained the biggest dividend from peace, as Ryle Dwyer discovers.

Plans to impose water charges twice as costly as today’s rates were drawn up by the Fianna Fáil-led government months before the troika bailout, despite repeated claims that the system was only created to comply with EU demands.

Gender quotas will see more female election candidates in the field but not necessarily in the Dáil and the woman who spearheaded the policy, Joan Burton, could lose out in the capital’s battle royale, writes Shaun Connolly

Renua Ireland leader Lucinda Creighton says her party would be willing to consider entering a coalition after the next general election with Enda Kenny and Fine Gael.

There was an awareness of insolvency issues at Anglo at the time of its nationalisation, former Green leader John Gormley has insisted.

One of Ireland’s wealthiest boom-time developers and key Anglo customers has insisted “I too lost” because the crash forced him to emigrate to Switzerland and Abu Dhabi to repay debts.

WHETHER Lucinda Creighton’s Renua Ireland has the impact its supporters imagine it might have remains to be seen, but yesterday’s launch in Dublin was more an underwhelming, long-flagged formality rather than a spectacular challenge to the status quo.

Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald has appeared to rule out any post-general election coalition with Labour, in response to weekend criticism that her party is a “populist” group pretending to stand for leftist ideals.

CREDULITY is stretched to the limit by the inordinate length of time it will take beleaguered Irish Water to put the country’s banjaxed water system into something approaching working order. 

The head of the EU’s Economic and Financial Affairs has denied the group ever explicitly told Ireland that no bank should be allowed fail despite a long-standing belief this was the reason why Anglo Irish was bailed out.

Unrequited love is our theme today. My heart went out to Joan Burton yesterday morning. I hope you had the sensitivity to feel the same. 

RTÉ drama, Charlie, about the political career of Charles Haughey, has rewritten history with dramatic licence by showing the former taoiseach resigning not so much because of revelations over the phone-tapping scandal of a decade earlier but because of a threat that the full truth of his involvement in the 1970 arms crisis would be made public, suggests Caroline O'Doherty.

Time will tell whether Lucinda Creighton launched or misfired a new political party yesterday.

Independent TD Lucinda Creighton yesterday borrowed a technology metaphor when announcing she is to launch a new political party in the spring. Exhibiting evangelical zeal, Ms Creighton declared: “We want to reboot Ireland and we want those who are as passionate about this country as we are to join us on this mission”.

The deputy leader of Sinn Féin has claimed "household names" in the Progressive Democrats are among figures named in a dossier alleging tax evasion in politics.

Unlike many other recent political memoirs, this book pulls few punches and is an authentic transcription of the acuity, caustic manners and occasional bias of the man, writes Gerard Howlin

IS it just me, or has the political world gone mad? I’ve never seen so much invective heaped on a political leader, from outside and inside his own party. 

Albert Reynolds will be remembered not just for his conventional political failures in Ireland but equally for his success as a peacemaker and statesman, writes Gerard Howlin.

THOUGH his term of office as Taoiseach was one of the shortest, the contribution made by former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, who has died at the age of 81, to the making of an enduring peace on this island will go down in the pages of Irish and British history as one of the most important achievements of our time.

Regarding Mary Regan’s article on August 18 (‘Labour bounce could win 20 seats’), as a Labour supporter I am very glad to hear this. After the local elections I thought we were going the way of the PDs and Greens.

I’VE decided how I will vote in the Labour leadership elections. All these years a rank-and-file member, and now I have a say in who should lead my party.

FOR decades, Ireland had a pro-EU cartel at the centre of party politics.

Ray D'arcy returns with the series School Around the Corner on RTE One at 6.30pm tonight.

The reality of coalition government is well known to Labour. It has bounced back from the brink before, says Gary Murphy.

Voters are turning away from the main political parties, with Independent candidates more popular than ever, according to two weekend opinion polls which also point to disaster for Labour in the forthcoming elections.

DANIEL O’CONNELL never had it this good. The original purveyor of the monster meeting would have been astounded as to the quality of debate among those in attendance at Saturday’s gathering of the Reform Alliance in the RDS in Dublin.

Wonder of wonders, Fergus Finlay is acclaiming the departure of the Troika as an achievement of Government, and wonder of wonders, he blames Fianna Fáil for all our economic woes, and, oddly enough, I disagree with him — not on his broad assessments, but on the subtle context in which he places his political prejudices.

IS IT just me, or do you have a sense that we’re turning a corner? That, as a nation, we’re beginning to have reasons to be proud? That maybe, just maybe, we can make it after all?

A move to shut down some of the country’s 28 emergency departments has been signalled by Health Minister James Reilly.

WOULD we even notice if the Irish government shut down?

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has been challenged to promise he will reform the Seanad if its abolition is rejected by the people in October and to introduce radical political reforms.

EVEN his opposition to the Church, his statement that the constitution is “my book”, is less about social radicalism than pursuing by different means the constant interests of changing politics.