Dozens of previously high-profile politicians are waking up to the reality today that they are no longer TDs after a second successive general election saw a seismic shift in the Dáil landscape.

Services helping victims of domestic violence are crippled and can no longer meet the needs of women and children.

It took three days and 19 rounds of counting to elect five Wicklow TDs in 2011.

Tax breaks, reduced development levies, and reducing the cost of land for developers are some of the measures being considered by the Coalition to help tackle the housing crisis.

Adopted people and natural parents have given a cautious welcome to the Government’s proposed tracing and information legislation.

From the Teflon Taoiseach to the man who panicked FF with talk of a run for the Áras, Fiachra Ó Cionnaith looks back on Bertie’s adventures since his fall from grace

A rebel Labour TD has been re-admitted to the party in a move seen as an attempt to “circle the wagons” against expected heavy general election losses.

I read the article by Anne Ferris TD “Referendum is about respect for different family units” (Irish Examiner, April 6) . Obviously her opinions are influenced by her own experiences as a teenager.

This is about rejecting the 21st century cruelty that denies a child a mother or a father, through surrogacy writes Margaret Hickey

Anne Ferris says society shunning certain types of family unit is as wrong and potentially damaging as it was when her teen pregnancy was hushed up 40 years ago

More than one in five people kept in the direct provision refugee system have been there for at least seven years, an Oireachtas committee heard.

Cutting the period of bankruptcy back to a single year looks on the cards after Labour united around the move.

Hearings on potential legislation to allow for terminations for fatal foetal abnormalities are to be considered by the Oireachtas Health Committee following the latest Dáil row on abortion.

Environment Minister Alan Kelly is denying that party members are shaken after Deputy Anne Ferris lost the whip yesterday.

There seems to be more division in the Labour Party over the tabling of a bill to allow for abortion in the case of fatal foetal abnormalities.

Wicklow TD and Labour parliamentary vice-chair Anne Ferris’s party future was under threat since her decision two weeks ago — based on heartbreaking personal experience — to rebel against the Government’s redress scheme for women held in mother and baby homes.

Alan Shatter, the former justice minister, has waded into the latest row on abortion and declared that politicians can no longer hide behind emotive debate and must instead give people a referendum.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny was accused of condemning women to inhuman torture as the Coalition voted down proposals to allow terminations for fatal foetal abnormality cases in Ireland.

Clare Daly's amendment on abortion in the case of fatal foetal abnormalities has been defeated in the Dáíl this afternoon.

Labour TD Anne Ferris has said she is prepared to be thrown out of the Labour Party for voting in favour of Clare Daly's fatal foetal abnormality bill this evening.

Adoption campaigners are concerned that tens of thousands of unmarried women and girls whose children were forcibly or illegally adopted will be excluded from the upcoming mother and baby homes inquiry.

Tens of thousands of unmarried women and girls whose children are victims of serious human rights violations will be excluded from the upcoming mother and baby homes inquiry, it has been claimed.

Fine Gael has been accused of “running away” from pre-election public debates, after declining to take part in a series of TV3 constituency discussions.

Our outdated adoption laws must be changed to give people the right to their identity and treat everyone with the respect that they deserve writes Adoption Rights Alliance, Dr Aisling Parkes and Dr Simone McCaughren

Irish law should be changed to allow adopted children direct and unrestricted access to their birth parents, according to Philomena Lee, the Irish woman whose life-long battle to find her son has galvanised a worldwide movement for adoption rights.

A Government TD has said women whose children were put up for forced adoption are owed an apology by the State.

Philomena Lee, whose life story inspired the Oscar-nominated film, Philomena, will be one of the main speakers at a two-day adoption conference in UCC on September 4 and 5.

Government TDs have said the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador to Ireland should be considered as pressure mounts for an emergency Dáil debate on the Gaza crisis.

A TD has described the first time she set eyes on her sister after the two were separated as infants and adopted from different mother-and-baby homes into separate families.

The spotlight is now firmly fixed on Taoiseach Enda Kenny as he finalises the shake-up of his junior government ranks, writes Political Correspondent Shaun Connolly

Junior health minister Alex White’s late bid to lead Labour has been weakened after party TDs yesterday indicated their support for Social Protection Minister Joan Burton.

The Government has agreed not to oppose proposals for strict regulations on the location and operation of wind farms in plans put forth by Sinn Féin.

Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan and Ombudsman chairman Simon O’Brien could appear before an Oireachtas committee review of oversight laws.

Almost all Coalition TDs living in constituencies along Eirgrid’s proposed GridLink in the South and East of the country want a cost-benefit analysis done on running parts or all of the extension underground.

Victims of domestic and sexual violence are calling for a register of abusers to be set up to protect women from men with a history of abuse.

So a referendum on same sex marriage is being put before the people who never asked for it on the basis of a vote by a Constitutional Convention made up of 66 randomly selected citizens, two of whom happened to have been Labour local government candidates, a third a chairman of a Fine Gael party branch.

Picture the scene: A group of workers gather for a staff meeting.

The orders who ran the Magdalene laundries need to offer redress to the survivors, writes Anne Ferris.

A member of the Government has accused the Taoiseach of being anti-democratic, anti-politics and of populist nonsense over reforming politics, including planning to abolish the Seanad.

IRELAND’S answer to the Watergate scandal has revealed that some Labour Party TDs would prefer more liberal abortion legislation than that being drafted by the Government — and, in other news, the Pope is Catholic.

Junior transport minister Alan Kelly has denied that Labour wants to liberalise the laws on abortion in Ireland through stealth.

Last-minute talks between ministers in the Coalition have left both sides hopeful that agreed proposals on abortion legislation will be brought before Cabinet tomorrow.

The Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte says legislating for the X-case is as liberal as Ireland is going to get.

Reaction to the High Court ruling on surrogacy has been mixed with some groups hailing it as a breakthrough for children’s rights while others cautioned it could create as many problems as it solves.