A major surge is expected in bad loans as many businesses go under and homeowners struggle to pay their mortgage.

"After considerable reflection, I have taken the decision not to allow my name to go forward," Ged Nash announced this morning.

Fianna Fáil calls for Fine Gael to support it in government from the opposition benches have been dismissed as “arrogant” and “unworkable”.

That construction is to be funded by €16bn in cash held outside the annual spending budget in order to stay inside fiscal space guidelines.

Veteran Labour TD Brendan Ryan has decided to stand down from the party's General Election ticket in Dublin Fingal, to allow his parliamentary assistant Duncan Smith to stand in his place.

The Government suffered a blow after failing to win any seats in four byelections yesterday, while Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party celebrated their victories.

The Government has suffered a blow after failing to win any seats in four byelections which could provide clues before the whole country goes to the polls next year.

The Green Party is celebrating its first ever by-election victory in Dublin-Fingal after Joe O'Brien secured the seat vacated by Clare Daly after the eighth count.

With business exceedingly slow at polling stations yesterday, it is clear the four by-elections have not captured the public’s imagination.

The growing pains of this vibrant and bustling constituency are clear for all to see.

The Green Party expects to secure a sizeable chunk of the vote in the upcoming poll, says Elaine Loughlin.

The race to fill the seat vacated by Independents4Change TD Clare Daly in Dublin-Fingal on Friday, November 29 is shaping up to be a two-horse race.

Fianna Fáil senator and Fingal by-election candidate Lorraine Clifford-Lee will not be disciplined or demoted for tweets she posted before she entered politics, the party has said.

Labour party chairman Jack O'Connor has called for parties on the left to join forces as a general election looms in the New Year.

If, as is expected, Boris Johnson becomes the new Prime Minister this week, he will find himself engaged in a political fire-fight almost before he has even got his feet under the desk at 10 Downing Street.

The grand hypocrisy of the so-called hard left in Ireland was exposed this week, suggests Daniel McConnell.

Plans for a "drastic reduction" in the number of immigrants to the UK have been submitted to ministers and won backing from former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith.

€1.64b of cuts abandoned as public spending ‘under control’

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George Osborne’s budget and Duncan Smith’s resignation need careful scrutiny for their implications for Ireland, writes Kyran Fitzgerald.

Duncan Smith accuses leadership of attack on society’s vulnerable

The recent election result over the border and across the water came as quite a jolt to the pollsters and to a large section of the political class.

The parents of an Irish American US Navy Seal who was killed in action in Afghanistan a decade ago, and whose story inspired a Hollywood movie, have expressed delight at an Irish group’s decision to honour his memory.

If EU leaders back Jean- Claude Juncker for the post of European Commission president this week it would be "flicking two fingers" at voters across the continent who had expressed concerns about Brussels, said British MP Iain Duncan Smith.