Labour has chosen two junior ministers to stand for the upcoming Seanad elections.

Labour’s Seanad nominees will be announced today as the party’s votes are counted.

A number of government ministers who lost their seats last weekend are planning to run for Seanad Éireann in next month's elections.

One of just eight constituencies to remain unchanged by the latest Constituency Commission, Meath West remains a three-seater.

Senior Government figures have insisted there are no plans to block people who fail to pay their Irish Water bills from receiving the €100 “water conservation” grant after backbench TDs strongly hinted at the move.

For the opposition, Irish Water is the gift that keeps on giving — even more so when that gift involves an internal Government row about giving €100 to people refusing to pay their charges.

Government and opposition parties have reacted with “revulsion” to the murders of 37 holidaymakers, including a mother of two from Ireland, at a beach-side Tunisian resort.

Anti-water charge demonstrators prevented two ministers from leaving a school as protest against the levy continued.

A Fine Gael TD has denied claims he was involved in a hit and run with a protester outside his constituency office in Meath in a demonstration over repossessions.

Rebel Fine Gael TDs opposed to the controversial abortion legislation are being “threatened” by senior party figures ahead of Wednesday’s crucial Dáil vote.

THE majority of TDs questioned for an Irish Examiner survey said they never sought nor had penalty points cancelled from their driving records.

A random audit of expenses of 12 members of the Oireachtas has led to €16,000 being handed back after it was found that some of the expenses claimed could not be properly accounted for.

The chaotic state of the college grant system was revealed yesterday amid warnings that students could be forced to drop out unless the backlog is cleared.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore launched a blistering attack on Fianna Fáil after the party warned it would table a motion of no confidence in Health Minister James Reilly.

There are “no knives” out for embattled Health Minister James Reilly, insisted a Labour Party Cabinet colleague last night, as opposition parties moved to try and oust him.

The country’s gone to the dogs, and a group of Fine Gael TDs are planning to follow the pack.

IT was a quiet rebellion with a little-known TD at its centre.

THE loss of two Fianna Fáil seats in Meath West, where Fine Gael won two, and the election of Meath’s first Sinn Féin TD since Liam Mellows in 1918, was the outcome of an astonishing count in this constituency.

With all bar four of the 43 constituencies in the General Election finished counting, the country’s political scene has undergone a sea change.

Former Minister for Tourism Mary Hanafin has failed to retain her seat in Dun Laoghaire. Richard Boyd Barrett won the seat, bringing the haul of seats for Independents and others to 17.

The election of Fine Gael's Mary Mitchell O'Connor in Dun Laoghaire brings to 141 the total number of seats filled so far (from a total of 166).

Fine Gael's Damien English is top with 9,290 votes in Meath West but has not reached the quota of 10,045.

Gaelic football star Graham Geraghty will run on the Fine Gael ticket at the next election in Meath West.