Ireland

DUBLIN, Feb 21 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ireland’s Fianna Fail will start formal talks next week to try to form a government from a fractured parliament as contenders for prime minister fell well short of doing so at the first sitting since the Feb 8 election.

Left-wing nationalists Sinn Fein shocked the establishment by securing the most votes but ran too few candidates to win the most seats, instead leaving it, centre-right Fianna Fail and Prime Minister Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael each controlling just under a quarter of the parliament.

DUBLIN, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- The newly formed lower house of the Irish parliament failed to elect a new prime minister for the country during its first sitting held here on Thursday, reported Irish national radio and television broadcaster RTE.

None of the candidates nominated by the country's four largest political parties won the minimum required quota of the votes from all the 160 members of the lower house, who participated in Thursday's voting, said the report.

DUBLIN, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- Sean O Fearghail has been re-elected as speaker of the lower house of the parliament of Ireland, lower house clerk Peter Finnegan announced here on Thursday.

O Fearghail received 130 votes, while his sole competitor, Denis Naughten, an independent member of the lower house, received 28 votes, said Finnegan, adding that the minimum vote required was 80.

According to Finnegan, all 160 newly elected members of the lower house participated in the secret ballot held on Thursday afternoon. A total of 158 votes were declared valid.

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, whose Fine Gael party came a narrow third in national elections at the weekend, said that while the poll had transformed politics, there was an obligation on all parties to deliver political stability.

The left-wing Sinn Fein Irish nationalist party surprisingly secured the most votes, marginally ahead of the center-right Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, with weeks of negotiations likely needed to cobble together a majority in a fractured parliament.

11 February 2020; AFP: Sinn Fein on Tuesday became Ireland's second largest parliamentary party after winning the popular vote in a weekend election -- shattering the political landscape and thrusting the one-time fringe party with historic links to paramilitaries into a likely role in the next government.

DUBLIN, Feb 9 (NNN-XINHUA) – The 2020 general election in Ireland, kicked off at 7:00 a.m. local time (0700 GMT) on Saturday as scheduled, with the participation of a record number of female candidates.

Out of 515 candidates, who are either fielded by different political parties or running as independents, more than 160 are women, reported local media, adding that, this is the first general election in the country, in which there is a female candidate running in every constituency.

DUBLIN (AP) — Ireland’s three biggest political parties are likely to face a difficult process of forming a new government, with an exit poll suggesting they finished in a virtual dead heat in parliamentary elections Saturday.

The survey conducted for national broadcaster RTE, the Irish Times, TG4 television and University College Dublin by pollster Ipsos MRBI said the Fine Gael party of Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein all got about 22% of first preference votes.

04 Feb 2020; MEMO: Leading Irish political parties, Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil, have published election manifestos which support the adoption of the Occupied Territories Bill in Ireland.

DUBLIN, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- Brexit provides an "opportunity of a lifetime" to unite the island of Ireland and transform the country, said an Irish political party leader here on Friday.

The remark was made by Mary Lou McDonald, leader of the Irish third largest political party Sinn Fein, while speaking at the Institute of International and European Affairs in Dublin, according to local media RTE.

DUBLIN (Reuters) - The European Union and Britain are further apart in rhetoric than substance as they begin future trade talks, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said ahead of Britain’s departure from the bloc on Friday.

The United Kingdom leaves the European Union on Friday for an uncertain Brexit future, the most significant change to its place in the world since the loss of empire and a blow to 70 years of efforts to forge European unity.