The Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny has said the New Year will bring hope, possibility and confidence to Ireland as the country enters its presidency of the European Union.
 
Kenny said the presidency will bring hope and confidence to people of Ireland by delivering jobs, stability and economic growth.
 
He said “We all know too well here in Ireland the huge sacrifices the crisis has meant. The people of Europe and Ireland need to know and need to see there is progress being made. That there is a next step to recovery.”
 
The Irish leader was joined by the Deputy leader Eamon Gilmore and Minister of State for European Affairs Lucinda Creighton at a special flag-raising ceremony at Dublin Castle, to mark the beginning of Ireland's six-month term.
 
Kenny insists that stronger relations with EU member states would lead to a brighter future for Ireland.
 
He said “The Irish presidency in 2013 will be about three crucial words: stability, jobs and growth.
 
"There are real actions to back up those three words. We will be in the business of solution, a recovery country, driving recovery in Europe."
 
The ceremony at Dublin Castle marked the beginning of Ireland’s seventh presidential term, honored the incoming European Year of Citizens and celebrates 40 years since Ireland entered the EU in 1973.
 
Kenny said “Let this presidency and the new year, this European year of the citizen, bring new hope, new possibility and new confidence to our peoples…And above all, may it find that, together, this family of Europeans, we are making a richer and more sustainable future for all our peoples.”

A new Millward Brown poll in Sunday’s Independent has found that only 11 percent of people polled would choose a Fine Gael / Labour coalition should a general election be called.

Prime Minister Enda Kenny has told Europe’s power brokers that Ireland may be over the worst of the recession.

Support for Fianna Fail is way up according to the latest Sunday Times/Behaviour & Attitudes opinion poll.

New York Senator Chuck Schumer said he and his fellow Senators who support immigration reform believe 2013 will be the year Congress “finally gets it done.”

The policeman who witnessed the callous murder of detective Adrian Donohoe has vowed to catch his killers.

Irish government ministers have admitted to ‘difficulties’ in their bid to renegotiate the terms of the bank bailout deal with the European Central Bank.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny will hear demands for a state apology when he meets survivors of the Magdalene Laundries on Monday.

Irish leader Enda Kenny and President Michael D Higgins led tributes to Pope Benedict XVI after he announced his retirement on Monday.

Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny has promised to deliver an apology on behalf of the state to survivors of Magdalene laundries run by religious orders following a meeting with a representative organization on Monday.

Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore has been calling American politicians hoping to put the pressure on to create a deal in the US for illegal Irish immigrants.

It was confirmed earlier this week that 16 of Ireland’s ministers will be heading abroad for St. Patrick’s Day to promote the message that “Now is the time to invest in Ireland’s recovery.”

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny is to raise the plight of undocumented illegal immigrants when he meets President Obama on Tuesday.

Check out the slideshow of the history here

The Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny said the reconstruction of the Twin Towers site is “symbolic of the path Ireland is taking” on its path to economic recovery.

TD Denis Naughten slammed the Irish government and their abundant loopholes that have making Ireland a “safe haven” for pedophiles.

Vice President Joe Biden will visit Ireland this year, he told Irish leader Enda Kenny at a St.Patrick’s week breakfast yesterday at the vice presidential residence.

Two new opinion polls have offered differing views of the current state of the government parties in Ireland – with one suggesting as many as 50 Fine Gael and Labor Party deputies would lose their seats in a snap election.

Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore may face a threat to his position after the Meath East by-election which saw Helen McEntee win her late father Shane’s seat.

The report into the death of Savita Halappanavar will be handed over to the attorney acting on behalf of her husband Praveen on Good Friday.

Sinn Fein leaders have warned Dissident Republicans to lay down their arms – and claimed the Irish and British governments are treating the peace process with complacency.

US vice-president Joe Biden will tee it up with Irish PM Enda Kenny in his native Mayo this August – with a stop-off in Dublin along the way.

The Irish Independent reports that keen golfer Biden has accepted Fine Gael leader Kenny’s offer to visit Ireland this summer.

The Irish government has been urged to call a referendum as quickly as possible after the constitutional convention voted overwhelmingly in favor of extending marriage rights to same-sex couples.

A junior jobs minister in Ireland has been harshly criticized after he claimed that many Irish were "emigrating by choice."

Ireland’s Prime Minister Enda Kenny has ruled out a fresh referendum on the abortion debate.
As his government collates new laws on the issue, Kenny has ruled out the need for a national ballot.

Irish people living in the countryside should be allowed to apply for a gun license to protest themselves and their property, according to a Kerry TD.

The Irish government will seek to allow abortion in limited circumstances in Ireland when the life of the mother is in danger or when she is suicidal. However, the bill does not include rape or incest among the reasons for allowing an abortion.

Ireland’s leader Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Jobs Minister Richard Bruton have announced that Squarespace, the leading all-in-one website publishing platform, plans to establish its EMEA Headquarters in Dublin along with the creation of 100 new jobs.

Anti-abortion Catholic activists in the U.S are being asked to target Boston College (BC) and try to stop Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny as commencement speaker at the Jesuit-run Boston College on May 20. There seems a real prospect of large demonstrations by anti-abortion groups at the event.

Fine Gael party chairman Charlie Flanagan has compared anti-abortion extremists to the Ku Klux Klan is response to Fine Gael TDs being personally targeted by the campaigners.

Ireland’s Prime Minister Enda Kenny has responded to threats from the Catholic Church over the abortion debate – and reminded Cardinal Sean Brady that he has a duty to legislate for limited abortion.

A Boston College spokesman has been forced to defend and justify their selection of Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny as the commencement speaker after hearing criticism from Catholic groups over his stance on Ireland abortion law reform debate.

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley is to boycott Irish Prime minister Enda Kenny’s visit to Boston College over Ireland’s move to legislate for abortion.

Former Irish Prime Minister John Bruton has attacked President Michael D Higgins’s call for an end to austerity – as he enjoys a near $200,000 state pension.

Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s decision to boycott next Monday’s Boston College commencement because of Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny’s invite has been highly criticized by key members of the local media.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny recently praised astronaut Chris Hadfield for his pictures of Ireland taken from Space.

Irish leader Enda Kenny has rejected claims made by the Archbishop of Dublin that the proposed new abortion bill for Ireland will give less rights to an unborn child especially in cases where terminations are allowed because of suicide fears for the mother.

Anti-abortion groups have again targeted Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny and Boston College where he will be commencement speaker on Monday pointing to a Planned Parenthood statement praising him.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny has praised the courage, dignity and strength of Bostonians as the city recovers from the horrors of the marathon bombing.

Boston College: Enda Kenny, Ireland’s Taoiseach (Prime Minister), will give the Commencement Address to Boston College’s 4,400 graduates at Alumni Stadium this morning.
 
In the three years since coming to power, Kenny has looked to build a “Republic of laws,” a Republic that many Irish expatriates in the US—myself included—identify with because it closely mirrors the society in which we now live, a society where the letter of the law rather than the unspoken assumption of a doctrinaire moral code determines social policy.
 
Savita Halappanavar is a victim of that moral code and social policy. Mrs. Halappanavar died of sepsis, an infection brought on by the miscarriage of her seventeen-week pregnancy, in a Galway hospital on 28th October 2012. Her grieving husband described the medical treatment meted out to his wife as “horrendous, barbaric and inhumane.” To read the “Timeline” of his wife’s eight-day ordeal, based on evidence presented at the week-long official inquest, induces shame and anger. A young healthy woman fell victim to a lack of political will.
 
Enda Kenny outlined his vision for a very different Ireland during a Dáil Éireann speech in July 2011 when responding to the publication of the Cloyne Report. Like earlier reports—Murphy, Ryan, and Ferns—Cloyne echoed the well established narrative of clerical child sex abuse and confirmed the Catholic hierarchy’s failure to report such abuse to the civic authorities. The Bishop in question observed the dictates of the Vatican rather than the law of the land.
 
But Cloyne was of a different order too. It detailed how the Vatican deliberately organized to frustrate an Irish State-commissioned inquiry into clerical child sex abuse as recently as 2009. In an unprecedented move, Mr. Kenny, a devout Catholic, entered the Dáil chamber, the seat of political power in Ireland, and called the Vatican to account. And, he declared the primacy of the State’s standards, not those of the Catholic Church, in all matters related to the protection of Ireland’s children.
 
The “Cloyne speech” represents a watershed moment because it encapsulates a new vision for the nation:

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny has said Cardinal Sean O’Malley is entitled to his opinion on abortion – as protesters prepare to voice their opposition to his visit to Boston College.