Four high-profile resignations in the last couple of weeks, odds of a 2010 election being cut to 7/4 and James Downey on the radio this morning saying a trip to the polls before the Summer is likely -  is it time to order in the family-sized packs of Complan?

If not for the politicians (who are looking hagard at best), then for the correspondents and the politicial junkie bloggers and Twitterers?

Barely a day is going by without a national shitfit in the Houses of Oireachtas. Just before the explosive media feeding frenzy, the political news junkies were setting themselves up to track the passage of the Finance Bill 2010 through committee. Yesterday was supposed to be celebratory for the Greens, with a fresh-faced senator in the upper house – instead they lost a former leader and Junior Minister.

Who’s next and who’s up for Berocca?

Sunday Tribune

The Trib leads with an exclusive by Mark Hillard on how Irish donor kidneys were sent to the UK as acute bed shortages barred those organs being offered some 580 patients on the donor waiting list in Ireland.

Hillard writes:

It is believe to be the first time kidneys have been given away because of the inability to offer them to patients in Ireland.

The incident is understood to have led to angry exchanges between a top doctor and health minister Mary Harney, sparking a crisis meeting to ensure such a failure of life-saving is never repeated.

On the numbers and destinations of the kidneys:

The incident occured on 26 January when four kidneys and one pancreas became available for transplant. While two if the kidneys were used in the Temple Street Children’s Hospital, the other organs were sent via Beaumont Hospital to the United Kingdom Transplant Service.

The minor lead on the front of the Trib is on #glee. Jennifer Bray’s piece details how George Lee spent just a day working at BCP Stockbrokers in the late 1990′s before fleeing back to RTE.

There’s also an interesting piece in the Trib claiming that Ireland’s new European commissioner, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn is refusing to give up her €100,000+ pension as a former minister and TD. Her current job yields a salary of €238,000 plus pension.

#gleelovers be comforted by the fact that there’s loads to read on all of the papers this weekend.

Sunday Independent

A Sindo/Millward and Brown Lansdowne poll leads the Sindo. The poll reveals that a majority (62%) the electorate want a national all-party government to lead the country for the duration of the economic crisis.

The piece by Jody Corcoran goes on to look at the standing of the parties:

When the headline finding is broken down, it reveals that supporters of Fianna Fáil (66 per cent), Fine Gael (56%), Labour (64%), Green (50%) and Sinn Féin (64%) want a national all-party government.

The Sindo also has a frontpager by Ronald Quinlan reporting that Ryanair honcho Michael O’Leary has “slammed” the Tanaiste for “the loss of 500 engineering jobs which the low-cost carrier had intended to create at Dublin Airport”.

O’Leary shared correspondence with the Sindo that reveal:

… how Ryanair offered to take over the former SR Technics facility at Dublin Airport and reemploy 500 of the aircraft engineers who worked there before it closed last summer.

In making the offer, Ryanair’s only condition that Ms Coughlan, as Minister for Enterprise, or the IDA would act as intermediary with the Dublin Airport Authoriy (DAA) as it negotiated the lease of the former SR Technics hanger.

The minor lead in the Sindo by Jerome Reilly reports about how Gay Byrne has “taken a sideswipe” at Brian Cowen’s social habits saying he “should not be seen sitting on a high stool of his local pub sipping pints.”

More papers as they come to hand. Links go live to the pieces as their sites get updated.

Click through to see the liveblog frame!

Are we all sick of George Lee yet? Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. No?

The IIEA has removed an event with George Lee from its site. This popped into my feedreader yesterday via the IIEA events feed.

The IIEA Young Professional Network is a networking group established to

provide young, dynamic, future leaders from different backgrounds including the business and legal communities, the media, the public sector, NGOs and academia, among others, with access to leading thinkers, policy makers and business people from both Ireland and abroad

Bad timing for promoting the event, I guess. The link to the event has now been removed from the IIEA site. Any idea when this event was schedule to happen?

Actually, why did this event need to be canceled? Is it because of the strict RTE policy on balanced political discourse?

An evening with George Lee would be interesting even though he has moved on to greener pastures. Despite the national shitfit on Lee’s resignation that we’re wallowing in, the bigger questions on the economy and the quality of representation still abound. Couldn’t the IIEA event be changed to fit?

As you can imagine, the fingers of Press Officers everywhere are bleeding. I’ll post the press releases here as I get them.

Unfortunately as the Green Party keep forgetting to add me to their press list, we’ll just close our eyes and think of Dan Boyle. Any other pressers? Mail me!

Fianna Fáil

Statement by Fianna Fáil Senator Maria Corrigan

George Lee’s resignation from Dáil Eireann has come as a shock to the people of Dublin South today.

Politics is a difficult career path and never more so than now with the current difficulties facing the country. Progress at times can be difficult and slow, but it is possible to make a difference.

George is a bright person and he had a contribution to make. But it appears that Fine Gael is not an inclusive party.

They have already been dismissive of former esteemed party leaders Alan Dukes and Garret Fitzgerald, and now George.

It’s clear that Fine Gael has no genuine interest in economic policy.

I wish George and his family well for the future.

Ends