EACH WEEKDAY morning, TheJournal.ie brings you a comprehensive guide to what’s happening in the political world.

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Everyone’s talking about…

The Scottish referendum result, of course.

Final counts from all 32 council areas are now in — with the ‘no’ side polling 2,001,926 to the ‘yes’ camp’s 1,617,989. First Minister Alex Salmond has called on all of Scotland to accept the result — but says people will now expect promises from Westminster to be honoured. Politicians here have (for the most part) stayed very silent on the issue in the run-up to the vote, but the referendum was briefly discussed in Cabinet this week.

Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan said this morning that the Government would be “in close contact with London, Edinburgh and other administrations as discussions proceed on enhanced devolution for Scotland”.

In other news, we finally have a new US ambassador to Ireland, and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh has landed in Shannon this morning.

The agenda

• The Dáil and Seanad have adjourned for the week so there’s not much else happening politically.

What the others are saying 

• Sinn Féin councillors in Dublin have been advised by their strategists to back a contentious plan to house people in prefabs, the Irish Independent reports. 
• Staying with the Indo, the paper reports that Lucinda Creighton has been forced to resign as vice-president of Fine Gael’s European grouping, the EPP.
• There were some heated exchanges in the Seanad after David Norris described the 1916 leaders as ‘traitors’. The Irish Times has more details.

Inside Leinster House… 

A week on, the late night session at the Fine Gael think-in is still a topic of conversation around Leinster House. “Have you recovered yet?” one participant asked us as we passed each other in the halls yesterday. While one Labour joker suggested the antics of their coalition partners at Fota were grounds for pulling out of government. Surely Leo’s singing wasn’t that bad?

ICYMI 

• Ged Nash thinks there’s a strong argument for raising the minimum wage in years to come.
• Enda Kenny and Michael Noonan have been talking up some positive growth figures from the CSO.
• Leo Varadkar had some interesting things to say about the 1983 abortion referendum.
• Two days in and already the Ceann Comhairle is hacked off with rowdy TDs.

• In a surprise move, Fine Gael picked a losing local election candidate to be their next senator.
• The Taoiseach had some advice about how to conserve water.

Our most popular story yesterday was… 

The issue of water charges is taking centre stage as the new Dáil term gets under way. Micheál Martin and Joan Burton faced off on the issue in Leader’s Questions yesterday, with the Fianna Fáil leader appealing to the Tánaiste to clear-up confusion about billing…

Finally, on the Twitter machine

At least U2′s new album has one fan

Additional reporting, Daragh Brophy.

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