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Post by annie on Mar 11, 2024 0:41:40 GMT
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Mar 11, 2024 9:35:48 GMT
In this case, common sense prevailed. Though the government threw away €20 million
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Mar 12, 2024 11:59:18 GMT
Call it Schadenfreude if you will, but reading commentary in The New York Times, The Guardian and Le Monde and similar outlets after the Irish political or media establishment gets something like this so badly wrong never fails to draw a smile.
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 14, 2024 0:47:17 GMT
Politics.ie makes interesting reading. The political establishment are treated as a laughing stock, and some of the most vehement feminist posters are arguing amongst themselves over the referenda. Would that this vote had been on abortion, to paraphrase Sarsfield.
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 15, 2024 1:05:12 GMT
Lisa Chambers' attempts to declare that she was against the amendments even when she was for them, and that when she said she favoured removing references to motherhood from the constitution she in fact meant that such references should be retained, are all too evident of the quality and moral fibre of our political classes. I shudder when I think what may be waiting in the wings to replace them.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Mar 15, 2024 11:51:03 GMT
Lisa Chambers' attempts to declare that she was against the amendments even when she was for them, and that when she said she favoured removing references to motherhood from the constitution she in fact meant that such references should be retained, are all too evident of the quality and moral fibre of our political classes. I shudder when I think what may be waiting in the wings to replace them. Senator Chambers looks bad - but she did say that what convinced her to flip was the leaked Attorney General's advice which she only would have seen with everybody else when it was leaked to the Ditch on 7 March. This may or may not be true. A better illustration of Fianna Fáil is Niamh Smyth, TD for Cavan-Monaghan, who actively canvassed for a yes-yes vote and announced she actually voted no-no in the polling booth.
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 20, 2024 21:21:53 GMT
It seems that the referenda have not been completely useless - we're rid of Varadkar whose flip-flop on abortion has had and is having such awful consequences. No doubt Fine Gael will find someone worse to succeed him, insofar as that is possible. Put not your trust in princes.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Mar 21, 2024 9:49:17 GMT
It seems that the referenda have not been completely useless - we're rid of Varadkar whose flip-flop on abortion has had and is having such awful consequences. No doubt Fine Gael will find someone worse to succeed him, insofar as that is possible. Put not your trust in princes. Though Fine Gael are doing either equal to or better than Fianna Fáil in the polls, this ignores the fact Fianna Fáil tend to do worse in polls than elections - there is a shy Fianna Fáil vote out there. The fact that 10 Fine Gael TDs have already indicated that they are not standing indicated that something is going on under the radar, and it's more than just locally, because these TDs are all over the country - Joe McHugh (Donegal), Fergus O'Dowd (Louth), Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North), John Paul Phelan (Carlow Kilkenny - the name alone will hint he's relatively young, actually born in John Paul I's pontificate), Ciarán Cannon (Galway East), Brendan Griffin (Kerry). Most of these are relatively young men. I think the referenda was perceived as low hanging fruit and turned out to be otherwise and that someone called Leo in and told him that his position was untenable. It wasn't because of pressure in the party - Fine Gael no more than the other parties is not brimming with talent. Simon Coveney shares a constituency with the Fianna Fáil leader. Paschal Donohue may be seen as a safe pair of hands, but before going into how uninspiring he is, he's not in a safe seat in Dublin Central. Simon Harris is a college drop out which is not something which will go unmentioned in a party leader (I thought it was satire when they made him Minister for Higher Education. To be honest, I'd have more confidence in the Monaghan Presbyterian, Heather Humphries, than any of them and Leo handed her a poison chalice by making her director of the FG Referendum campaign at which case she more or less disappeared. Leo himself has had a very insipid political career and the fact he got so far in the 20 years between his election to Fingal County Council (or was it Dublin City Council?) in 2004 to his resignation yesterday is not indicative of his talent, but rather the lack of talent in politics in general. He certainly flipped on a lot more than abortion - it's impossible to see the brash Tory boy that Goldvulture depicted in the office holder. In regard to his tenure, I believe that there are only two issues that Leo is going to be lauded as successful on - Brexit and Covid. I absolutely don't accept the latter was a success. Just compare the outcome in Ireland to Sweden and also look at Leo's personal behaviour - the lark in the park, Zapponegate and the Mighty Whoopla concert. Personally, my problem with Leo, as with Boris Johnson, is less their personal conduct as the fact it took place when they were bringing the jackboot down on everybody else in a manner which Scandanavia in general shows to have been unnecessary. There are less kudos for a post-Covid recovery which I believe to be very hollow when the lockdown is subject to questioning. In regard to Brexit, I believe it is much to early to say if it is a success or failure (at the risk of sounding like Zhou En-lai). Now that the DUP is using an offensive of charm and there's a potential of a mixed bag of populist right wingers forming a substantial block in the next European parliament which is coming soon. With reference to Fine Gael, I would be watching the direction their Christian Democratic partners take in the coming month - it's not beyond the imagination that this was why Leo had to go too.
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Mar 22, 2024 11:20:35 GMT
It seems that the referenda have not been completely useless - we're rid of Varadkar whose flip-flop on abortion has had and is having such awful consequences. No doubt Fine Gael will find someone worse to succeed him, insofar as that is possible. Put not your trust in princes. I can't believe people can even imagine that Simon Harris is Taoiseach-material.
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 23, 2024 0:41:36 GMT
It was an Irishman who asked "Must a Christ die in every age for those who have no imagination?" I can think of quite a few disasters of recent decades that seemed unimaginable until they happened, and even afterwards. Simon Harris's record of hypocrisy on abortion makes him a worthy successor to Leo, in the bad sense. I predict that he will be Fine Gael's answer to Biffo.
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Mar 26, 2024 15:41:29 GMT
I think Fine Gael is facing a massive challenge just from the leakage from their parliamentary party. They are doing badly in the polls and more than a third of their Dáil party choose not to contest the election. To make up this deficit is more than a tall order. In this scenario, the best Fine Gael can do is win a few new seats - but they are still looking at a net loss.
Fianna Fáil may not see this directly, but it is suffering demographically and Micheál Martin has failed the party.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Apr 2, 2024 10:52:29 GMT
I see Simon Coveney is stepping down from the cabinet. Something is going on in Fine Gael and it doesn't look good. I think it confirms Hibernicus' analysis.
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Post by Devotus Immaculatae on Apr 2, 2024 20:32:59 GMT
With their assigned agendas and tours of duty now accomplished as prefects of the backwater province of Ireland, and several different golden ministerial pensions each, safely under their belts, it’s off to more important jobs in the EU, UN and international circuits before too much comes to light.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 4, 2024 21:16:41 GMT
This is a very nice and detailed analysis of how the Citizen's Assembly which led to the Family & Care referenda was rigged, with the idea of gender as a purely social construction taken for granted, and an absolute refusal to define terminology or spell out practical implications. Bear in mind that the CA proposals were even more radical than the referenda proposals, and that Fintan O'Toole & Co are trying to set up a counter-narrative which claims the referenda would have been passed if they were modelled on the CA proposals. thecritic.co.uk/the-grim-reality-of-a-citizens-assembly/
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