Category: Fianna Fáil

What Separates @TiernanBrady from the Bunch

by dsmooney, posted in Elections, EU, Fianna Fáil, Politics

This column appeared on Broadsheet at the end of January 2019. The full original version can be viewed here.  This is a shortened version which looks only at Fianna Fáil’s upcoming Dublin European Selection Convention.

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Tiernan Brady with the SNP’s leader in Westminster Ian Blackford and the SNP’s youngest MP Mhairi Black.

Within Dublin the race for the Fianna Fáil party nomination will be critical. On the surface it looks like a four-way competition but, to be brutally frank, the choice is binary.

In Column A you have Tiernan Brady, who many of you may know as an equality campaigner from his leadership in the Irish and Australian marriage equality campaigns.

And if you think Tiernan is not the kind of candidate you would expect Fianna Fáil candidate to field, well think again – because Tiernan is as dyed in the wool Fianna Fáil as any candidate the party has produced over the past decade.

I first met Tiernan back in 1992 when he was one of the Kevin Barry UCD Cumann members who came in to help Ben Briscoe TD on the (in)famous 10 day “long count” to decide the last seat in Dublin South Central – an event referred to by Ben at the time as “The Agony and the Ex TD”.

Continue reading “What Separates @TiernanBrady from the Bunch” →

Debunking the first three myths of #Aras18

by dsmooney, posted in Aras11, Aras18, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, independents, Michael D Higgins, Sinn Féin

This Broadsheet.ie column looks at the upcoming Irish Presidential race (#Aras18). It debunks the following three myths about that election. 

  • The main parties want to deny us the right to vote.
  • Only for Sinn Féin there would be no contest
  • There is no way Michael D can lose

It first appeared online on July 17, 2018. 

20180625_163959857_iOSThough the 2018 Aras race has not officially started, it is already producing some political myths. Doubtless there will be many more before October, so no harm in putting an end to a few of the more tedious ones now.

Myth No 1. The main parties – or the Elites as the elite myth spreaders call them – want to deny us the right to vote.

This one is exposed by simple arithmetic. There are two routes to getting a nomination. The first is the Oireachtas one, where you need the backing of 20 members of the Dáil and/or Seanad. The second is the Council path, which means getting four city or county councils to propose you.

The Oireachtas route had been the preserve of the two big parties, but as their dominance started to wane in the early 90s, so too did their grip on the Presidential nomination process. Continue reading “Debunking the first three myths of #Aras18” →

Be careful what you twitch for…

by dsmooney, posted in Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Leo Varadkar, Politics, Seanad, Sinn Féin

My Broadsheet column from May 1st looks at the poor political environment against which the CervicalCheck scandal is playing out  

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Last week’s Dáil furore and the heightened tensions between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael persuaded me to use this week’s column to discuss the worsening relations between the main government and the main opposition parties.

I still intend to do that, but in much lesser detail. The scandal engulfing the CervicalCheck scheme and the torment that Vicky Phelan, her family and hundreds of other families have been put through by the State and the HSE makes any discussion of the friction between the parties pale by comparison.

But, as experienced political commentators have noted, the screening scandal has the makings of major political crisis if it were to emerge that more was known by the Department and, by extension, by a Minister.

Continue reading “Be careful what you twitch for…” →

Stop the campaign, I want to get off – where #repealthe8th campaigns stand now…

by dsmooney, posted in Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, independents, Irish Labour Party, Micheal Martin, Policy, referendum

Here is my analysis of where the two sides in the upcoming referendum on repealing the 8th Amendment currently stand. It first appeared on Broadsheet.ie here

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Back in late 2014 I was invited to assist the nascent Marriage Equality campaign with its preparations. They asked me to help draft a campaign playbook, or ‘campaign bible’ as it was labelled by some, along the lines of the one I had put together for the successful 2013 Seanad referendum.

As part of my groundwork I tried to get some insights into the mindset of No voters. To this end I went for a few beers and a chat with an old political colleague who I knew to be quite socially conservative. I dragged the conversation slowly and steadily around to the topic of gay marriage and prepared myself for the explosion. None came.

“Have you decided how you will vote?”, I asked Continue reading “Stop the campaign, I want to get off – where #repealthe8th campaigns stand now…” →

Govt response to @lawlessj draft Social Media Transperancy law shows just how much @finegael depends on #fakenews

by dsmooney, posted in Fake News, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Government, Leo Varadkar, Social Media

This is my Broadsheet column published online on December 19th last. 

Lawless

Though it would probably be more accurate to call it an idiom than a word, “fake news” it now 2017 new word of the year. Not just in English. Norway’s Language Council pronounced ‘fake news’ (falske nyheter) as the new Norwegian word of the year saying:

“The word is not completely new, but its use has exploded over the last year… It is a word that has set the agenda and was given a lot of attention during the 2016 US election, and that attention has continued.

Though they probably said it in Norwegian.

Though idiom has its origins in last year’s U.S. Presidential slug fest between Trump and Clinton, it has come to be the hallmark of Trump’s presidency. A few months back we saw President Trump bizarrely claim, in an interview with fellow Republican nut job Mike Huckabee that was so soft (and full of crap) that it could have been sponsored by cushelle toilet rolls, that he invented the word “fake”.

It is not only the charge Trump levels at established news organisations who put out stories or commentaries he does not like, it is also the tactic that Trump’s surrogates use to deflect criticism.

Continue reading “Govt response to @lawlessj draft Social Media Transperancy law shows just how much @finegael depends on #fakenews” →

Leo walked into the #emailscandal one step at a time

by dsmooney, posted in Dáil, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Leo Varadkar, Micheal Martin, Politics, Taoiseach

This column appeared on Broadsheet.ie on November 24th as the Frances Fitzgerald saga was coming to a peak:

emailscandalHow did we get to this situation? Well, as with any crisis, we got to it one step at a time.

Leo Varadkar did not start this week with a plan to trigger a snap election, no more than Micheál Martin did, but with a series of serious missteps Leo Varadkar walked this government to the brink and last night whipped things up to a point that the country is now on a course that means a general election either before Christmas or early in 2018.

Misstep number one came with the Taoiseach’s opening comments on Leader’s Question in the Dáil last Tuesday. when he attempted to address the issue

“The House will appreciate, once again, that I do not have first-hand knowledge of any of these matters.”

With those words it was clear that an Taoiseach was approaching the issue of Minister Fitzgerald’s level of knowledge on the campaign against Sgt McCabe satisfied that it had nothing personally to do with him and, so it was not something for him to be worried about.

Continue reading “Leo walked into the #emailscandal one step at a time” →

Some drink deep from the well of compassion: Gerry Adams merely gargles.

by dsmooney, posted in Border, Colum Eastwood, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, gerry adams, Leo Varadkar, Micheal Martin, Northern Ireland, Oireachtas, Policy, Politics, Sinn Féin, Stormont

This is my most recent Broadsheet.ie column – it appeared on Monday September 4th – you can view the original online here

Provisional Liability:

IMG_2256-0Much to his own delight Gerry Adams was once again grabbing the headlines last week. Ignore the fact that they were not the headlines that other political leaders would relish – for Adams, a headline is a headline, even if it contains more than a whiff of cordite.

It came on foot of the furore following Adams telling his local LMFM local radio station that jailing the provo murderers of the innocent Co Louth farmer, Tom Oliver, would be “totally and absolutely counterproductive”.

It was an outrageous statement to make, only made worse by Adams added assertion that the 1991 crime was “politically motivated killing”. It was not.

Continue reading “Some drink deep from the well of compassion: Gerry Adams merely gargles.” →

No long summer break from political debate

by dsmooney, posted in Brexit, Dáil, Elections, EU, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Northern Ireland, Oireachtas, Policy, Politics

This week’s Broadsheet column was a defence of the oft criticisied Summer School season and an argument for more policy Irish think tanks, for for a Fianna Fáil aligned one in particular. Original column online here: Broadsheet.ie 

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At around 4.20pm on Friday last Dáil Éireann adjourned for the Summer recess. It is due to return at 2pm on Wednesday September 20th.

Cue the usual hollow complaints from the commentariat over TDs holidays and short Dáil sessions, with a few harrumphs from the Brussels side-line courtesy of Fine Gael MEP, Sean Kelly who tweeted that the EU parliament’s holiday will be 4 weeks shorter.

If this Dáil was actually processing legislation, especially the range of halfway decent Private Members Bills coming from backbenchers across the House, then there may be a basis for complaint. But, it isn’t.

To be fair, it is not as if TDs and Senators are about to head off to the Maldives or Marrakech. The Seanad is sitting this week, as are several Oireachtas committees, and they will take a shorter break than the Dáil and return earlier – and before you sigh that the committees don’t count, bear in mind that Sean Fleming’s Public Accounts Committee will be launching its report into the financial procedures at Garda College, Templemore at 2.00pm tomorrow.

Continue reading “No long summer break from political debate” →

@campaignforleo poll nos – not so much a Leo bounce as just an Enda recoil

by dsmooney, posted in Dáil, Elections, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Leo Varadkar, Micheal Martin, Oireachtas, Politics, Sinn Féin

This is my Broadsheet.ie column from last week, published before today’s Sunday Times/B&A poll showing FG on 29% and FF on 30%. This joint level of support of 59% is a positive, particularly for FF and suggests it has scope to get its average showing back into the low 30s. 

The original article is online here: www.broadsheet.ie/a-bounce-or-a-recoil

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From the Sunday Business Post/RedC

Well, that didn’t seem to last too long.

Yesterday’s Sunday Business Post/RedC poll showed Fine Gael’s lead over Fianna Fáil closing by 5pts: from 8% in late May to down to just 3% now) This suggests an abrupt end to the Varadkar honeymoon.

I stress the word “suggest”. While the RedC poll puts Fine Gael on 27% and Fianna Fáil on 24%, another poll, taken exactly two weeks earlier by the Irish Daily Mail/Ireland Thinks put Fine Gael on 31% and Fianna Fáil on 26%. While it is possible that Leo’s less than adroit handling of events over the last two weeks may have shaved 4pts off his halo, it would be folly to try to conclude that from the results of two separate polls conducted by two different companies and taken at two different time periods.

What you can do, though, is track and compare the results from one individual polling company over a period of time. Fortunately, Red C does that for you via its handy online live-polling-tracker. Here you can find the results from the 10 polls conducted by Red C over the past year.

Continue reading “@campaignforleo poll nos – not so much a Leo bounce as just an Enda recoil” →

Who would want to be a TD?

by dsmooney, posted in Dáil, Elections, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, independents, Irish Labour Party, Leo Varadkar, Micheal Martin, Oireachtas, Policy, Politics, Seanad, Sinn Féin, Taoiseach

This column is from two weeks back (July 3rd, 2017) and is both a guarded defence of the political party system and a warning of the dangers of the constant desire of the hard left fringe parties to take politics out on to the street.  

It is said that France has the only “tricameral system” in the world – the National Assembly, the Senate and the Street – but history and experience shows that the Street has always been the biggest hindrance to reform. Origianl column online here: www.broadsheet.ie/who-would-want-to-be-a-td/

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Collage pic from Irish Mirror

 

Who in their right mind would want to become a T.D.?

The pay is good, the perks are decent and the scope for promotion (career and ‘self’) is none too bad either, but can these incentives really outweigh the forfeiture of a private life, never mind the ongoing press, public and social media opprobrium whenever you express an opinion?

Shouldn’t politics be a vocation, not a career path?

The problem with that view is not just that it is naïve, it is that it simply won’t work. Try it and we end up with a Dáil full of only those who can only afford to be there by virtue of their profession, their families’ money or simple “pull” – by the way not all of them would be on the right, a fair few would also come from the comfortable left, but that’s just an aside.

Continue reading “Who would want to be a TD?” →