Category: Fine Gael

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

repeal8

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…” →

#2017 and @campaignforleo: not so much a brand new story – more the story of a New Brand

by dsmooney, posted in Dáil, Fake News, Fine Gael, Leo Varadkar, Taoiseach

This is my first Broadsheet column of 2018 – looking how Fine Gael and Leo Varadkar are more concerned with selling their story of governing than the actual business of government

One of the nicest things about the run up to Christmas are those chance encounters with former colleagues and old acquaintances as you frantically rush around town looking for those presents you claimed you ordered online six weeks earlier.

I had a few of those, but two may be of interest to you. Both involved high level civil servants, from different departments, who I knew from my time in government. After catching up with each on the whereabouts of mutual friends, we got to talking politics.

Both reported that there was virtually no real policy work going on within government and that ministers, specifically the Fine Gael ones, were focused exclusively on PR, ferreting out any possible item of good news that may be in the pipeline and getting it announced ASAP, courtesy of the Strategic Communications Unit, with the maximum fanfare and hoopla.

Continue reading “#2017 and @campaignforleo: not so much a brand new story – more the story of a New Brand” →

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” →

Looks like @finegael and @campaignforleo sees @duponline as NOCD… Not Our Class Dahling…

by dsmooney, posted in Arlene Foster, Dublin, DUP, Fine Gael, Leo Varadkar, Northern Ireland

Here is my Broadsheet column from December 12th – apologies for the delays in posting these columns on here… hopefully I will have my site updated completely later today (Friday). 

04-Varadkar-and-Foster_90515104Though I did a bit of leaflet dropping for Fianna Fáil in the 1977 general election, the first election campaign in which I really canvassed was the 1979 European and Local elections.

There I learned the skill of ‘marking the register’. This involved writing a letter after the voter’s name as it appears on the electoral indicating, after you had canvassed them whether you thought they were for Fianna Fáil (F), against us (A), doubtful (D) or where you got no reply (NR) or CB for call back.

In 1979 there a lot of ‘A’s to mark on my sheet. These fell into two categories, the first were the people who voted FF two years earlier and were now very angry at how the country was going. The second were the group who had never and would never stoop to vote for “your shower”.

When encountering a person from this second group, usually after walking up a long gravel driveway and climbing a flight of granite steps to reach the ornate front door, one of fellow canvassers, a very nice woman, several years my senior, would call out “NOCD”.

Continue reading “Looks like @finegael and @campaignforleo sees @duponline as NOCD… Not Our Class Dahling…” →

From last Nov: #FakeNews @FineGael style

by dsmooney, posted in Dáil, Fine Gael, Garda, Leo Varadkar, Politics, Taoiseach

This column appeared on Broadsheet.ie on November 28th just before the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar bowed to the inevitable and accepted Frances Fitzgerald’s resignation as Minister for Justice:

Leo sits

At the end of my last Broadsheet piece I said that the Taoiseach:

“…still has one last opportunity to somewhat redeem his reputation by taking some right steps now.” 

At the time of writing this, it appears that the Taoiseach remains doggedly determined not to take the steps needed to diffuse this ministerial-made crisis.

While sacking an old and valued colleague is not a pleasant task, it comes with the job. He is the Taoiseach, he hires and fires. He is also a politician and it must have been obvious to him since Friday that the mounting evidence of Frances Fitzgerald’s failure to act meant that that Dáil Éireann could no longer have confidence in her as Tánaiste or as minister.

Continue reading “From last Nov: #FakeNews @FineGael style” →

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” →

What does Leo really know… or, how a leak saved his skin on #Brexit?

by dsmooney, posted in Brexit, EU, Fine Gael, Leo Varadkar

Today’s column was written for Broadsheet and appears there as “what does Leo really know?” 

telegraph
Daily Telegraph, November 9th, 2017

‘What did the President know and when did he know it?’ is possibly the most famous political question of the late 20th century. It was asked, in June/July 1973, by Senator Howard Baker during the US Senate’s Watergate Hearings.

Though we tend to forget it now, Baker framed the question in the hope of protecting his fellow Republican, President Nixon. But as the White House’s defence collapsed it came to sum up the depth and extent of Nixon’s personal involvement in the cover-up.

The Baker question popped back into my head last week watching the Taoiseach answering questions on the Irish policy on moving Brexit talks to phase two.

But, where Baker’s question highlighted how deeply Nixon was embroiled in the Watergate machinations, when it is applied to our own new Taoiseach it tends to expose how perilously unaware he often seems regarding what is happening in his own government.

So, what did our Taoiseach know last Wednesday about Ireland’s approach to moving UK/EU talks to phase two… well, according to the Taoiseach himself… not that much. Responding to parliamentary questions the Taoiseach said:

“I am now of the view that it is likely we will be able to say that sufficient progress has been made at the December meeting, allowing us to move on to discussions on transition and the future arrangements.”

Continue reading “What does Leo really know… or, how a leak saved his skin on #Brexit?” →

Taoiseach Varadkar is more Gordon Brown than Tony Blair

by dsmooney, posted in Fine Gael, Leo Varadkar, Simon Coveney

This column first appeared on Broadsheet.ie on September 20th 2017

varadbrownOne of my favourite political anecdotes comes from the late Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Whitlam was on a trip to China to meet the infamous Mao Tse-tung. His officials warned Whitlam that Chairman Mao disliked small talk intensely and advised that he come up with a couple of substantive questions if he wanted to keep the conversation going. Whitlam decided, given that the visit was coming around the tenth anniversary of the assassination of President John F Kennedy, that he would ask Mao to speculate on what might have happened to the world order if Nikita Kruschev had been shot that day instead of Kennedy.

Delighted with the substance and depth of his question he set off to meet Mao and to hear the Chairman’s thoughts on this great “what if”. He sat down with Mao and, after the usual formal introductions, he proceeding to ask his question. The Chairman seemed pensive and intrigued. Then, after a few moments thought, he replied, ‘I don’t think Mr Onassis would have married Mrs Kruschev’.

Continue reading “Taoiseach Varadkar is more Gordon Brown than Tony Blair” →

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 

KSS-WEBSLIDER-BANNER17-FA-1024x299

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” →