Category: Mary Lou McDonald

Happy the opposition when a government cannot effectively promote its own achievements…

by dsmooney, posted in Fianna Fáil, Green party, Housing, Mary Lou McDonald, Micheal Martin, Taoiseach

This column appeared on Broadsheet.ie on Monday, May 23rd 2022, and sees me return to a point I have made many times over the past few years, namely the urgent need for a government response on housing that addressing the crisis on the scale required. This government’s “Housing For All” strategy is a dramatic improvement on the near inertia of the previous 6+ years under Fine Gael, but it is still not on the scale or timeframe required to convince the public that this crisis will be over soon. And… to make things worse… inflation, rising interest rates and building cost increases will make a tough task tougher.

Just over a week ago Iarnród Éireann announced that it was no longer able to provide catering services on its Intercity network. With the exception of some Dublin/Belfast Enterprise trains, passengers will not be able to buy a cup of tea/coffee accompanied by a stale Kit-Kat or a half-filled sandwich.

Yes, we will miss the fun of seeing what items the catering service had managed not to pack on to those wobbly aluminum trolleys which dispensed hot water with all the force of a 56-year-old man with a swollen prostate… but as problems facing this country go, this isn’t a big one.

The problem has nothing to do with the complexities of providing a cup of tea on a train and – according to the catering contractor, Rail Gourmet – has all to do with the real difficulties it is having in finding staff to push the trolleys up and down the train. Rail Gourmet says the problem is so acute that it cannot resolve it, and so Irish Rail must now organise a tender competition so it can hopefully restore this fairly basic service sometime in 2023.

Continue reading “Happy the opposition when a government cannot effectively promote its own achievements…” →

Why eat your words when you can delete them?

by dsmooney, posted in Fake News, Fianna Fáil, gerry adams, Mary Lou McDonald, Micheal Martin, Sinn Féin

It is a few weeks since I updated this page to include my most recent blogs. This one first appeared on Broadsheet on March 14th and looks at Sinn Féin’s recent industrial strength spring clean of its online archive of statements 

“Lord, give us the wisdom to utter words that are gentle and tender, for tomorrow we may have to eat them.”

This guidance for politicians comes from the late Mo Udall, a long serving Democratic Congressman from Arizona.

It’s an approach you would hope members of today’s Oireachtas, from all sides, might heed – but as we see during the daily set pieces of Leaders’ Questions and the Order of Business, they don’t.

Instead, rather than acknowledging that they might have been wrong and correcting the situation, they double down and insist that they didn’t say what we think they said. We get obduracy and petulance in place of debate and discussion. In the more extreme cases we get some parties going the whole hog and deleting almost anything and everything they have ever said. Continue reading “Why eat your words when you can delete them?” →

Sinn Féin discovers public sector reform, a decade after everyone else… late, but still welcome

by dsmooney, posted in Mary Lou McDonald, Northern Ireland, Policy, Politics, Sinn Féin, Stormont

This article first appeared on Broadsheet.ie on January 10th 2022 and looks at Sinn Féin’s 10-year-wait to discover the need for public sector reform. I also examine their record on this issue, in that part of the island, where they have ministerial responsibility for public sector reform

Sinn Féin, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Something unusual, though politically significant, happened during the first 10 minutes of last Friday’s “Gathering” on RTÉ Radio 1’s Claire Byrne Today show.

We have become so accustomed to hearing Sinn Féin spokespeople sticking carefully to their talking points and holding the party line, that hearing one utter even the vaguest criticism of their leader, is jarring.

Yet that is what Sinn Fein’s Louise O’Reilly did when she said that she “wouldn’t use necessarily the words that Mary Lou used…”. The words to which O’Reilly was referring, which she also called “inelegant”, had come from an Irish Examiner interview in which the Sinn Féin leader said of the need for public sector reform:

“But we have, in many respects, a system that is constipated, a system that is slow, and a system that needs to be jolted… “

It’s not often you hear a Sinn Féin spokesperson upbraid their leader in public and get away with it. Louise’s move was politically bold and strategically wise.

Continue reading “Sinn Féin discovers public sector reform, a decade after everyone else… late, but still welcome” →

Does MM stand for: Micheál Martin or Managerial Minimalism?

by dsmooney, posted in Fianna Fáil, Mary Lou McDonald, Micheal Martin, Pandemic, public transport, Taoiseach

This week’s column first appeared on Broadsheet.ie on Monday Novembe 15th and returns to a familiar theme; the flawed political leadership style of Micheál Martin.  

You can tell that it wasn’t a great week for the current government, when one of the least worst headlines it garnered was: Taoiseach defends Eamon Ryan’s appointment of cronies to climate council roles.

It’s like Zapponegate never happened… or maybe it’s that this administration spends so much time lurching from problem to problem that it hasn’t yet had a chance to learn the lessons of the last one?

Let’s look back over the stories that dominated the headlines during just the first few days of last week.

On Tuesday, we discovered that it would be 2042 before we would see a Dart underground line. We also found that that there won’t be new metro lines south or west of Dublin with the next two decades either. All this courtesy of a National Transport Authority review of its strategy for the capital.

This was the same day that we learned that the Department of Finance was considering going after the home purchase deposits coming via the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’. (It took Pascal Donohoe several days to walk this story back.)

Continue reading “Does MM stand for: Micheál Martin or Managerial Minimalism?” →

The Shinners ready themselves for government… but are we ready for them?

by dsmooney, posted in By-Election, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Government, Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Féin, Taoiseach

This week’s column first appeared on Broadsheet on Monday November 1st 2022, two days after the Sinn Féin Árd Fheis in Dublin. I explain why I think speculation about Sinn Féin being in government North and South within the next year, or two, is far too premature. I do not say it is impossible, just that it requires the leaderships in the two traditional big parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, to continue to mishandle events and misread the public mood. I firmly believe that one of these two former big beasts (at least) will soon come to its political senses and see that it is not offering the change demanded by a sizable cohort of what is still a moderate electorate.   

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, at the 2005 Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis in Killarney

For about twenty years I lived within a ten-minute walk of the RDS and Simmonscourt. This was particularly useful for the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheiseanna.

It meant I could soak up the atmosphere and anticipation in the hall during the build up to the party leader’s speech, but quickly nip home to see the full speech live on TV and catch the RTÉ news review.

This gave me a better sense of how the speech played in the world outside, as I was seeing what the people at home saw… well, those few who bother to watch these things.

Continue reading “The Shinners ready themselves for government… but are we ready for them?” →

Why does an unpopular party have a popular leader?

by dsmooney, posted in Elections, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Leo Varadkar, Mary Lou McDonald, Micheal Martin, Sinn Féin, Taoiseach

Last week I rekindled my love affair with the word “paradox”, so expect to see it pop up here a lot, including in this week’s Broadsheet column where I look at the paradox of Fianna Fáil’s poll ratings remaining stubbornly low, while the approval ratings of its leader move up. Has An Taoiseach, Micheál Martin learned how to disassociate himself from his party… and doesn’t this mean that what is in his interest, is not in his party’s.. and vice-versa?   

Ipsos/MRBI Irish Times Poll – June 16th 2021

Though I probably keep this fact well hidden from readers, I really try to not write about polling too often. I say this through clenched fingers as I know it must seem that I have written about little else over the past few weeks and months.

It is a fair criticism to say that political pundits talk and write excessively about polling in the guise of political analysis. While the soap opera aspects of politics, who’s in, who’s out, who’s politically in bed with whom, does help liven up what can often be a dull area, the focus should be on the policies and the decisions rather than who makes them.

The old Heisenberg uncertainty/indeterminacy principle applies to politics as much as it does to physics. If you cannot accurately measure both the position and the velocity of an object simultaneously, then you should focus more on the  trajectory of an object or an idea than analysing snapshots of where it was a few days or weeks ago.   

All of which is a long-winded way of me explaining/excusing – why I am once again talking about polling. In my defence, I do this as there is something that is worth discussing in the two most recent opinion polls: yesterday’s Ireland Thinks/Irish Mail on Sunday one and last week’s Irish Times/IPSOS/MRBI, as they offer some contradictory results.

Continue reading “Why does an unpopular party have a popular leader?” →

A Leaked History Of Leaking

by dsmooney, posted in Dáil, Fine Gael, Leo Varadkar, Mary Lou McDonald

This column first appeared on Broadsheet.ie on Nov 9th, the day before the Dáil was due to debate the opposition motion of No Confidence in Leo Varadkar on foot of the #leakgate #leotheleaker controversy

The Tánaiste in the Dáil on Nov 3rd 2020

I’m sure many of you were shocked as I was to learn last Friday that Sinn Féin doesn’t have confidence in Leo Varadkar.

Seriously, who’d have thought it?

Who’d have imagined that the main opposition party, a party that sees the future of Irish politics as a polarised race between itself and Fine Gael, would not have confidence in current Fine Gael leader?

As I explained in my first piece here last week there is no doubt that the Tánaiste has not gone far enough in his apology or his assurances about how he conducts the business of government. Some of the explanations he offered on Tuesday (November 3rd) were so juvenile and feeble that it was shameful to see them sent out alone without a guardian.

Many who will vote confidence in Varadkar in the upcoming confidence motion will do so with no more trust or confidence in the man now than voters had in him last February.

Continue reading “A Leaked History Of Leaking” →

Irish government formation… are we there yet, are we there yet? No, not yet.

by dsmooney, posted in Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, GE2020, Leo Varadkar, Mary Lou McDonald, Micheal Martin

I wrote this column for Monday’s Broadsheet.ie it again looks at where we are on electing a new government and concludes that it is still the best part of a month away, despite the hype and spin. I decided to run a two day twitter poll to establish what people there fely was going to happen (as opposed to what they personally hoped to see happen). I will post the results on this page shortly. 

Government_Buildings,_Merriot_Street,_Dublin

According to the headline in last Friday’s Irish Times: Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are close to agreeing a coalition framework document.

I am sure they are. Comments from the two party leaders confirms this. The Taoiseach has said the document should be ready within a week or two. Mr Martin said it could act as a “catalyst” for other parties to join such a government.

Yes, the parties have made some progress, but there is still a long way to go before there will be a government in place. The optimism exuding from Fianna Fáil sources last week that a new government could in place before the end of April with Martin as Taoiseach, was… to put it at its mildest… a bit premature.

Let’s look at the facts. Together Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have 72 Dáil seats. If everyone votes, 80 is a bare majority. Realpolitik – something Micheál Martin was talking about a few weeks back – dictates that any government hoping to last a full term have a majority that is northwards of 80, preferably in the mid 80s. That or a confidence and supply agreement with another big party, but let’s not go back there, just yet.

Continue reading “Irish government formation… are we there yet, are we there yet? No, not yet.” →

Government formation options narrow to just three… if not two. Is #GE2020(2) beckoning?

by dsmooney, posted in Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, GE2020, Leo Varadkar, Mary Lou McDonald, Micheal Martin, Politics, Sinn Féin

This analysis piece appeared on Broadsheeton Monday Feb 24 2020. It looks back over the political developments of the previous week and attempts to look forward to where the government process will end up, [spoiler alret, I still feel a second election is the single most likely outcome]. In summary, it is hard not to conclude that neither Fianna Fáil nor Fine Gael are thinking or acting strategically, Neither are speaking to the public and neither are heeding the lesson of the election just passed. All this is serving to flatter Sinn Féin, who are just re-running their old playbook, playing to their own core (or should that be corps?).  They portray themselves as great negotiators, yet they cannot see any route to amajority in a Dáil where FF and FG combined are in a minority? 

33rd Dail
First day of the 33rd Dáil.     Pic via www.flickr.com/oireachtas/

This time last week I expected the only issue that would be resolved at Thursday’s opening Dáil session was the identity of the next Ceann Comhairle.

To no one’s great surprise that turned out to be the outgoing one, Seán Ó Fearghaíl, T.D., though the scale of his win, 130:28 was impressive. The dark mid-week mutterings that Fianna Fáil colleagues would abandon the avuncular Ó Fearghaíl to keep his vote for Micheál Martin as Taoiseach later that day proved baseless.

I hadn’t expecting the series of votes on electing a Taoiseach to produce any significant or notable movement on the shape of the next government, so I was pleasantly surprised when we did get some, albeit infinitesimally small.

The decision of the left-wing Independent TDs and Solidarity/People Before Profile to back Mary Lou McDonald (though with a strong caveat of ruling out Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael) and four independents to back Micheál Martin left both challengers with over 40 votes.

Continue reading “Government formation options narrow to just three… if not two. Is #GE2020(2) beckoning?” →