Noel Dempsey is the new Minister

vinnyfitz

We could have done a lot worse.

Valentia

Yep. A local man although from another party!

He'll give it a lash and wont be pro Eircon methinks.

Valentia

spongebob

Not as Bad as Mary O'Rourke but Bad all the same !

M

Third_Echelon

Noel's not a bad guy...

I know him well enough as i've complained to him on many an occasion over grant issues when i was in college as he was my local politician dude. I had so much correspondence with him that he actually sends me a christmas card every year... funny guy

His brother was also my teacher.

He seems to get things done, so i'd give him a chance..

we'll see what happens i guess

Jorinn

Um, I'm actually not so hopefull. Expect comments along the lines of "the provision of broadband services is more than adequate", similar to his "their is no third level fees."

spongebob

Dick Roche to Environment, now Cullen has gone we may get joined up thinking on Ducting in this country.

M

SeaSide

vinnyfitz wrote:

We could have none a lot worse.

Very Fruedian

Amen on the ducting

Mr_Man

about the priority given by this Government to the ICT sector when they demote somebody to this ministry. Given his penchant for kite flying I would expect a lot of announcements but not much in the way of followup.

M.

vinnyfitz

Give the guy a chance.
I think he might surprise in the role.
He was a good Minister for the Environment and he is quite tech savvy.

Anyone hear whether Tom Kitt is going to take over Hanifin's (non) role as "e-minister" as well as Chief Whip?

Edit: BTW I see that Pat The Cope Gallagher has been appointed Junior Minister here.
Pat is a former Minister for the Marine and will, presumably,take this part of the brief for Dempsey, meaning that Noel effectively only has communications, broadcasting and energy to worry about. If he has any sense he should insist on taking the Information Society chunk out of Taoiseach's and bundle it up into his Department.

ednwireland

give the guy a chance? this are just the same bunch of useless people who are only interested in trying to maintain their status there is no new blood in this cabinet to speak of there will be no changes in prresentation (apart from some sort of giveaway beefore the next election) anyone who expects more is deluded.
don't expect anything from pat the cope he never replies to emails for a start

narommy

I don't like the man! He's a bit headstrong. And I didn't agree with some of his ideas for the housing crisis.

BUT he does everything with the best of intentions and does shove things through and doesn't give in to lobbies, so he should be good........................... I think.

I'd say he knows this will probably be his last position in any cabinet so he should give it his best.

De Rebel

On the plus side he is capable of independent thought, he is well respected by civil servants and he is not afraid of challenging the status quo. Also he is experienced in the role of being a minister and in dealing with civil servants. On the negative side, he is prone to gaffs and has shown himself to be politically niave on more than one occasion. All in all better than most of the other likely candidates (brennan, cullen, hannifin). I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and lets se what he makes of the job.

There is no mention here of e-minister/information society after either Noel Treacy or Tom Kitt's names, or anywhere else for that matter. And on their personal pages its not listed among their responsibilities. So just as we suspected Hanafin was such an outstanding success there was nothing left to do and it was time to abolish the role.

vinnyfitz

Dempsey was on the 1.00 news this lunch time being asked about his new role.
Sean O'Rourke asked him about the Morning Ireland series of pieces on broadband and Dempsey expressed his ambition to have nationwide coverage "within 3 or 4 years". And went on and on about the MANs and group broadband schemes.

The Irish Times today also has a piece about the challenges facing him. It mentioned energy, broadcasting and postal regulation. It did not mention anything about telecoms. (This piece is not in the on-line edition.)

cgarvey

Any sense in IoffL writing to welcome him to his new post, and briefly outline (like a page or 2 at most) the current issues where we'd like to see progress on?

.cg

Moriarty

Committee are already on it.

damien

Interesting times ...