RTE debate between leaders of the smaller parties

gurramok

brianthebard wrote:

Oh come on yourself, he can obviously afford things that others on the "average industrial wage" cannot, and I don't care if the banks do own his holiday home(s), that merely means he can afford a second mortgage, does it not? Again you'll be hard pushed to find people who can do that. Its obvious that he more than just comfortable financially, and pretending otherwise is pretty sad imo.

If you check WHEN he bought it, it was bought pre-construction bubble(pre-97) when many on the average wage could buy a home.

nesf

cm2000 wrote:

hmm don't think so the begrudging vote isn't enough

Does it matter if a PD voter thought Rabbitte won? It's not like you'll find many PD voters who'd even consider voting Labour (and vice versa) so I don't think it really matters.

Now finding a PD voter who thought Sargent won would be more interesting...

Rock Climber

gandalf wrote:

See look at what his bad example does, he abuses his position I abuse mine.

Feck it Rock Climber is making me look soft on crime now :P

Lol they are all yours now
I'm off for my tea!

nesf

gandalf wrote:

Feck it Rock Climber is making me look soft on crime now :P

Heh.

joecoote

Don't believe this could be classified as a debate. More a sad "soundbite" refelction on Irish politics. Very little in this program to inform the voters, especially the undecided like myself. Anyhow.

Rabbite - came out the best of a bad lot
Adams - not good at all but got his message across to his core constituency
Sargent - his personal dislike of McDowell muddled any message he was making
McDowell - not good at all but got his message across to his core constituency

I am hoping smaller parties might be a counter-balance to the excesses of the larger parties. To this end - it's Labour and Greens for me.

SF is a shoe-in in Cavan/Monaghan. The word on the streets is that they don't want to be in government due to a likely downturn in the economy. Their canvassing is non-existent. They had better use this time to do homework. I suppose they'll gain experience in the North.

FF/FG will get one seat each. I couldn't vote for either. This means 2 open seats. On tonight's "debate" I can't see either Labour or the Greens gaining a seat, but you never know. The PD's don't run a candidate here. Going on McDowell's arrogance and mud-slinging, it's just as well.

cm2000

nesf wrote:

Does it matter if a PD voter thought Rabbitte won? It's not like you'll find many PD voters who'd even consider voting Labour (and vice versa) so I don't think it really matters.

Now finding a PD voter who thought Sargent won would be more interesting...

someone made the point that the majority of the people on this forum thought rabbitte won. my point is that considering they both did quite well then the supporters of each parties are likely to think that their leader won and the labour party is obviously represented on here more than the pd's are.

Trouble

My running order as follows:
1/ Pat- for the paris hilton comment
2/ Gerry - cause he is so cute
3/ Trevor- Green through and through not a single tree was murdered for his efforts tonight
4/ Goebbels

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

28064212

20 minutes in and I've only two observations: (1) Pat Rabbitte is scoring major points by pure body language when he's not speaking and the camera switches to him and (2) Mark Little is a terrible, terrible chair. I've great respect for the man, his book Zulu Time was very good, but has he ever chaired any sort of debate before?

Voipjunkie

Rabbite won his smiling as McDowell and Sargent went for each other made him look above it and he was pretty good when he did talk. Hi put down of McDowell was good.

McDowell tried to play the victim card (I"m surrounded) but his arrogance shone through his performance will probably appeal to the 3% who intend voting PD but I doubt it has any real appeal outside of there.


Sargent showing his scribbled palms was funny but he did Ok and did not let McDowell bully him

Adams was typical in that he tried to avoid being held to anything his attempts to change the subject were lame. Although he did manage to avoid getting involved in the squabbling by and large

I doubt these things change anybodies minds on who they will vote for.

Voipjunkie

cm2000 wrote:

someone made the point that the majority of the people on this forum thought rabbitte won. my point is that considering they both did quite well then the supporters of each parties are likely to think that their leader won and the labour party is obviously represented on here more than the pd's are.

Nah there are more PDs around here than you could shake a stick at .

Hugh_C

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

On what grounds? McD possibly peformed better in terms of hectoring / barracking the others for sure, but then politics in this constituency isn't decided on aggression and hypertension. I heard little sense from him politically other than bleating out the party line which, to my ear, is jaded and unproven and predicated on slagging off the others. Perhaps Sargent isn't as enigmatic a leader as McD or Rabbitte, but the Green's manifesto has some interesting propositions.

All in all, Pat Rabbitte did it for me, then out of a sense of duty for my kids I'll be helping to return John Gormley.

rubberduckey

AMAZED at the content of this debate

Hi All, I guess that all of us posting on the debate have a political interest and therefore a political bias, myself included.

I am amaazed that the Tanaiste of Ireland has live on TV stated(or accused) the leader of a larger political party of

(A) Being on the Army Council of a terrorist organisation

(B) Organising the exporting of terrorism to FARC narc-guerilla's for $25 million.

(C)Being 'involved' in the Northern Bank Robbery.

In a normalised society how should the public react?
Will there be a denial/legal procededings??

Do the voting populace actually care?? I know I do.

So is the fallout from the debate going to reflect this or will the 'Paris-Hilton' flippant quip get all the attention.

any thoughts??

Concerned citizen.

cm2000

rubberduckey wrote:

AMAZED at the content of this debate

Hi All, I guess that all of us posting on the debate have a political interest and therefore a political bias, myself included.

I am amaazed that the Tanaiste of Ireland has live on TV stated(or accused) the leader of a larger political party of

(A) Being on the Army Council of a terrorist organisation

(B) Organising the exporting of terrorism to FARC narc-guerilla's for $25 million.

(C)Being 'involved' in the Northern Bank Robbery.

In a normalised society how should the public react?
Will there be a denial/legal procededings??

Do the voting populace actually care?? I know I do.

So is the fallout from the debate going to reflect this or will the 'Paris-Hilton' flippant quip get all the attention.

any thoughts??

Concerned citizen.

don't think the public will be surprised. weve all made up our mind on adams' connections and activities with the ira

ateam

rubberduckey wrote:

(C)Being 'involved' in the Northern Bank Robbery.

At no point did he say Adams was 'involved' in the robbery.

gurramok

rubberduckey wrote:

AMAZED at the content of this debate

Hi All, I guess that all of us posting on the debate have a political interest and therefore a political bias, myself included.

I am amaazed that the Tanaiste of Ireland has live on TV stated(or accused) the leader of a larger political party of

(A) Being on the Army Council of a terrorist organisation

(B) Organising the exporting of terrorism to FARC narc-guerilla's for $25 million.

(C)Being 'involved' in the Northern Bank Robbery.

In a normalised society how should the public react?
Will there be a denial/legal procededings??

Do the voting populace actually care?? I know I do.

So is the fallout from the debate going to reflect this or will the 'Paris-Hilton' flippant quip get all the attention.

any thoughts??

Concerned citizen.

McD is full of BS, same old allegations pandered for years and not a single person charged yet!
Problem with McD is no-one believes him anymore on anything not just SF rants.
There are bigger issues out there than unproven rants.

gandalf

rubberduckey why are you surprised at what Herr Flick does. He abused his Dail privilage to go after Frank Connolly after all, if there was proof there Connolly should have had his day in court like every other citizen. More likely reason for the outburst was the fact Connolly was doing an investigation into a certain prison land purchase.

As for Mr. Adams, if these are untruths then he should take legal action against Michael McDowell.

McDowell was shown up tonight for what he is, a failure in his portfolio especially with the "last sting of a dying wasp" reminder.

The_Minister

Voipjunkie wrote:

Nah there are more PDs around here than you could shake a stick at .

I count four.

EDIT: Rubberduckey, this was all exposed before. None of this was true.

rubberduckey

gandalf, gurramok, ck2000,a-team, thanks for your responses.

On an individual level do you believe there is truth in any of the three accusations against Mr Adams:

(A) Being on the Army Council of a terrorist organisation

(B) Organising the exporting of terrorism to FARC narc-guerilla's for $25 million.

(C)Being 'involved' in the Northern Bank Robbery.

Thanks

Voipjunkie

gandalf wrote:

rubberduckey why are you surprised at what Herr Flick does. He abused his Dail privilage to go after Frank Connolly after all, if there was proof there Connolly should have had his day in court like every other citizen. More likely reason for the outburst was the fact Connolly was doing an investigation into a certain prison land purchase.

As for Mr. Adams, if these are untruths then he should take legal action against Michael McDowell.

McDowell was shown up tonight for what he is, a failure in his portfolio especially with the "last sting of a dying wasp" reminder.

It reminded me of Vincent Brown on TV3 on Sunday night he was comparing McDowell to Ahern and the main trust was that Ahern is a far more intelligent and mature individual and in control of his emotions than McDowell could ever hope to be.

guinnessdrinker

Best quote of the nite was definatly Pat's "Paris Hilton" one liner, he had a good debate but the one thing that annoy's me about him is that to me, he always seems to come across as quite smug, which I dont like.

I liked when Gerry pointed out that public money didnt belong to Michael, and I liked when he said the economy should work for the people and not the people working for the economy but he is normally a lot better in debates and did not do as well as I expected.

I feel a bit sorry for Trever because he does seem to be a really sincere kinda guy with a lot of good ideas, but he didnt come accross too well. He definatly doesn't seem to like Michael too much!

Michael fought his corner well but his "left, extreme left and leftovers" line seemed way, way to rehearsed to me. I also didnt like when he resorted to personal attacks on Gerry. He didnt like it too much when Pat bought up the "dying wasp" statement too much either!

Voipjunkie

rubberduckey wrote:

gandalf, gurramok, ck2000,a-team, thanks for your responses.

On an individual level do you believe there is truth in any of the three accusations against Mr Adams:

(A) Being on the Army Council of a terrorist organisation

(B) Organising the exporting of terrorism to FARC narc-guerilla's for $25 million.

(C)Being 'involved' in the Northern Bank Robbery.

Thanks

On A I would say most definitely Although when he stopped being I would have no idea but my guess would be that he was in the late 70s and the 80s

B No I would not think so

C We are still waiting for any evidence that the IRA was even involved nevermind Adams

gandalf

rubberduckey wrote:

gandalf, gurramok, ck2000,a-team, thanks for your responses.

On an individual level do you believe there is truth in any of the three accusations against Mr Adams:

(A) Being on the Army Council of a terrorist organisation

Yes I do.

(B) Organising the exporting of terrorism to FARC narc-guerilla's for $25 million.

I doubt he organised it, but he would have been aware of it imho.

(C)Being 'involved' in the Northern Bank Robbery.

Again I doubt he was directly involved but I do believe again he would have been aware of "Operation Provo Pension".

rubberduckey

thanks Voipjunkie

The_Minister

Voipjunkie wrote:

It reminded me of Vincent Brown on TV3 on Sunday night he was comparing McDowell to Ahern and the main trust was that Ahern is a far more intelligent and mature individual and in control of his emotions than McDowell could ever hope to be.

Vincent Brown has a long-running Vendetta against the PDs, in particular Michael McDowell. He's pathetic.

rubberduckey

and thanks gandalf, appreciate your opinions

gurramok

rubberduckey wrote:

gandalf, gurramok, ck2000,a-team, thanks for your responses.

On an individual level do you believe there is truth in any of the three accusations against Mr Adams:

(A) Being on the Army Council of a terrorist organisation

(B) Organising the exporting of terrorism to FARC narc-guerilla's for $25 million.

(C)Being 'involved' in the Northern Bank Robbery.

Thanks

On A & B & C....i'd believe it on each count if he was tried in a court of law whether north or south and convicted.

They had nearly 40 years on A to charge him and never convicted him on IRA council charge to see the going jail time of 25 years!

B & C, maybe in last 10 years they had to chase these allegations, no charges or even arrest of the man for even questioning on that one there.

You have to ask if any allegation were true, it just shows how bad policing is and that is McD's dept for last 10 years.

Voipjunkie

The_Minister wrote:

Vincent Brown has a long-running Vendetta against the PDs, in particular Michael McDowell. He's pathetic.

Vincent Brown has a vendetta against everyone it does not diminish the obvious truth in the statement.
McDowell has a severe problem with controlling his emotions and handles pressure very badly

snickerpuss

I know that Adams is the 'figurehead' or whatnot of Sinn Féin but if hes not running down here I'd rather see someone who is in the debate.

Also i cringe when he speaks Irish, it sounds so unnatural.

Anyhow, I enjoyed it. Still voting Labour though so no big opinion change from me.

rubberduckey

Thanks gurramok.

To be honest I'm looking for your personal opinions, not what has or hasn't been prosecuted.


In your personal opinion what do you make of the three accusations..true or false??

Thanks in advance