Gallagher invited fuel smuggler to pay €5000 to attend FF bash with Cowen

Zillah

Oh God, they have that lady from Frontline on again and she is tearing him apart.

dav3

Snakeblood wrote: »

What's he saying?

He is being destroyed by the woman who questioned his accounts last night. Gallagher is hitting the self-destruct button.

LostinKildare

Turn it on!

Scuba Ste

Zillah wrote: »

Oh God, they have that lady from Frontline on again and she is tearing him apart.

Damn right too. I think he has no idea how absolutely sick people are that he may get into the Aras and is trying to tarnish anyone who opposes him as being from Sinn Fein.

Hamo

Losing it..... he can't pull it off tis morning... chopping and chasing

Hamo

Impecable integrity and honesty....blah blah blah... wants positivity, focused will not be diverted by SF or Martin McG... jez he sounds bad

dixiefly

Complete hatchet job done on Gallagher - and I have not been a supporter of Gallagher (up to now).

Have a look at that lady that asked those questions at the end of Michael D Higgins' closing address last night. She applauded so much I thought she would give him a standing ovation. I wouldnt be surprised if she was a labour party supporter.

Too many party hacks in the debate last night.

dav3

He seems to think that Sinn Fein are out to get him and maybe they are. But he's extremely naive if he thinks they are the only party after him.
It sounds like he's lost the plot, Gay Mitchell style.

NIMAN

Gallagher came across last night as a real shady character.

This country is sick and tired of the 'I don't recollect' and 'brown envelope' brigade. I think last night did Gallagher a lot of damage, but not sure if its enough to cost him the victory.

Only time will tell.

But if he does win, I think he is a prime candidate for something dodgy to come out about and put doubt on his presidency.

coolbeans

dixiefly wrote: »

Complete hatchet job done on Gallagher - and I have not been a supporter of Gallagher (up to now).

Have a look at that lady that asked those questions at the end of Michael D Higgins' closing address last night. She applauded so much I thought she would give him a standing ovation. I wouldnt be surprised if she was a labour party supporter.

Too many party hacks in the debate last night.

So it's revealed that SG has skeletons in his closet that were brought to the forefront last night and you end up supporting him? Seems a bit stupid to me. You sound like the kind of person who would have been taken in by Bertie's crocodile tears in 2007.
There's one person who's been consistently controversy free and that's Michael D. Furthermore he's erudite, far sharper mentally than any other candidate and he speaks several languages. He'll get my number one. There's not even a sniff of corruption or improper practice from MD and that's what we should expect from the holder of the highest office.

MajorMax

Monty Burnz wrote: »

It looks like Gallagher is the new Bertie Ahern. Irish people are total suckers for the type - nothing seems to stick. Even when people know it's true that he's been up to dodgy stuff, they seem to like him more for it.

The electorate's support for Ahern backfired rather spectacularly when he sunk the economy - I half hope Gallagher gets in and has to resign in disgrace in the next year or two.

Irish politicians don't resign everyone knows this. An act that would have a MP in westminister "Wanting to spend more time with his family" or resigning for "Personal reasons" would be brazened out by our TDs because they know that nothing can be done to them

jmayo

Monty Burnz wrote: »

It looks like Gallagher is the new Bertie Ahern. Irish people are total suckers for the type - nothing seems to stick. Even when people know it's true that he's been up to dodgy stuff, they seem to like him more for it.

The electorate's support for Ahern backfired rather spectacularly when he sunk the economy - I half hope Gallagher gets in and has to resign in disgrace in the next year or two.

I did thinkt hat the question about resigning if anything controversial emerged was aimed at two people in particular.

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

What papers have been championing Gallagher? The media has all been lined up behind Higgins since Norris imploded.

The media has been an utter disgrace, and Mitchell was right, the quality of those questions tonight was horrendous. Christ sake they were vetted questions as well. Pat deserves to be fired.

The meeja, it's all the fault of the meeja.
You do sound like a broken ff record you know.

Maybe the media are not lined up behind gallagher, because he is ultimately toxic like his buddies, you know the ff party.
I hope they may finally have learnt their lesson and ditched the ar**licking of the del boys of Irish politics.
We can but hope.

Also it is very easy to line up against a two faced liar where you can easily poke holes in every one of his assertions and nearly every one of his so called achievements.

ixtlan

What surprises me somewhat about the campaign is how the candidates have not been prepared... or maybe they get flustered and forget their lines.

I mean SG clearly knew this was coming up, so why on Earth did he start with the "that's not true" approach. I would have told him to say "Martin, have you ever accepted money from anyone for Sinn Fein? Yes I helped out by passing a contribution made by this individual to FF." Embarrassing yes, but not illegal, hardly unethical. Maybe make a point about the many FF grassroot people who collected at church gates... or not... but don't say "not true" and then switch to "true, but not in the way it's implied".

I had lots of good lines for Mary Davis too. "Yes, I'm an insider, and I used that influence to improve the lives of thousands of handicapped people in Ireland over the past decade." "Yes, I was on many boards, and the contacts I made in them assisted me in making the Special Olympics the massive success that it was". I know she might then have been accused of having ulterior motives on the boards, but considering the stated ulterior motive I hardly think that mud would stick.

Not sure what to think of SG. I thought it was somewhat sad (as regards the depths the campaign has sunk to) to see MMG's look when SG said that the person involved was a convicted smuggler. It was sort of yes, that doesn't really look great for me talking to such a guy trying to smear you, but hey look it works...

ix.

Snakeblood

ixtlan wrote: »

What surprises me somewhat about the campaign is how the candidates have not been prepared... or maybe they get flustered and forget their lines.

I mean SG clearly knew this was coming up, so why on Earth did he start with the "that's not true" approach. I would have told him to say "Martin, have you ever accepted money from anyone for Sinn Fein? Yes I helped out by passing a contribution made by this individual to FF." Embarrassing yes, but not illegal, hardly unethical. Maybe make a point about the many FF grassroot people who collected at church gates... or not... but don't say "not true" and then switch to "true, but not in the way it's implied".

I had lots of good lines for Mary Davis too. "Yes, I'm an insider, and I used that influence to improve the lives of thousands of handicapped people in Ireland over the past decade." "Yes, I was on many boards, and the contacts I made in them assisted me in making the Special Olympics the massive success that it was". I know she might then have been accused of having ulterior motives on the boards, but considering the stated ulterior motive I hardly think that mud would stick.

Not sure what to think of SG. I thought it was somewhat sad (as regards the depths the campaign has sunk to) to see MMG's look when SG said that the person involved was a convicted smuggler. It was sort of yes, that doesn't really look great for me talking to such a guy trying to smear you, but hey look it works...

ix.

SG probably thought he could just lie about it, until he was threatened with the nonexistent businessman. Then he caved.

Edit: I suppose you could make a point about the canvassing at church gates but the easy response is 'do many people donate five grand at church gates and get their photo with the taoiseach after?'

It's not just that it's Fianna Fail, it's that the 5 grand donations from businessmen is fairly emblematic for many people of some of the things that went wrong in irish society. The rich were able to win the ear of politicians by giving them money. And there was Sean. Snout. Trough.