Barry Cowen sacked

Zebra3

Yurt! wrote: »

Barry was and is a greyhounds man. He's a breeder and had some appointed sinecure with Bord nGcon (conveniently scrubbed from his CV on his website now that 'industry's' name is in the toilet).

The greyhound and bloodsports lobby is surprisingly vocal and influential for its size, and throws it's weight around in tandem with the horsey lobby.

In short, Bazza Cowen was their sort of guy.

So all these disappointed farmers are upset because a man with no, or very little, knowledge of farming no longer heads the Dept of Agriculture. :pac:

Zebra3

eagle eye wrote: »

The economy, debt, wasted spending, the air we breath, pollution, racism, homophobia, anti-religious movements, ott religious movements. Things that hurt your pocket and affect your future.

What about incompetent, law breaking ministers?

eagle eye

Zebra3 wrote:

What about incompetent, law breaking ministers?

Murder, robbery, assault I think should concern you but not traffic offenses. Not majorly anyway.

ohnonotgmail

eagle eye wrote: »

Murder, robbery, assault I think should concern you but not traffic offenses. Not majorly anyway.

thankfully you dont get to decide what should concern people

Auguste Comte

Shefwedfan wrote: »

:P


Yeah of course they did :-)

Hey shef, back on the thread I see. It looked like you were after doing a Barry and running away from some questions but maybe you didn't see them. I'll quote them below.

One hasn't aged too well so maybe I could ask the following as well, what do you think that the leaders of FF and SF should do about their drink driving law breaking TD's.

I won't hold my breath for an answer to the first question below.

Auguste Comte wrote: »

I know I asked you this earlier but maybe you didn't see the post. Have you anything to back up this statement, it's a fairly strong statement. Or is it just a petulant lie, ie. an ad hominem attack for whatever reason?

Originally Posted by Shefwedfan View Post
.
You seem to ignore child abuse, would that not concern you? Is that not a serious crime?

Auguste Comte wrote: »

And you still haven't answered the question which led to your tantrum which was,

"how do you feel about Micheál Martin and the Fianna Fáil party keeping a drink driving, serial offender in the cabinet?

eagle eye

ohnonotgmail wrote:

thankfully you dont get to decide what should concern people

Thankfully you don't either.
Have you any friends or family wit penalty points, or that had their wheel clamped for parking illegally? Have you disowned them. I'd hate to be related to you if a traffic offense causes you to disown people.

ohnonotgmail

eagle eye wrote: »

The economy, debt, wasted spending, the air we breath, pollution, racism, homophobia, anti-religious movements, ott religious movements. Things that hurt your pocket and affect your future.

incompetent ministers also affect our future. and a minister who cannot handle a situation like this is not competent.

ohnonotgmail

eagle eye wrote: »

Thankfully you don't either.
Have you any friends or family wit penalty points, or that had their wheel clamped for parking illegally? Have you disowned them. I'd hate to be related to you if a traffic offense causes you to disown people.

none of them are government ministers. nobody has disowned cowen. they just dont think he is competent to be a minister. breeding a few greyhounds does not make one a competent minister for agriculture.

eagle eye

ohnonotgmail wrote:

incompetent ministers also affect our future. and a minister who cannot handle a situation like this is not competent.

Yeah incompetent like Simon Harris certainly do affect our future and our pockets.
Cowen never did a bad job as far as I'm aware because he never had a chance to. I'm no Barry Cowen fan btw, my opinion has nothing to do with him. It's about how this all came about and became such a big deal. It's ludicrous.

ohnonotgmail

eagle eye wrote: »

Yeah incompetent like Simon Harris certainly do affect our future and our pockets.
Cowen never did a bad job as far as I'm aware because he never had a chance to. I'm no Barry Cowen fan btw, my opinion has nothing to do with him. It's about how this all came about and became such a big deal. It's ludicrous.

his first act was minister was to explain his past. he refused to do so and there are still parts of it unknown. not acceptable.

Brendan Bendar

eagle eye wrote: »

Yeah incompetent like Simon Harris certainly do affect our future and our pockets.
Cowen never did a bad job as far as I'm aware because he never had a chance to. I'm no Barry Cowen fan btw, my opinion has nothing to do with him. It's about how this all came about and became such a big deal. It's ludicrous.

Ludicrous!!!

Ludicrous you say.

I’ll tell you what’s ludicrous, a 49 year old man aspiring to one of the highest offices in the State driving around on a learners licence for it seems over 25 years.

I’d stop at that to be quite honest and pull the trigger on the ludicrous meter right there.

FFS?

eagle eye

Brendan Bendar wrote:

I’d stop at that to be quite honest and pull the trigger on the ludicrous meter right there.

And that puts you in the group I mentioned earlier that can't see the wood from the trees.
If you are getting upset over this and had no problem with Simon Harris remaining in his job after the Children's hospital fiasco, you know like a huge failure at doing the job, them I don't know what to say to you.

Auguste Comte

eagle eye wrote: »

And that puts you in the group I mentioned earlier that can't see the wood from the trees.
If you are getting upset over this and had no problem with Simon Harris remaining in his job after the Children's hospital fiasco, you know like a huge failure at doing the job, them I don't know what to say to you.

Im upset about this and upset about Harris, what group would you say I'm in?

Plumbthedepths

Brendan Bendar wrote: »

Ludicrous!!!

Ludicrous you say.

I’ll tell you what’s ludicrous, a 49 year old man aspiring to one of the highest offices in the State driving around on a learners licence for it seems over 25 years.

I’d stop at that to be quite honest and pull the trigger on the ludicrous meter right there.

FFS?

B I'm shocked that I thanked your post but deserved in this instance.

walshb

eagle eye wrote: »

And that puts you in the group I mentioned earlier that can't see the wood from the trees.
If you are getting upset over this and had no problem with Simon Harris remaining in his job after the Children's hospital fiasco, you know like a huge failure at doing the job, them I don't know what to say to you.

Conflating here is silly.

The Children's Hospital is being built. It will complete....these monster projects will always be labeled by some as a fiasco......this is life. The world we live in. The many many many people involved will always lead to issues and problems....

Brendan Bendar

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

B I'm shocked that I thanked your post but deserved in this instance.

Huh..... dude..... why the shock?

What gives here..?

Muahahaha

eagle eye wrote: »

Yeah incompetent like Simon Harris certainly do affect our future and our pockets.
Cowen never did a bad job as far as I'm aware because he never had a chance to. I'm no Barry Cowen fan btw, my opinion has nothing to do with him. It's about how this all came about and became such a big deal. It's ludicrous.

You seem to be saying that this all happened because of social media and print media.Theres no evidence of this whatsoever, Michael Martin does not make decisions based on what people on Twitter think and I dont even remember any one single journalist coming out and saying that he should be sacked.

walshb wrote: »

Conflating here is silly.

The Children's Hospital is being built. It will complete....these monster projects will always be labeled by some as a fiasco......this is life. The world we live in. The many many many people involved will always lead to issues and problems....

The Childrens Hospital will be built but the problem people have is the cost. From 700m up to 1 billion up to 1.4 billion and now just a few weeks ago Tom Parlon of the Construction Industry Federation came out and said that construction costs as a result of Covid would increase by 40%. So we are looking at a hospital costing over 2 billion which will literally make it the most expensive hospital ever built in the world. When it gets complete I think I'll send in a proposal to the Guinnes World Book of Records with all credit given to Fine Gael for achieving such a dubious honour.

Plumbthedepths

Brendan Bendar wrote: »

Huh..... dude..... why the shock?

What gives here..?

What gives is I found your post excellent in how succinct it was and admired your ability to do so. Despite how often I found myself vehemently disagreeing with you.
Only got the time to respond as your post deserved now.

Brendan Bendar

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

What gives is I found your post excellent in how succinct it was and admired your ability to do so. Despite how often I found myself vehemently disagreeing with you.
Only got the time to respond as your post deserved now.

Uh...mkay dude..

Thought all my posts were like that. ...

McMurphy

eagle eye wrote: »

If Social media and the Irish media weren't driving this nothing would have been done.
The stupid fail to grasp that they're being led by agenda drivers.

Oh dear, it seems you haven't been keeping up to speed on things - the story broke a few weeks ago soon after the cabinet was announced.

Now, I don't know about you, but from what I'm reading There's a certain FF member who has been fingered by another FF member as being the source of the story.

https://twitter.com/unspeakable28/status/1280975847445401600?s=09

So, once the cat got out of the bag, tongues were wagging. Barry did little to help himself by refusing to answer certain questions surrounding why he was on a provisional license etc, and the next thing you know, he's publicly accusing the gards of making a false report on him, and the next thing you know he's sacked.

You're saying stupid people led by agenda drivers.

I'm saying, it was Michaél that sacked him because of Barry's stupid big mouth.

You can keep going over this all day and night if you want, but at the end of the day, Michaél didn't sack Barry because some boards/Twitter/Facebook user was calling for his head.

Michaél sacked Barry, because Barry left Michaél in a position where it was the only option available to him.

I can't believe this is being explained to you...... Again.

Yurt!

Yurt! wrote: »

Barry was and is a greyhounds man. He's a breeder and had some appointed sinecure with Bord nGcon (conveniently scrubbed from his CV on his website now that 'industry's' name is in the toilet).

The greyhound and bloodsports lobby is surprisingly vocal and influential for its size, and throws it's weight around in tandem with the horsey lobby.

In short, Bazza Cowen was their sort of guy.

People talk an awful lot of shit, excuse my French.

How can the greyhound industry simultaneously be in the toilet (it is) and at once be "surprsingly...influential" (it is not)? You're contradicting yourself. Everyone knows greyhounds are as good as finished.

Field Sports are a hugely dispersed, poorly organised, unaligned series of pursuits in this country. Even foxhunting, which is one of the more popular of them, has next-to-zero political influence and is poorly organized at the national level. The sport's main organising body, the IMFHA, takes almost no part in influencing public policy. Again, you are exaggerating, or bluffing.

Earlier we had some guy try to tell us that IFA members were angry and upset about Cowen's sacking -- clearly nonsense.

You shouldn't just make sweeping claims based on the first thing that comes into your head.

Yurt2

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

People talk an awful lot of shit, excuse my French.

How can the greyhound industry simultaneously be in the toilet (it is) and at once be "surprsingly...influential" (it is not)? You're contradicting yourself. Everyone knows greyhounds are as good as finished.

Field Sports are a hugely dispersed, poorly organised, unaligned series of pursuits in this country. Even foxhunting, which is one of the more popular of them, has next-to-zero political influence and is poorly organized at the national level. The sport's main organising body, the IMFHA, takes almost no part in influencing public policy. Again, you are exaggerating, or bluffing.

Earlier we had some guy try to tell us that IFA members were angry and upset about Cowen's sacking -- clearly nonsense.

You shouldn't just make sweeping claims based on the first thing that comes into your head.

It's name is certainly dirt. But There are 18 tracks around the country, and a lot of people's coin comes from the whole farrago. As noted, they get a lot of money from the exchequer and are extremely aggressive lobbyists. Rural TDs know them to be a reliable constituency if kept onside.

There was a report late last year recommending the closure of 4 tracks. I would have bet the gable end of my house that Cowen would have ensured that wouldn't happen.

Call me a sh*t talker all you want but the boys in the greyhound biz know how to pull the strings of TDs and there would be a significant overlap between farmers and those active in the greyhound industry.

Muahahaha

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

How can the greyhound industry simultaneously be in the toilet (it is) and at once be "surprsingly...influential" (it is not)? You're contradicting yourself. Everyone knows greyhounds are as good as finished.

Heres the thing- so long as the greyhound industry are getting a taxpayer funded grant of 16m per annum they are not finished. Like I said they are an industry literally built on quicksand. The very fact they secured this 16m per year shows how much influence they have, it far exceeds what the GAA gets despite the GAA having hundreds of thousands of players compared to the greyhound industry which is just a few hundred operators.

I remember when Bertie gave Croker a one of payment of 20m to go towards the stadiums redevelopment and there was uproar from certain quarters. But all these years the greyhound industry have been getting massive annual grants and there isnt a dickie bird about it and no politician has ever suggested slashing it. That shows they have influence in certain quarters, FFG know that if they were to cut the grant it will be sold as an attack on rural Ireland :rolleyes: And they would lose votes over it.

Edgware

Muahahaha wrote: »

Heres the thing- so long as the greyhound industry are getting a taxpayer funded grant of 16m per annum they are not finished. Like I said they are an industry literally built on quicksand. The very fact they secured this 16m per year shows how much influence they have, it far exceeds what the GAA gets despite the GAA having hundreds of thousands of players compared to the greyhound industry which is just a few hundred operators.

I remember when Bertie gave Croker a one of payment of 20m to go towards the stadiums redevelopment and there was uproar from certain quarters. But all these years the greyhound industry have been getting massive annual grants and there isnt a dickie bird about it and no politician has ever suggested slashing it. That shows they have influence in certain quarters, FFG know that if they were to cut the grant it will be sold as an attack on rural Ireland :rolleyes: And they would lose votes over it.

Why shoulder they even cut the grant? Except maybe to give Whacker money to build a pigeon loft in the tenements

Yurt!

Yurt! wrote: »

Call me a sh*t talker all you want but the boys in the greyhound biz know how to pull the strings of TDs and there would be a significant overlap between farmers and those active in the greyhound industry.

I apologise for insinuating you were a shite-talker, that was a bit ott.

If I could have put it a better way, there will be a controversy whenever you try to put an end to any industry, even if it was only a two-man mushroom farm on the side of a mountain. But this isn't indicative of any real national lobbying strength. There is a huge amount of ill-will out there against the greyhound industry, and the punters who still go in for it are of an older category.

I would go so far as to speculate that Hunting (or other field sports) and greyhounds are two of the weakest interest-groups, in terms of political capital, that come under the auspices of the Dept. of Agriculture. Farming, forestry, rural development, biodiversity and bogs are important stakeholders. Lads training greyhounds in their part time are mostly irrelevant.

PixieValentine

KiKi III wrote: »

Seems like if he agreed to go in and answer questions openly he’d still be in his post.

As is often the case, the cover up did more harm than the crime.

Sounds like that, yeah. I can’t believe he didn’t see the impossible position he was making for himself, though. That he REALLY thought he could continue refusing to answer any questions from anyone, in the media or in the Dail, all while MM was facing a grilling over and over again from the opposition over him, Leo Varadkar and Eamon Ryan were fielding questions about him in every interview they did, and TDs in his own party AND the Greens and FG were also having to take questions about it and defend him… I mean, I can see why initially he decided to shut up and stop making things worse for himself when the stories just kept coming, but it's wild to think he really thought he could just continue to refuse to answer any more about it, even when his boss- and the Taoiseach of the country!- told him it simply wasn’t tenable to say nothing more about it, while everyone else in all three parties was having to talk about it over and over again.

Yurt2

[QUOTE=A Tyrant Named Miltiades!;114064220]I apologise for insinuating you were a shite-talker, that was a bit ott.

If I could have put it a better way, there will be a controversy whenever you try to put an end to any industry, even if it was only a two-man mushroom farm on the side of a mountain. But this isn't indicative of any real national lobbying strength. There is a huge amount of ill-will out there against the greyhound industry, and the punters who still go in for it are of an older category.

I would go so far as to speculate that Hunting (or other field sports) and greyhounds are two of the weakest interest-groups, in terms of political capital, that come under the auspices of the Dept. of Agriculture. Farming, forestry, rural development, biodiversity and bogs are important stakeholders. Lads training greyhounds in their part time are mostly irrelevant.[/QUOTE]

No offence taken, good of you to say.

I've seen the greyhound guys in action, and I could name a couple of rural TDs they have in their pocket. There would be an overlap between a lot of them and farming groups from my observance.

TheCitizen

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

B I'm shocked that I thanked your post but deserved in this instance.

Don't be encouraging him. Look at the nonsense he's arguing for. He can't pass off what he's arguing for by trying to be jovial. He's been well rinsed. What he says will not wash.

Brendan Bendar

TheCitizen wrote: »

Don't be encouraging him. Look at the nonsense he's arguing for. He can't pass off what he's arguing for by trying to be jovial. He's been well rinsed. What he says will not wash.

Incorrect, neither washed or rinsed, buddy.

Shefwedfan

Zebra3 wrote: »

Really?

What special attributes did a man who sold houses have when it comes to agriculture?

PhD in agricultural studies? Did he ever run a farm? Please tell us.

I have no idea, I don't work in farming.


Do you?