General Irish politics discussion thread

Hell no, but it won't be up to Leo it'll be up to Micheal who gets the FF cabinet seats.

The FF front bench really is a complete vacuum of lack of political talent so who else is he going to pick!

The Twitterati disgracing themselves again by making it about the government rather than Vicky?

If I recall correctly, Leo Varadkar issued a State apology some years ago. Maybe you and the nasties on Twitter have forgotten that.

Will you ever have some dignity, and stop trying to start another row as a woman has just died.

"Thanks to her tireless efforts, despite the terrible personal toll she herself had to carry, so many women's lives have been protected, and will be protected in the future."

President Higgins has called it, she did achieve many things, there has been change. You are selectively exploiting a victim for political reasons again.

I am not dignifying your victim exploitation with a response. Plenty of time to dig through old quotes and see where progress has been made in the days ahead to respond to your simplistic inaccurate narrative but today isn't the day.

Well said, a valiant attempt was made to cover this up and only for this woman's refusal to be silenced it would still be under wraps. We are seeing another attempt to silence here.

No party receives as many donations as Sinn Fein and no other party hides them in the North away from the eyes of SIPO. The legacy from the UK was a prime example.

We don't know what they've hidden. If we knew, it wouldn't be hidden. That's what "hidden" means.

The point is that NI rules on the disclosure of political donations and on the amounts that can be donated are much, much laxer than in IRL (or GB; that's why a million-dollar donation to fund Brexit ads running in GB newspapers was channelled through the DUP — remember?) As SF is organised both north and south of the border, it has the opportunity to accept donations that could not be accepted in IRL, and to evade scrutiny of its funding sources by routing them through NI rather than IRL. These opportunities are not available to FF, FG, etc, so we know much more about their funding than we do about SF's.

That only proves the point being made. Those disclosures relate only to donations in the South, not in the North. Nobody knows how much is donated in the North because it is hidden.

Heather's letter writing in the spotlight again.

Curiously Heather is out this morning denying something the article never claimed.

Translation: Hire Me!

Smacks of nominating peers in the HoC when a PM goes, did Paschal, in one of his final acts as Finance Minister, sucumb to former FG minister Brian Hayes persisent lobbying for this?

Well, its' better than being in bed with Lavrov and Putin, which the main opposition party was for many a year.

Remember the times they voted AGAINST sanctions for Russia after Salsbury? The refused to believe Interpol, and the EU's intelligence that Russia was responsible for Salsbury.

Fun times. Since the invasion, they promptly deleted years of press releases hoping to hide their past deeds, like their bothers the PIRA burying the bodies of McConville and Co.

Anyway, back to Iran, yes I would agree that the embassy should not be reopened. A shame Doherty is only coming around to the fact there are oppressive regimes in the world. Didn't he stand shoulder to shoulder with a number of Central and South American Tyrants?

Stones, and glass houses come to mind. When it comes to Iran and Russia, best they STFU for a few years in the hope people forget that they stood with these regimes and protected them in the EU parliament for many many years.

Yet Russia did not vote for Ireland be on the UNSC, oddly enough. You seem to think its a trump card, but its not. Its a piss poor attempt to say 'Look over there!'.

Stones and glass house Francie. Your past staunch defence of Russian Imperialism and aggression to the West is well recorded and documented on this forum. Best not get me riled up to dig out your quotes on this matter ;)

Thankfully it's under review.

Dukes bigotry taking up nearly more time on Claire Byrne than the discussion on Quinn himself.

That he couldn't bring himself to apologise says a lot about FG arrogance.

Parse it for us there, what does the independent evidence say?

Does it say 'that people in the border region have violence in their blood'?

That doesn't explain the blind loyalty and omerta.

Correct. Blatantly obvious point Pere. The guys arrested for the violence were drawn to the border from Dublin and elsewhere.

Yeh, I know.

They are according to Dukes and blanch more prone to violence than anyone else on the island, both are doubling down on this bigoted view of a disparate community of people. Arrogance won't allow them to apologise or retract. blanch has even produced a report that he claims 'backs up' Dukes but as yet hasn't pointed out where.

Nonsense.

Alan Dukes characterisation was completely right, albeit one he'd have done better to keep to hisself.

Its not exactly their own fault either. The lawlessness and violence of 1969 to 1998 conditioned a generation of paranoia, suspicion, omerta and kangaroo courts.

A close relative of mine was a senior Garda based across Louth, Monaghan and Cavan for most of his career from the early 70s to the early 00s and I've heard the stories, the wretched details.

The Troubles have left a dreadful legacy, one that, to this day, tends to sideline the Guards and the Courts in favour of 'local solutions'.

This is the environment in which Sean Quinn built his businesses and in which his suppliers and customers existed. If you think that just disappeared overnight, then guess again.

Did your relative tell you stories about the Amnesty condemned 'Heavy Gang' of Gardai FG sent to the region? Does he or indeed you take any responsibilty for the damage that caused to the Gardai here?

The RUC had to be restructured and renamed for what they did and it took years to rebuild confidence in the new PSNI as a result, here, the activities of the Heavy Gang were buried...typically.

You obviously didn't read the report.

"the Committee was alarmed to hear from witnesses that in some border areas, particularly in the South Armagh region, the sale of laundered fuel was both widespread and carried out in the open."

"Although sometimes considered a victimless crime, illicit trade has a significant impact on the Irish and British economies and also frequently supports other serious criminal activities by groups engaged in cross-border smuggling activities. The Committee was told by a number of witnesses, including the Gardai and PSNI, that organised crime gangs featured prominently in illicit trade and that extensive networks on both sides of the border allowed them to partake in any number of illegal ventures, often working in partnership with each other. Even more troubling was the link between these organised crime gangs and dissident groups who heavily depended on organised crime to fund their terrorist activities. The Committee heard, for example, that dissidents comprised a considerable proportion of criminals involved in fuel laundering."

As I have said already, it is a border, and borders attract criminals. Criminals are more violent than the rest of the community.

My point was about latent FG bigotry becoming public in the utterances of Dukes and echoed by others here. If it exists in others that is not surprising either. Many belligerent Unionists would believe the same.