Indeed David – and it’s not the only time Michael Martin has shown his incompetence; His amalgamation of the health boards to the HSE; the disastrous smoking ban which has ruined the pub industry; his support of Gaybo (god help us) etc. I doubt FF will recover any time soon, and I doubt it’ll happen even more under Martin’s leadership.

People would also start to look at his C.V. and see a man that has never worked a day in his life, but went in to the Seanad on the back of his daddy’s name as Albert’s nomination, and then off to Europe. The tax payer might as well have put a direct debit in to his bank account for all that he has done or ever contributed.

Add in that he was only polling 3-5% in Leinster/Ulster and Connaught, margin of error stuff. He would have been lucky to break 10% in an election. Would Dana have beaten him, very probable!

He will not run as an independent, he knows that he will not run. Who believes that if he had a good chance that he wouldn’t shaft the party in a second. They shafted him with Gaybo, “no honour among etc etc.”

@Tony He polled 13% Nationwide and was the only “candidate” South of the Dublin Galway line… Without even entering the race.. all he did was seek an interest in the nomination. 13% is a lot whe n you consider the fact taht he was never really in the race.. all of it was speculation. Youre twisting the facts!!

Hear hear Tony.

Brian sported the smallest FF logo imaginable on his last Euro posters, his website presumably follows a similiar theme.

The only reason he’s pulling out is because no amount of soft focus interviews on the Late Late with Tubridy, or clutching of rosary beads can disguise the fact that Mehole shafted him in favour of a chance to get Gaybo, and also that the party name would be toxic to his ambitions. To be honest, I’d be fairly pissed off, if I were him.

He can console himself with his expenses in Europe (expenses he voted against putting in the public arena), I’d imagine that the financial penalty placed upon him by not getting into the Aras will be relatively minor.

Ciaran. You know well that he would be lucky to poll above 10%, he would be representing a party that is viewed as run by thieves and fools at best and traitors at worst, who are completely broke, who could not even arrange their National collection across areas that they were once their strongest fiefdoms. I come from North Cork and their national collection was non-existent in my area, first time in 30 years and what would be their strongest area outside of Donegal. Who would canvass for him? The man has been creaming it for years in Europe and has absolutely nothing to show for it via achievements for Ireland. A nice fat bank account for himself though. Dublin/Galway line – lol. You think we are in WW1. Regional and party loyalties have always been shown to be discarded in Presidential elections.

i wonder was the ff article on here yesrerday testing the water,s for mr crowley he must have been informed of the anti ff malaise that is still about there were more deletes than post because they did not side with the journal, s propaganda

Derek – Just to be unequivocal on this, any comments that were deleted on the FF readme piece were deleted in line with our comments policy. Quite a lot of those comments were personal attacks rather than any attempt to prompt discussion, which the policy clearly forbids.

To be equally clear, the article you’re referring to was not any attempt to “test the water” on our part or anyone else’s. The idea originated in-house and was followed up simply because we thought it would be an interesting piece to read. With 216 comments and over 3,000 views I think it probably was.

@Derek – I meant to add, too, that TheJournal.ie does not pursue any editorial policy lines, and certainly doesn’t pursue “propaganda” of any sort.

there is bias there mr reilly i made 5 commemt,s 1 was derogatry because of the word,s i chose but still the truth the other,s were very subtle for the way i feel for the way that party has has treated the people of this country and this is not the first time i detected this on the journal,s part and i am gl\d ye give the platform for people tp air the view,s but ye are not doing so on a level playing field

Derek – I can’t speak for whoever moderated your comments, but it may help if I point out that subsequent comments in a thread are deleted if a post to which they refer is gotten rid of.

In short, a discussion that evolves on the basis of a deleted comment also gets deleted, because otherwise it appears out of context.

I think that article showed two things;

-Fianna Fail have amassed a considerable online presence since the election, as evidenced by the amount of comments, like the curate’s egg, good in parts, that emanated from FF members and supporters on that thread. Some reasonable people were offset by others who were insulting, narrow minded, and downright arrogant.

-An oversight in moderation can lead to heavy accusations of bias, and it is a fine line. I doubt the site here has anything to gain from cheerleading FF (in fact it’s questionable whether anyone does any more, which is why RTE as one example have reversed their former position!), but in one instance, a ridiculously antagonising and stupid post was left up for hours, while any response to it was removed. I posted what was a fairly reasoned reply and it was gone in minutes, the only post I put up there that got pulled. If someone didn’t think about the sequence of events, they would see a pro FF post stand, while those in response, of an opposing view got nuked. Had the initial shit stirring mantra been pulled initially, a lot of hassle would have been avoided.

Ryan – I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s a fine line, and sometimes given our resources (and the fact that moderation, for me and the other staff here, is a secondary function to our role as writers) we can’t keep up with it as much as we’d like. Any time we drop the ball, though, it is simply because we’ve overlooked something and not because we’re trying to give prominence to one side of a debate over another.

Anyone who has an issue with comments as they are published is encouraged to hit the ‘Report this comment’ link, which prompts us to take a closer look at it.

Any journalist that doesn’t engage in shite stirring is neglecting their job. It is a fine balancing act between quality and prodding the masses with a stick.

David Norris is still the peoples choice dispite the fact that some bigots tried to ruin a good man

I agree completely, I am sure he is not the only politician (or indeed any high profile individual) who has written letters to legal authorities to plead for clemency for a convict. Although the particular clime is one not tolerated by a majority of people it should not have been taken into a context to destroy a politician’s reputation.

You’re both forgetting that Norris continued a relationship with the guy, and earlier expressed a fervent regret that he had not been molested in his youth, himself.

There was no way he could have gone on, so I’d hold off on putting him out there as some sort of martyr, whose passing is mourned by all.

Given that many of the people that resigned from Norris’s campaign after seeing letters held by the Sunday Independent were gay. then we have to ask why people believe that it was all bigotry. Did Norris manage to find only gay people that were homophobes, some achievement or more likely his views were considered unacceptable by them, like they were by many many others. No man or women is perfect, he did great things in the 80′s but his views were completely off the wall, irregardless of sexuality.

Yes and free the statutory rapist too! (what was his name again)

sorry mr Ryan the relationship was over at that stage and it might interest you to know mr norris was not the only person who appealed on behalf of this man