…If only!

That would be great indeed

Eileen. It wasn’t our “financial sovereignty” but our actual sovereignty. It was like Gilmore calling Cowen an “economic traitor”, the first word is only a partial truth, left out, it is the complete truth.

He made that statement 2hours after popping into the chemist for his headache.. ..they recommend Nurofen Plus!

Tony , you are right of course , I stand corrected . I like your recollection” It was like Gilmore calling Cowen an “economic traitor”, the first word is only a partial truth, left out, it is the complete truth.”

“A gentle meh”.

;)

That is the important thing to remember. Time will tell.

There are people out there who have already forgotten !! I am not one of them .

As the old saying goes, “Fianna Fáil’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity”.

I know, that annoys the hell out of me!! It’s become something of a cliché but “I never voted for them”. The people who did vote for those party animals have very selective memories, as we know.

Well, I never even gave ‘em a preference, was and am a floating voter, but not in their direction.

Plenty of others did, obviously. No shame in admitting the fact.

Anyway, I see Dev Og, the man who couldn’t roll out a dual language placename policy, is now miffed that there will be no candidate. Unlike Martin, he didn’t need a committee to make his mind up on that issue, but one can still hold out a faint hope that there will be a split in the camp.

It does always seem quite odd to me that the people who attack Fianna Fáil so vociferously now are ones who never voted for the Party in the first place.
Does go some way in explaining why people can’t attack the people who are currently in Govt; it’s a bizarre turn of events when people attack the Opposition so bitterly.
What I mean by that is, simply put, Fianna Fáil got its drubbing at the ballot box. That’s democracy in action & Ireland should be proud etc etc… But seems odd to continue attacking after the Election…
The people are mad, they vote out the Party they don’t like, that’s how democracy works, right?
Surely all available public scrutiny should be reserved for those currently in power…
But, armed with the knowledge that the people attacking Fianna Fáil are, in fact, people who never liked the Party, it explains a lot as to why they won’t attack the current Govt; because you voted them in!

No, Paul, it’d be odd if everyone forgot that FF driven the country to the brink of oblivion over the last 14 years. Odd, yet convenient for FF. The people spoke democratically, yes. But getting an arse-kicking in a general election doesn’t grant an instant absolution for the gross mismanagement of the country over the previous several generations. The current government are most definitely not above scrutiny, but please don’t be churlish or disingenuous – there’s an awful lot of shite left behind by the previous tenants to clean up.

I’m sorry to say, they could well hold a fair chunk of local council seats. They’d take a dive obviously, but I can’t see it being on the level of the GE, unless of course there’s a major rift at ground level around the country.

I’m praying the org/cult don’t survive for a a few more of those years!

Perhaps FF will, I have a feeling though most of the rest of us won’t. Had a quick read over your blog post and honestly you’re in cloud cuckoo land. With something so corrupt and inept as FF we’ll all be better off when they are gone.

They are 2.5mn in debt, their leadership over the last 30 years have asset stripped the party leaving it with no resources, they ran down the cumann’s to nothing but sycophants, cousins and business associates who never worked for the party but turned up to nominate their friend/benefactor at every election convention and they are the most hated Org. in Ireland since the Black and Tans, maybe even more so. The leadership of FF know that they are finished as a party, look at their National Collection this year, non-existent across most of the country.

While you may not have been a FF’er you were a PD which was FF-Lite. Bertie Ahern’s backers for the last 13 years and a party whose main supporters are NAMA developers and failed bankers. A party that talked ethics but backed Haughey and Ahern, stood by Lawlor etc etc etc.

The PD’s could have been saved if they had kicked out the crony TD’s and the power hungry, established a commitment to clean politics, moved away from donor auction politics. They could not because they were ever only a formation of disgruntled FF TD’s (and erratic hanger on) who felt that they would always be on the back bench. All the above applies to FF, what do they stand for but power for the sake of power, using it to enrich family and friends. What will sustain them, to put up with the intense hatred that is now there for them. Nothing. FG and Lab. and SF should be careful over the next few years for the rats leaving the sinking ship.

“If Fianna Fáil decide not to run a candidate in this election, then there are only two possible explanations: either the leadership has decided the party is dead, or the party does not possess, in all its thousands of members, a candidate of sufficient worth and capability to make, with no effective opposition and ample media coverage, a respectable contender for the Áras.”

(from the blog linked above)

I honestly don’t see what’s so cuckoo about that, seems eminently sensible to me.

I think that the “cuckoo land” quote is a reference to the fact that they are dead on the ground, that even their most deluded but honest supporters have walked away from them. I come from an area that would be black FF traditionally, this year was the first time in 40 years that they did not have a church gate collection. Stephen is correct that they should have run a candidate for their own sake but he is missing the point that the FF body is starting to smell and stiffen up.

How is that positive? How is anything positive coming from that party?