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FIANNA FÁIL LEADER Michéal Martin made a Freudian slip yesterday when he told the media that his party was not in opposition.
“We are not in opposition, sorry, we are not in government. We wanted to be in government but we didn’t get the numbers.”
Smiling, Martin was quick to correct himself. But was this a slip of the tongue?
The truth is, Fine Gael need them and Fianna Fáil know this.
After being decimated in the 2011 vote, it had the best election result of any party this year.
It more than doubled its number of TDs, with 44 elected. Last weekend, the latest poll said Fianna Fáil is the most popular in the country – with 28% support.
Martin’s party is on a bit of a high
Riding this wave, Martin said yesterday that he would one day like to be Taoiseach – but was quick to point out that this is ultimately up to the Irish people.
A statement like this might not have been made so easily back in 2011, but now it seems to be a lot more palatable.
With thoughts of being Taoiseach being floated, it raises the question as to when the people will be back at the ballot boxes.
It all depends on how this government beds in, how members of the Independent Alliance and Fine Gael get on in Cabinet but also how long Fianna Fáil plays ball.
For now, Fianna Fáil has been but that could all change.
Waiting in the long grass?
Housing Minister Simon Coveney recently told TheJournal.ie that he thinks Fianna Fáil is biding its time, waiting in the long grass for the perfect opportunity to pull the whole show down.
[After the Budget] it is really about delivery and how Fianna Fáil behave in opposition and do they strategically want to pull the government down, which I think at some point they may want to do. But they might find it difficult to do it unless they have a very good reason.
When asked by TheJournal.ie if this is the case, Martin told reporters yesterday:
They need to cop on and stop talking in that vein. No government can operate on a proper basis if they just keep looking over their shoulders like that. They need to lead from the front.
Martin said the party “will look at issues on their merit”.
We will do the right thing by the country in terms of working with all of the parties, including the government, to get the best outcome for Ireland in what will be a difficult scenario in the next two years.
Budget day
The first hurdle for this government is the Budget, taking place on 11 October.
Martin said it is not a case of Fianna Fáil vetoing parts of the Budget, but a matter of compromise.
If you make a commitment in terms of the formation of a government – you honour it, you don’t try and bring down a government in the first six months.
Due to the new Oireachtas Committee on Budgetary Oversight, Martin said Budget details will be a lot more “transparent” this year.
Under the confidence and supply agreement between the two parties, it’s understood that there are to be no surprises in the Budget.
There’s no doubt about it, it definitely irritates Fine Gael that the government has to run the Budget past its long-time party rivals.
“I think it irks Fine Gael, I think that would be a fair assessment. We would much rather do it without having to talk to Fianna Fáil but we live in a democracy… we have a deal with them… but make no mistake, this will be a Fine Gael and independent-led budget. We are in government, it is our job to make decisions,” Coveney said recently.
With just over three weeks until Budget day, only time will tell just how robust the negotiations will get.
With independents and Fianna Fáil in the mix, Fine Gael will have its work cut out keeping everyone happy.
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Maybe its because men die younger so there are proportionally fewer older men available to die from the virus.
@Paul Quinn: Women live longer and because this thing effects older people in the vast majority of cases it makes perfect sense. Can we now also have a Oireachtas Committee to hold a special session to examine why men die younger than women?, no did not think so.
@Peter Hughes: Some men die younger than women because they tend to not look after themselves as well as some women. Not going to the doctor’s as frequently, more men are alcoholics, etc.
@Paul Quinn: but that applies internationally too – it doesn’t explain the disparity between the Irish experience and other countries
Maybe because women are more likely to get tested for things, whereas us men don’t do doctors and tests?
@Diarmuid O’Dubhlaoich: I think that sounds likely.
@Diarmuid O’Dubhlaoich: But the death rate for women is higher. That would only make sense if it was just the confirmed cases. Makes sense to me that it’s more women in nursing home and more women carers etc.
@Fandandi: The states women’s death rate 6% men’s 8%
So 50/50 death rates (as good as) meaning almost total equality except the fact a higher percentage of men who contracted it died is turned into a “but women need more support” diatribe? What about men and their mental health? What about their physical health? What about support to get men to see doctors earlier? Do men have the same access to GPS? Do more women have medical cards etc? The fatality rate for men being 33% higher than women is just accepted and the article talks about women doing homeschooling with the kids?
@Dino: You’re an awful clown. The best thing you could do is shut up and read a few books.
@Niall Byrne: Great counter arguement Niall.
Covid is sexist. Maybe the SJW’s will cancel it.
@Peter Denham: pathetic
@Louis Jacob: They are indeed.
@Peter Denham: Tut.
@Louis Jacob: you’re some bag of misery, Louis.
@Peter Denham: No I’m not actually. I just found out today I’m back at work next week. I actually cried with happiness today. I was just winding you up. I’m sorry.
@Peter Denham: precious.
@Louis Jacob: OK Smeagol.
@Peter Denham: oh dear. Whose miserable now?
@Louis Jacob: Yours.
@Peter Denham: Are you a Suffolk Denham or a Yorkshire Denham? Give me a clue Snoopy.
@Louis Jacob: Well this has gone downhill fast.
@Cormac Laffan: Yeah. Kind of creepy. Peter finds you and snoops around in your Facebook page. I’ll probably stop using The Journal I think.
@Louis Jacob: wha? I didn’t go near your FB page. Why do you say that?
@Peter Denham: creep on.
@Louis Jacob: Jaysus, no need to tell lies.
@Louis Jacob: Genuinely, you’ve lost me.
@Peter Denham: So it turns out Louis thought my comment “Smeagol” was a comment on his looks (he thought I was looking at his pictures), when actually it was a response to his random comment “precious.”
Headline is a bit misleading in that it lumps deaths and COVID positive cases together. The death rate is the most important one and that shows a 50/50 split between men and women. The reason more women are COVID positive is that there are more of them in the caring professions looking after COVID patients.
@Fionn Darland: I think that’s it and as someone said above, women are probably more likely to have the cop on to get tested.
@Louis Jacob: It boils down to demographics. Higher proportion of nursing home residents are female. Higher percentage of caring profession are women. And now higher proportion of journalists working for the journal are women. Story.
The places of work that stayed open is huge in this, most of the people that serve you in tescos dunnes at the tills will be massively proportionally women, similarly most nurses who were on the frontline are women, those factors must be a huge part to it surely?
White middle class women take a short interlude from instagramming black lives matter memes to tell us that a virus is sexist. Bravo ladies.
@SkepticalHippoEyes: oh dear
Well first the death rate is about 50/50 so there is that I am also guessing it is because A lar
ge amount of people working in hospitals and other caring roles are female also if women live longer than men there would be more in old folks homes so that
It’s easy to know why and it’s laid out there in the article. 57% of cases are women, driven by the fact over 30% of cases are healthcare staff, which is predominantly female. Deaths are currently 50.5% female, driven by the fact residential nursing homes have a higher proportion of females than males. Why that is is another question but if I had to guess its because in a lot of cases males will have dies by the time they need nursing home care. Why this trend is higher than rest of world? Maybe to do how some countries are not reporting all nursing home deaths.
51% are women and account for 50.5% of deaths? So that means women are disproportionately affected? Am I missing something?
50.5% of deaths being female here is the slimiest of slim majorities. Silly, sensationalist title but that’s the ‘news’ these days.
The real question is how come the majority of deaths world wide are male?
The Brookings Institute has said that taking age into account, COVID-19 is far more deadly for men.
I would imagine that part of the problem is men’s own fault. We just don’t look after ourselves the way women do but there’s more to it then just that.
Reading thro the Comments here I think all the answers as to “why more women” are in there.
Therefore may I suggest that rather than pay some group of “experts” shedloads of money to do a “review” (standard practice in this country), as Stephen Donnelly suggests, the government should extract the answers from here and pay the Commentors!!
@Virus-free Turkey: I know you’re trying to be funny but the point being made here in the comments is there is no need for an investigation, it doesn’t even need an explanation and would be a waste of time and money. As for Donnelly, you’d think he’d make sure he had his tweet right before sending (or whoever sent on his behalf), especially around something as sensitive a subject as deaths from coronavirus. He stated 57% of deaths were female when it’s actually 57% of cases are female.
Strange anomaly. It’s hardly relevant but Irish women are the best anyway.
@Louis Jacob: “Irish women are the best…..” . Is that not racist, implying that women from other countries are worse?
#MCAS potentially more prevalent in females in IRL?
Just guessing…
Look at the otherajor figure, nearly a third of cases were from. Health care workers. A female dominated profession. And we didn’t provide adequate ppe for our health staff. So I’d say this has alot to do with it……
There is a serious problem with presenting data on coronavirus which has shown internationally to disproportionately to take more male than female lives. Comparing like with like data for March internationally the article states “males accounted for 64% of deaths in China, 58% in France, 62% in Germany, 59% in Iran, 71% in Italy and 54% in South Korea” whereas for end of March in Ireland males accounted for 73% of all deaths. This trend continued into April where males accounted for 53% of all deaths in Ireland – https://bit.ly/2ULhYJJ. Clear data, declaring the number of deaths by gender each day became obscured in the public service website. The question is how did the internationally recognised vulnerability identified in males globally to this virus become inverted in public data figures in Ireland? The gender vulnerability to coronavirus data cannot be relied upon in Ireland where other facts were not provided in the recording of the data and death rates by gender and by circumstance. Deaths in residential homes emerged in April and May where it was not explained whether those populations included more females to males. Indeed, there are questions to answer how the gender data was gathered, reported and assigned. It would be a huge mistake to expend greater resource as proposed rather than how can we provide against the internationally known fingerprint of the impact of coronavirus on gender and how it affects males more than females in terms of death rates. Make no mistake but a second wave is coming and applying real strategies to protecting the most vulnerable by age, gender and illness is critical. As a carer for a cancer patient throughout this period I know what distress protecting the most vulnerable means each and every day.
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