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HOLLY CAIRNS HAS said that she feels that the job of a politician is more conducive to “someone with a housewife” as an election looms and she expects her first child.
There’s been speculation that the election could be called for sometime in November of this year, though the Taoiseach has been adamant that the Government will complete its full four-year term.
Speaking on the likelihood of that election taking place, the Social Democrats leader said her party were prepared and ready to contest seats, but detailed a November polling date could also clash with the due date of her first-born daughter.
“There is quite a strange atmosphere up here in the Dáil,” Cairns said in a video posted to her Instagram. “Because everybody thinks the election is going to be in November. The Taoiseach keeps saying ‘It won’t be in November’ but nobody believes him.
“And then, I have another big event coming up in November, which is the birth of my child. So that feels like a lot to juggle.”
“I’ve always felt this job was designed for someone with a housewife but I have to say I’ve never felt it so acutely.”
She said her team at Leinster House and her party have been supportive of her and that the organisations candidates are ready to go. “We are ready for an election,” she said.
Cairns was speaking as her party today announced its plans for an alternative budget where it planned to introduce targeted taxes on the ‘super rich’.
Increased thresholds of taxes for those with more than €2 million worth of assets – excluding things such as the family home – were proposed at the party’s announcement today.
Her remarks also came as Minister for Equality Roderic O’Gorman is bringing forward legislation before Cabinet today that makes changes to the States’ maternity leave system.
Included in the new laws is a provision for female members of the Oireachtas to take maternity leave. It is unclear if the legislation will be approved by both houses by the time of an election and if it includes provisions for campaigning periods.
However, in an interview with The Journal in June, Cairns said that it is “truly incredible” that there was still no formal arrangement.
Justice Minister Helen McEntee and other female politicians previously have had to take sick leave so they can be paid for maternity leave. McEntee also had to step aside from her role as minister last year during that period.
Today’s legislation, which also allows for women who become ill during their maternity leave to defer the maternity leave allowances until they are recovered, has been completed over a long period of time.
Speaking in Dublin before the meeting this morning, O’Gorman said: “This is an updating of Irish law that I think we all recognize is long overdue.”
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What a devastating disaster. To destroy such an old established business like this. Hope ye can stay going and regroup. Nothing sacred anymore.
Ann
Maybe someone else nearby with a Catering Kitchen could allow her to use their kitchen on a quiet, or a shut shop, day? Esp’ if it has its own “Free Power”/Off-Grid Renewable supply (to keep overheads down – for both parties). A lot of places don’t open on Mondays, Tuesdays, & Wednesdays anymore. If she could still meet even half her clients’ orders that fit with the days she has kitchen access (for retention of freshness), it would give her a fighting chance to keep the business *in business* and ticking over while the Tradies are in the bakery unit restoring and renovating the place…. after the insurance finally inspects & processes whatever payment they intend.
Also – There should not be any water *still* pouring out into her shop unit. Would the Firefighters not have given her a hand there to find the external stopcock and turn off the mains supply to the store entirely.
Unless it’s coming from a loft or rooftop storage tank? But even then, it should quit eventually when it runs out of water . . . .unless, again, the mains outside is not turned off and is still supplying the tank.
We’ll keep the fingers crossed for them anyway.
Best of luck bouncing back
Hope they’ve got adequate insurance that will cover rebuilding and possibly loss of earnings. Even so, next year’s premium might be off the wall. Hate to see a decent family-run business like that destroyed. Not too many left anymore.
Is it possible that the fire could be caused by the ole reliable climate change claim ? Asking for an insurance friend of mine
1862 was a long time ago. Thought it was mostly spuds on the menu then
@The Hard Road: Is that what you thought? Read much?
@Jack Hayes: Comments section is full of w anchors.
@Jack Hayes: I stand corrected. I had thought there were lots of people subsisting on potatoes rather than cream cakes during that period of Irish history. Now I know better
@The Hard Road: Like the man in the orthopaedic shoes.
@The Hard Road: Everything was on the menu then, if you had the wherewithal to pay for it!
@The Hard Road: You are on the right track …-ish. Spuds were never the problem. Wholesale confiscation of all livestock, tillage crops, and grains, by Britain, as “Taxes” surplus to coin taxes and rents, were the problem. All the “tenant” farmer was left with to sustain themselves were usually a few spuds and other scarce bits. Potato crop failed the years of the Famine Genocide, AND Britain still continued to levy and escalate confiscation of all harvests and livestock.
But you would definitely be correct. Very few indigenous Irish would have had the option or opportunity to eat home made cakes, let alone *purchased* bakery goods from the City. Back then, the shop probably predominantly supplied indigenous Protestants who had favourable access to higher salaried professional occupations and lay jobs; and the non-indigenous, like Brits, who held all the Wealth (from Resource stripping).
That is not to say there wouldn’t have been a fair few indigenous Catholics who had reasonably well paid jobs and/or happened to have multiple teenage children capable of and succeeding in getting a lower paid City job who’s wages would then all go into the pot for the mother to run the house (and, buy a rare cake on a rare special occasion).
So it wasn’t wholly impossible for indigenous Irish Catholics to purchase a cake.
It was just far more probable the Protestant Privileged, and the foreign Resource Strippers, were the more common customer (possibly alongside tea shops and other commercial enterprises that didn’t have an in-house baker)
@Pink Freud: comprehensive and factual answer.
@Pink Freud: Sort of what we have now but with multinationals
That picture brought me back .Terrible news and places like this are very few nowadays. Some are intent on destruction and for what purpose? I hope they recover. I have a yearning for a jam doughnut now.
Ireland wants a franchise here. Greggs maybe
@Thesaltyurchin: But do we really, you have clearly have not tasted anything from Greggs.
@Michael Ward: Sarcasm. Apologies, it’s a hard one when read in context. But we do prefer our shop owners to run a Centra, our coffee to be Starbucks. Imagine it’s less work for officials to do, bigger employers, lower wages. If a costa goes bust it probably doesn’t even register a blip on their overall books. Ireland has never liked the SME (imo).
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