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FIANNA FÁIL LEADER Micheál Martin says he still keeps in touch with former taoiseach Brian Cowen and had a “good chat” with his predecessor at the funeral of former Kerry GAA boss Páidí Ó Sé.
He also told TheJournal.ie this week that he had a “quick word” with former taoiseach Bertie Ahern around ten days ago but says that neither of the two former party leaders have any input on current party policy.
“I mean they are private citizens they go about their lives,” he said.
Martin has spent much of his two years as leader of the opposition party trying to rebuild Fianna Fáil and move it away from the era of Ahern – who was found to have lied to the Planning Tribunal – and Cowen – who was taoiseach when Ireland entered the EU/IMF bailout.
Martin said that he’d a “good chat” with Cowen at Ó Sé’s funeral in December and confirmed that he still keeps in touch with the former party leader.
He also said that he met Ahern at another event linked to Ó Sé, the launch of a ‘Páidí Ó Sé Football Festival’ which will take place later this month.
“I met him socially at that, I just had a quick word with him,” he said.
On Fianna Fáil’s poll rating, Cowen and Bertie:
He said that both men would have little interest in contributing to party policy or current political issues, pointing out that this is often the case with former taoisigh.
“Their view on life is they’ve been there,” he said.
“It’s traditional with taoisigh of all parties, generally speaking when they retire they want to let it to the incoming or those who are in incumbent, in office to get on with it.”
Martin also said he does not take a recent poll which found his party was the most popular in the country too seriously: “It’s not great news for us at all really to be honest with you because I don’t take polls that seriously.
“I said this when we were very low in the polls and I’m saying this now. The trend is probably useful in that we’re going in the right direction but it’s going to take a long time for us to regain the trust of the Irish people,” he said in a wide-ranging interview this week.
He said that increasingly the party is getting a more positive reception on the doorsteps when out canvassing describing the difference between now and campaigning during the general election in 2011 as a “big contrast”.
“People are talking to us,” he said.
“People’s main concern on the door is their own obvious… obviously their own position in terms of jobs, capacity to pay bills, future for their young people in terms of jobs, cost of education, the mortgage arrears issue and they’re looking for solutions,” he added.
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Bonuses all round for the Irish Water top brass. Hundreds of millions being handed over to them and they can’t fix the simplest of things. Can you just imagine handing over your hard earned money to those wasters?
@David Corrigan: we do already hand our hard earned money over to them
@CP: True CP. But they wanted more.
@David Corrigan: they are funded by central exchequer , your taxes, not a magic money tree.
@David Corrigan: you do that with each pay packet…
@David Corrigan: Irish water is funded through the Exchequer via General Taxation, SF and other opposition parties pressured the government into it. In fairness Irish water, they have being in exsistance 12 years and have got through a huge amount of work. They took over a national service with a crumbling infrastructure. A infrastructure was was long ignored and underfunded by every county council in the country. I’d say the money spent by IW over the last 10 years if far higher than the previous 50 years before that.
@David Corrigan: hi David, hate to be a bore but could you detail your simple fix and associated costs and timeliness for completion please.
@Liam23: What utter BS. MM, then leader of the opposition, called for the suspension of water charges in exchange for a confidence and supply agreement with FG in 2016. Nothing to do with SF or ‘ other opposition parties’. As usual every siht show, in every sector, in this country is down to FFG.. nobody else.
Shush with these sort of articles, the public have bought into our “it’s all the farmers fault” mantra, they don’t need to know it their own waste their drinking.
@P. V. Aglue: “An ecosystem is a relatively self-contained community of interacting organisms and the environment they live in, and interact with. There is a flow of energy within an ecosystem and nutrients within it are recycled. There are both living (biotic) components and non-living (abiotic)components within an ecosystem”
2030??
Are they kidding?
This is a serious risk to public health.
Newport, Co. Mayo, has increased in population, has more “bums on seats” and the raw sewage is piped out a short distance into Clew Bay only for the tides and currents to bring it all floating back up the Blackoak river every day. On a high tide the discharge bubbles up the drains in the streets and houses near the water and I don’t need to describe the putrid odour. Fishing, swimming or kayaking is impossible.
She said 16 towns and villages emitting raw sewage every day in Ireland. I think she’s taking the p is, there are that many in every county. But they’ll keep blaming the farmers a handy scrap goat.There are 9 villages within 10 miles from me, 3 of them have treatment plants, the rest store it up and let it off by night, or some of them at high tide
@Max: It’s the chemicals that seep into the water, pray tell how that is anything but farmers’ fault?
@Brian D’Arcy: there’s more nitrogen in the atmosphere than there’ll ever be in water
@P. V. Aglue: does it poison waterways while suspended in the atmosphere?
The state can pollute to it’s hearts content but there’s blue murder if the farmer puts a foot wrong. It’s high time the state officials got the same treatment the farmers have been subjected to for many years now.
Green party taxes….the hypocrisy!
How many workers does it take to change a light bulb? None. We have an essential street light out of order for 3 years in Dublin. Where are our taxes really going?
Also in skerries. Half a km right of shenick. There’s a stream there. It’s awful smelly.
@Argus Romsworth: and loughrea in Co. Galway. Raw sewerage flowing into the local river for the last 60 years and from the “new” treatment plant since it was opened. How many more are omitted from the list?
Imagine the private sector faced such scrutiny.
Imagine fining yourself? Which is what we are essentially doing. How quickly would you change your ways? If UE can’t be bothered to fix these problems in a timely manner, then I’m all for using my tax monies to employ someone who can. It’s like the Metro, China said they would build and manage it, but we refused. If we can’t do something ourselves without wasting billions on it, it might be time to hold up our hands and admit defeat, then commission somebody who can get the job done.
How can I swim in the rivers with disgusting sewage!? A disgusting disgrace
Not to mention what comes out of Mary Lou !
@Dave c: Yawn, must have taken you all day to think that up.
Problem all across Europe. I saw raw sewerage coming out of the overflows on the street in Lanzarote while I was there a few weeks ago
@Peter Byrne: I think that was the volcanic Ash.. the people are very clean in lanzarote
Longford , includes pharmaceutical waste
Stopping the raw sewage from Leinster House should be the priority!
The usual NGO mouth pieces have traps sewn shut today.
Blame climate change that’s the green media answer to issues they report on, a but the green politicians tend to be looking the other way on this one.
Government is the problem
Some KIP
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