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People gathered at Drumcree on Sunday. Alamy Stock Photo
SeriesWinners and Losers
'There are no Fenian bastards': The winners and losers from the political week
Budget talk crunch time and the stand-off on the Garvaghy Road dominated politics this week.
EVERY WEEKEND, OUR political team casts an eye over the events inside and outside Leinster House that have people talking.
The Dáil is gearing up for budget day next Tuesday, with government ministers currently in the thick of meetings with Finance Minister Simon Harris and Public Expenditure Minister Jack Chambers.
At the same time, the stand-off on the Garvaghy Road has dominated politics both north and south this week.
The winners of the week are:
Evanne Ní Chuilinn
Fine Gael senator Evanne Ní Chuilinn gets a nod for her questioning of Football Association of Ireland officials at the Oireachtas Committee on Sport on Wednesday.
Aside from good questions on the handling of the Ireland vs Israel game, such as why a second vote was held, she also put the FAI delegation on the spot by bringing up the security of the senior women’s national team during a trip to Budapest in 2023 where they faced Hungary.
She outlined how members of the team were followed by a man in the street, and a man in a towel allegedly entered a room where one of the women on the team was due to get a massage.
She questioned whether security ever accompanies the team on these trips, and was assured by the FAI officials that they do. Is it enough? Her questions shone a light on the experiences of the women’s national team.
The bin protesters
Protesters from the Dublin 7 area staged a demonstration outside City Hall this week over plans to replace bin bag collection with wheelie bins.
The residents said there was no support being given on putting communal bins in areas, with protesters telling The Journal that they don’t want “a system of waste that doesn’t put our health at risk” and “doesn’t put the elderly or the disabled in danger on our footpaths”.
The new rules were due to be brought in by Dublin City Council to deal with issues such as bags being torn open by seagulls and other wildlife.
A group of roughly 100 people gathered on Parliament Street chanting “this plan is full of rubbish” and “Dublin 7 say it clear, wheelie bins aren’t welcome here”.
As a result, Dublin City Council agreed to pause the plan. It is not often protesters get the result they want so quickly, so we’re giving them a nod this week.
Jennifer Whitmore and Chris Andrews
TDs from the Social Democrats and Sinn Féin are on the winners list for taking a stand against AI.
The Oireachtas Agriculture Committee was discussing the new dog breeding legislation with a number of witnesses appearing before the committee to give their viewpoint.
One of the witnesses was Paul Savage who runs dogs.ie, which allows people to sell puppies and dogs. He was questioned by the two politicians about the document he presented to the committee outlining problems with the proposed bill.
Savage said he didn’t write the document, but did circulate it to all the dog breeders in the country. When questioned who produced it, he responded by saying ChatGPT.
There was surprise in the committee at his response.
Whitmore asked the committee to disregard the document as a result.
She said it was important that the legislation is shaped by “experience and expertise”, with both TDs saying they have to be careful about not accepting “AI slop”.
At a time when political parties and government bodies are urgently updating artificial intelligence policies it’s good to see questioning about the use of AI when it comes to Oireachtas work.
Albert Dolan
Fianna Fáil’s Albert Dolan deserves a big pat on the back this week for his new website that allows the public to search more than €108 billion in State spending.
StateSpend.ie brings together purchase orders and payments published by government departments, local authorities, health and education bodies and other State agencies.
The site currently contains more than 622,000 records, with a combined reported value of €108.8 billion, covering records dating from 2011 to the second quarter of this year.
The Galway East TD said he and his team worked to find the reports, identify gaps, pursue missing information and turn thousands of inconsistently formatted files into a dataset people could actually use.
“We want journalists, researchers and the public to use this work. We have shared our data and source material to help others do that. But it is important that the work behind the dataset is clearly credited to the people who assembled it: our StateSpend.ie team.”
Public records are notoriously difficult to access, so anything that gives more transparency should be commended.
The losers of the week are:
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill
Unfortunately, it hasn’t been a great week for the health minister.
With the government accepting the recommendation to carry out a commission of investigation into spinal and orthopaedic care by Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) rather than a public inquiry, she has found herself back in the hot seat with families impacted by the scandal.
The families have made it clear they do not want an inquiry held behind closed doors, with Carroll MacNeill being urged by members of the opposition to sit down with parents to find a solution.
In the same week, the minister responded after a four-year-old photograph of her with Israeli political candidate Yoseph Haddad resurfaced following his involvement in pro-IDF chants at Ireland’s match against Israel.
The photograph was taken during a visit by Haddad to Leinster House in February 2022.
In a statement to The Journal, Carroll MacNeill said the photograph of Haddad and herself should not be portrayed as representing her position on Israel and Palestine.
“It is always fair to ask questions of politicians,” Carroll MacNeill said, adding:
“It is not balanced to portray the meaning of a photograph taken at a point in time as something that it is not.”
The Journal also revealed this week that she is facing criticism from some women, including some Fine Gael supporters, over the government’s position to phase out private maternity care.
All of us
This week’s politics has been dominated by the stand-off on the Garvaghy Road.
Talks aimed at resolving the Drumcree parade dispute broke up without agreement, with talk now of some international mediator being brought in to try and resolve an issue that has resurfaced after nearly 30 years.
This piece in The Journal outlines the tensions around the Drumcree parade in the late 90s and how it caused widespread rioting and a number of deaths linked to the dispute.
Speaking on the issue this week, Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald said she had talked with one woman in the area who said her child came home upset after being called a ‘Fenian bastard’ for the first time.
“No child should be subjected to that type of abuse. There are no Fenian bastards. There are no second-class citizens. Only first-class citizens and first-class Fenians,” said McDonald.
No one wants to be transported back to that time, but for many, it felt like that this week with Garvaghy Road back in the headlines.
There are no winners in this dispute, only losers, including all of us who find ourselves back in this space.
What do you make of the chosen winners and losers this week?
Poll Results:
I agree with all the selections (17)
I agree with most of it (11)
I only agree with some of it (8)
I don't care (3)
You're all so wrong (1)
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