Irish politics discussion thread

well this is great craic. It's like the first day of second year so tis.

hup mayo

Enda kenny elected by the largest majority ever

Looks like ministerial roles will be heavily weighted towards dublin/east which, frankly, disappoints

At least ring is going to lose out. He's an odious little fucker.

what does the ILX jury think of politicians who begin every speech with cupla focal as Gaeilge?

Don't mind, unless it's Gerry, because his Irish is atrocious - bet no one can ever tell him though.

Oldest cabinet ever, and oldest collection of party leaders in Europe, probably - compare Kenny (60), Gilmore (56), Adams (62) and Martin (late 40s) to the sprightly Cameron, Clegg and Miliband youthquake.

Well I hate young people, so this at least is good news.

with dv there.

I have more faith in the leaders we have than the youthfront in the uk.

Delighted that quinn got a cabinet position.

Am i wrong to have been disappointed with the geographical spread of the cabinet? Not that i'm complaining about the lack of m ring mind.

I remember year ago when I did a politics degree, Dr Michael Gallagher was talking about cabinet formation and the criteria for choosing ministers. He mentioned how you might think that competence would be a key factor, but he went on to talk about how "spreading the mercs" is often more important, as people start moaning if there is no minister from their locality. And so they do.

I have a Minister and a Junior in my constituency, so I think the distribution is fine (and largely irrelevant).

Quinn thinks it's 'natural' that a woman should be minister for children because women have more experience of children...... showing his age, if nothing else. I bet there's a lot of formerly employed (male) building workers who are experiencing their children a lot at the moment, while their wives cling to their min. wage retail jobs.

Don't understand the respect he commands TBH - Ivan Yates said he was further to the right than most of the FG members of the rainbow cabinet. Re. geography, I don't get it at all, but that's probably the Dub thing: on the RTE Naked Election programme, the Hillery sprog with the outrageous sense of entitlement was told in no uncertain terms by someone in Clare that she wouldn't vote for him because he was a) FF and b) a Dub - yet no one here cares that Joe Costello is from Sligo, Lucinda from Mayo, Gilmore from Galway; as long as they've chosen the metrolops, they're welcome. Come to that, no one even notices that Varadkar is Irish-Indian: bet he wouldn't be elected as easily anywhere outside Dublin. And while we're congratulating ourselves, perhaps we ought to mention two openly gay TDS, elected without a murmur.

it's politics, not meritocracy.

I do think they should/could have found someone from the x no of govt td's in the whole of connacht to fit one of the positions, geography is not an irrelevant factor in these things.

xp

Gayness, indianess all admirably not an issue (ennis had an indian td in the dail before last iirc). Getting some clout west and north of the shannon is.

i'm pretty sure that quinn is our outstanding minister for finance of the modern era, as well as being a thoughtful and considered voice on educational issues when i've heard them lately.

Any number of people in the country would share his views on children/women, though it sounds like he was more likely defending his fairly sly gazumping of a decent seat himself? I dunno. Certainly it sounds a clumsy line to come out with, though i'm happier with bruton and even noonan in finance/enterprise than burton

I do think they should/could have found someone from the x no of govt td's in the whole of connacht to fit one of the positions

you are insatiable - Connaught has the Taoiseach and Junior Minister, which probably means it is more than represented at the top table, once its feeble population is taken into account.

And while we're congratulating ourselves, perhaps we ought to mention two openly gay TDS, elected without a murmur.

weren't these elected outside Dublin?

i think enda will be very wary of using any pull with the beady eyes of the dub meeja on him.

Population point is a fair one, tho direct comparison w/out taking into account geographical area would be extremely harsh. We dont all want to have the metro outside the door, tho the odd bus would be nice

wtf exceptional lending from central bank to six main banks exloded last month?

Anyone with info on this?

moriarty!

Will there be any fallout from this or is everyone all "lol 1990s"? Can't see this (or anything really) shifting Tipp North's love for the bould Michael Lowry.

fg back in power just in time

obviously, it'd be great to see hefty penalties- the 'lol 90's' reaction would really play into the hands of those who make damn well sure that political wrongdoing gets breathing space of 20 years to lessen the impact when outed.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0405/1224293869992.html

On tape: transcripts of recording

Excerpt from recording by confiscated video camera in a Garda vehicle on March 31st, 2011, after the arrest of two women at Aughoose for public order-related offences relating to the Corrib gas project.

“Crusty camp” is a reference to the Rossport Solidarity Camp where the two women had been staying.

Garda A: “Who is them two lassies, do you know the two of them?

Garda B: “I don’t know the second one, the first one is (name) with blonde hair.”

Unidentified garda: “She was up on the tractor earlier on.”

Garda A: “It’d do no harm to get the second one’s name again?

Garda B: “She’s some Yank. I don’t know who the f**k she is.”

Unidentified garda : “ Is she a Yank?

Garda B: “It sounds like it, it sounds like it, the accent anyway

Unidentified garda: “Sounds like a Yank or Canadian.”

Garda B: “Well whoever, we’ll get Immigration f**king on her.”

Garda A: “She refused to give her name and address and told she would be arrested.”

Garda B : “.......and deported”

Garda A: “And raped.”

Garda B: “I wouldn’t go that far yet….. She was living down at that crusty camp, f**k sake, you never know what you might get.”

(Laughter)

Garda A: “Give me your name and address or I’ll rape you.”

(Laughter)

Unidentified garda: “Hold it there, give me your name and address there, I’ll rape you.”

(Laughter)

Garda A : “Or I’ll definitely rape you.”

Unidentified garda: “Will you be me friend on Facebook?”

(Conversation continues about Facebook in Garda station)

Excerpt from video camera recording in which gardaí discuss safety and techniques for arrest at protests.

Garda A on phone to a colleague: “I know we don’t want to be arresting them but by the same token, we were left with no option. We have an issue there as well with the lads in the protest removal team there, of actual climbing the tractors. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to get safety ropes and ladders and we’re going to leave them in the van in case we have to go up on the cab of the tractor again. So we’re looking after that now at the moment.”

Garda A: ends call.

Garda B: “You see (muffled) at least you’re a sergeant, like.”

Garda A: “ (unclear) like some of auld timers who were here in the area in the first and second campaign. I’ll tell you one thing, the decisions that were made (muffled) policing at that time.”

Garda B: I’ll still go back to what says there . . . If someone gets hurt we’re going to be on our own in the blocks.”

Garda A: “. . . I don’t think we’re going to be on our own. If we have exercised due diligence and we have used common sense and used whatever was available to us to remove them. At the end of the day, we have a certain duty of care to them. We ask them to get down, if they don’t get down, we tell them we are taking them down forcefully. We take them down forcefully.

“We use whatever means at our disposal, which includes ladders and ropes or whatever to get them down safely. If one of them slips, so f**kin. What can we do?”

Garda B: “Ladders and ropes. All I’m saying is, the point is (Garda B then simulates court exchange)

‘Garda, are you a member of the protest removal team?’

’I am.’

’Have you received training with working at heights?’

’Yes, I have.’

. . .’How did you train to bring someone down?’

’In a harness with ropes.’”

“We didn’t have any of them options today there . . . That’s all I’m saying. And (named garda) is dead right; if we’re in the box:

’Have you received training on how to take a protester down from heights?’

’Yes’.”

“And if we did it with ropes and harnesses . . . then why did you let my client fall? Did you not go get your ropes and harness to take her down. That’s all.”

Garda A: “. . .To get them down safely we’d have to erect a scaffold tower beside them and abseil them down. And and, the, the, taking the common-sense approach, and a common-sense view, it would be impractical to erect a scaffolding tower to get them down off it. And we use whatever safe means at our disposal, as we considered safe (unclear) protest removal team to take them down, ie, ropes and ladders.”

Unidentified garda: “What was the obstruction?”

Garda B: “There was no obstruction . . .”

Garda A: “They were obstructing the road.”

Garda B: “There was no obstruction . . . The tractors (unclear) all other vehicles were able to get past.”

Garda A: “They were obstructing the road. Excuse me. If a car stops there, in the middle of that f***ing road, and it’s stopped there, it’s obstructing the road. It doesn’t have to be blocking it. If it’s parked there it’s obstructing it.”

Unidentified garda: “Well if nothing else they were obstructing the vehicle.”

Garda B: “That’s the only vehicle obstructed.”

Unidentified garda: “. . . free passage.”

Garda A: “The vehicle was obstructing the road. Just because other vehicles could pass didn’t mean the road wasn’t being obstructed.”

Garda A seems to get out of the car . . .

Garda B: “We all said this, it was a safety issue.”

Unidentified Garda: “It was the best option . It was the best option at that time, there’s no doubt about it.”

Garda B: “We all said it because of a safety issue. There was three up, there was a wind blowing. And like did you f***ing feel safe, 100 per cent safe going up there taking down two people.”

Unidentified garda: “No”.

Garda B: “...I don’t know what you thought?”

Unidentified garda : “All I know is that if something happens, who’s going to stand f***ing behind me.”

Garda B: “And do you honestly think that is going to turn around and say “oh look it”. We got trained a certain way.

’Garda did you f***ing, take a protester down the way you were trained’.

’No I didn’t.’

’Well then Guard.’

“And the job will say were you f***ing trained a certain way. The job will f***ing ditch you.”

(have to lol at Irish Times horrendous headline and total lack of SEO knowledge on this story too..."Transcript of recordings", what a sexy clickable headline.)

wtf lads. Can't believe the lols at rape.

Everything else is probably fair enough, but ffs, there's no getting past it.

that's like the sort of shit people unfollow me for when i write it on twitter.com/garda_siochana

tho in truth prob further than i've ever gone.

it's some fuckin jump, even for bad-taste laddish shock humour- lol deporting, ok, i see the link, straight to..... rape? Where does that come from.

Garda A: “And raped.”

Garda B: “I wouldn’t go that far yet….. She was living down at that crusty camp, f**k sake, you never know what you might get.”

Garda A : “Or I’ll definitely rape you.”

Unidentified garda: “Will you be me friend on Facebook?”

(Conversation continues about Facebook in Garda station)

srsly lol

GARDAI

can you imagine being a gard

i'm sure there are decent gardai...can you imagine being one of them?

It's a long way from The Third Policeman, that's for sure

there's a few alright. But it's hard to say what working in a force with that ethos could do to you over the years too? I dunno.

Workin up at ballinaboy is no picnic for them either, seriously shitty situation and provocation every day.

Doesn't come near excusing that shit.

Even aside from the comments, to record yourself on a camcorder in the back of the car then to present the tape back to shell-to-sea- whats the irish for keystone

idk, the weird nonsequiturs are a bit flann o'brienish xp

Actually, you're right there

that was back when my pa was superintendent at clonnacha. he had a big stick and he'd say to us 'go on now, with the facebook'. some days it was cold and we'd have not a bite to eat but he'd say 'there's no finer than a feast'. they didn't have facebook in those days.

http://www.cardiac-services.com/files/admin/uploads/W232_F_Image_6_27263.JPG

I know a guard who has worked at the Corrib protests before. I hope he wasn't one of the guys on tape but i honestly wouldn't put it past him.

i'm sure there are decent gardai...can you imagine being one of them?

I have heard that there is a terrifyingly macho and boorish culture among the uniformed rank and file Gardai, and that anyone who is not like that spends all their time trying to get away from them into more specialised work.

idk, the weird nonsequiturs are a bit flann o'brienish xp

good comparison, though I was thinking more of Nigel Tufnell. However, all verbatim transcripts of conversations read like this.

it wouldn't surprise me, x-post, just like, let's face it who knows anyone in the gardai. a friend of a friend is the only person i know who joined, and he used to take drugs etc etc. dunno how it turned out for him.

hah the guy i used to sniff tippex and drop acid with at uni ended up becoming a cop, must be a thing

Guy i know was far from averse to a bit of casual racism/misogyny

ah sure why not sure

Not him on the tape though so he'll live to fight another day.

I have heard that there is a terrifyingly macho and boorish culture among the uniformed rank and file Gardai, and that anyone who is not like that spends all their time trying to get away from them into more specialised work.

this is otm. my brother is a detective. hes alright i suppose. although the gardai are one big boys club really.

hard to think of any positive dealings i've had with the gardai...and can think of plenty of negative ones. almost everyone has a bad story to tell.

this is the only time i ever had a lol with a garda

Horror!

"how close were you to him?"

"i probably pissed on him gard"

have had plenty of good, one or two bad as a witness

big couple of days on the property/nama/banking front

so

Public sector paycuts
Semistate and other publicly owned infrasructure to be sold on the cheap.

For what?

The first, well fair enough, it's a separate issue.

But the sale of infrastructural assets to cover private bank losses just bewilders me.

Gonna quit it all and do a thesis on the ramifications of the removal of the bank guarantee vs what we're actually doing.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2011/0423/1224295312306.html

you whinging lying whinging motherfucker why are we still being afflicted with your verbs and nouns etc

I'd take his verbs and nouns if we could get rid of everything else he's done.

lenihan was forced by minatory leprechauns to give carte blanche to bondholders in the world's worst banks

minortory surely