Category: Fine Gael

Fine Gael: Betrayal and ignorance

Enda pointedly sought out the hand of his Justice Minister to hoist in solidarity. Earlier, in a lull as the countdown to the live coverage took place, the audience launched into an impromptu three cheers for Mr Shatter (Irish Independent).

Kenny’s action demonstrates that his first loyalty is to Shatter and not to Ireland and its people. Such betrayal is the default position of most Irish politicians.

The impromptu three cheers by the audience demonstrates how far Irish citizens have to go before they even begin to recognise the depth of betrayal they have suffered at the hands of the body politic.

Fionnan Sheahan: Roisin Shortall is a frustrated, disappointed, petulant politician who foolishly put herself out in the cold on the unimportant matter of standing by her principles

An article on Minister Shortall’s resignation by journalist Fionnan Sheahan in today’s Irish Independent could have been written by James Reilly himself.

The title of the article gives the first hint that Sheahan is not impressed with Ms. Shortall’s decision to resign on principle.

What did she hope to achieve by this?

Some more quotes from the article:

She’s now out in the cold.

She had ambitions to be a cabinet minister.

Her disappointment at being overlooked…was evident.

She felt frustrated at not being able to wield influence inside of Government.

Still, she was appointed to a reasonable junior ministry.

Her colleagues in Government were none too impressed by her petulant speech.

(The speech where she was critical of the Minister for Health).

Teeing it up as a point of principle on an issue her colleagues had moved on from.

There were few tears being shed within the coalition.

Ms Shortall merely joins the ranks of the disaffected Labour TDs.

Clearly, Mr. Sheahan is one of those journalists who have gone over to the dark side.

He, like most of the politicians he mixes with, has lost his understanding of the concept of principle.

Holding power at any cost is all that matters.

Shorthall resignation: Is it a glimmer of hope for Irish citizens?

Well done to Roisin Shortall. An Irish government minister resigning on a point of principle is a very rare event indeed.

Betrayed Irish citizens can only hope it’s the first glimmer of a change in the corrupt, gombeen culture of Irish politics.

And make no mistake about it; Health Minister James O’Reilly is a gombeen, stroke politician of the lowest order.

As is his fellow gombeen colleague Leo Varadkar who provided us with some hilarity in his attempts to sound ethical while defending gombeenism.

Asked by Sean O’Rourke if O’Reilly had engaged in stroke politics Varadkar replied:

It looks like it but I don’t know if it is or not.

Varadkar likes to see himself as one of the brave new wave of politicians who are going to change the way politics is done in Ireland.

Unfortunately, as he tries to sound honest and ethical he just can’t quite manage to pull away from the gombeen influence that he was weaned on.

And so he ends up being ridiculous by effectively claiming:

Yes, it is stroke politics (The brave new Varadkar).
But no, it’s not stroke politics (The gombeen Varadkar).

In the end politicians like Varadkar will have to make a choice, regress back fully into the mindset of gombeenism or follow the example of politicians like Ms. Shortall and stand on principle, whatever the cost.

Battle for INM reaches end game

It looks like the battle for control of Independent news and media (INM) is reaching its end game.

This morning an anonymous buyer bought 13 million shares in the group.

RTE business editor, David Murphy, said the buyer couldn’t be Dermot Desmond, Denis O’Brien or the O’Reilly’s because they would have to notify the Irish Stock Exchange of any such purchase.

All I can say is – bless his innocence.

If Denis O’Brien and his pal Dermot Desmond win the battle the first casualty, apart from the current CEO Gavin O’Reilly, is likely to be the Editor of the Sunday Independent Anne Harris.

Harris wrote a trenchant article recently drawing attention to the dangers for press freedom if Denis O’Brien gains control. She expressed particular worry about O’Brien’s close relationship to Fine Gael.

The reason all this matters to the Sunday Independent is that we may be about to lose one of the most important tools of transparency – press freedom.

Take a government with an obscene majority, allow a media mogul who has influence – O’Brien makes no secret of his desire for influence – with the dominant party and before long it may not be just an appearance of the dictatorial.

Ireland: The land of never ending inquiries

Letter in today’s Irish Times

Sir,

For 15 years we listened to politicians refuse to comment on those under investigation by the Mahon tribunal on the grounds that such comment could undermine the work of the tribunal.

Now, after Fine Gael TD Olivia Mitchell was found to have acted inappropriately by accepting £500 from Frank Dunlop, we’re told by Minister for Enterprise Richard Bruton that any comment could undermine the work of the recently established Fine Gael internal inquiry.

The Minister tells us that the inquiry will make recommendations, which, no doubt, will be forwarded to a committee for further consideration before being forwarded to a sub-committee before being . . . quietly forgotten.

Yours, etc,

Anthony Sheridan
Cobh

Fine Gael/Fianna Fail – No difference

Letter in today’s Irish Examiner.

A legitimate cause for concern for both Enda Kenny and Fine Gael

Fine Gael’s failure to understand why scenes of Enda Kenny being glad handled in Denis O’Brien’s company are a legitimate cause of concern is understandable, at least in the context of the hypocrisy of that party’s attitude to the findings made against one of their own when compared to what its reaction would have been if Mr O’Brien had close links with Fianna Fáil and was pictured with Brian Cowen.

Most of Mr O’Brien’s businesses seem to operate in countries where the rule of law and regulation is at best applied with the lightest of touch.

I wonder if he would have been as successful in Norway as he is in some place like Haiti.

But it’s not just the meeting at the NYE Stock Exchange, it’s also the pally chat Mr O’Brien and Mr Kenny would have had at the breakfast beforehand and the lunch afterwards and in the corridor.

It’s also the fact that because Fine Gael refuses to publish proper audited accounts we don’t know how much money Dennis O’Brien has paid to that party or its elected representatives, or what policy he was able to shape in return since at least 2002.

Interesting too is the failure of anyone in Fine Gael to provide an example after Moriarty or Mahon and tell the people of North Tipperary, and elsewhere, that if they choose to elect people who fail to meet the highest standards expected of members of our Parliament, as is their democratic right, they must also be prepared to accept the consequences.

One of which is that such a representative will not have free access to members of the government.

Fine Gael claims to be the party of reform but its first year in government has been a dismal failure in terms of reform.

So far it has matched the cronyism of the last government step by step.

It could have decided no member of the Government would get a pay rise upon taking office for at least the first term in office, but it didn’t.

It could have had a transparent application process for advisers, but it didn’t, and instead appointed party cronies.

It could have immediately repealed FOI restrictions but it didn’t.

It could have ended the gravy train of expenses, but it didn’t.

But even worse are the bully boy tactics used by the likes of Charles Flanagan and Phil Hogan and the intellectual snobbery of Alan Shatter.

Desmond FitzGerald
Canary Wharf
London

Gombeen clones set to perpetuate rotten system well into the future

Fine Gael Minister of State Alan Kelly, responding to the Mahon Tribunal Report on a recent Frontline programme (26th March), put down a marker on how Ireland is to be governed in the future.

Well Pat we can never ever, allow this to happen again. The simple fact is that Fianna Fail and others polluted this country with corruption for over 20 years.

The Minister didn’t specify if he was including Fine Gael in the ‘others’.

There’s a whole new generation of politicians including myself and michael (McGrath, Fianna Fail TD) who need to advance politics in this country in a progressive way. We cannot put up with what Fianna Fail has done in the last 20 to 30 years.

Immediately Kelly contradicted all his fine words when he defended the termination of planning inquiries by Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan.

Minister Kelly is a fool if he thinks Irish politics can rid itself of corruption while continuing to engage in Tammany Hall type strokes.

Fianna Fail TD, Michael McGrath also claimed that young politicians like himself were the future for Ireland and then, like Minister Kelly, immediately contradicted his fine words by telling us that people like Brian Lenihan, Seamus Brennan, David Andrews, Mary O’Rourke and Rory O’Hanlon were people of the highest personal integrity.

These are people who served themselves, their party, their party leaders (which included unquestioning loyalty to the criminal Haughey and the liar Ahern) before considering the good of Ireland and its people.

It is crystal clear from the attitude and mindset of Kelly and McGrath that they are nothing more than gombeen clones of those responsible for the destruction of the state.

Far from injecting new, honest, radical, reforming blood into the Irish body politic they are sure to perpetuate the same old rotten system well into the future.

Copy to:

Alan Kelly
Michael McGrath