Area man wins confidence vote and then resigns. Everyone in government hurt. Each time. February 19, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics.trackback
You’ve kind of got to love the caption on the IT front page on the web this morning to the following image…
Willie O’Dea resigned last night, a day after he was supported by all his Fianna Fáil colleagues and the Greens in a motion of confidence in the Dáil.
Well, yes. When you put it like that.
First up, what was I saying about the outline of a Dáil with 60 plus FG seats? Let’s wonder about a Dáil with 70 plus FG seats, for despite the last fortnight being bleeding awful for FG there’s little doubt that Enda Kenny, dealing with something of a charisma deficit, may well appeal to more than one voter as a safer pair of hands than the current incumbents…
And as ever with this government there’s the sense that their ability to react and respond to whatever it is that life throws at them is unsurefooted.
To put it mildly.
What’s astonishing, given the legal expertise available at the highest levels of the Cabinet (or… hold on a second… let me think about that one a while) is that this situation ever came to pass. Put aside O’Dea whose rhetorical propensity to shoot first ask questions later – whatever about being Minister of Defence, has finally caught up with him and how.
That his attitude in relation to the original issue spoke of the dislocation we see on the part of some that the normal rules still don’t apply to a Sinn Féin, that whatever else, has moved more than half way, more than two-thirds, more than three-quarters, more than… whatever, towards constitutional politics.
Well, now. There’s a painful lesson learned that the old days are gone. And the Irish Times editorial today notes that…
This matter should not have reached the Dáil. Mr O’Dea should have resigned for a number of reasons. The first and most obvious reason was because he had maligned a political opponent during an election campaign by claiming he was involved in a brothel. Such an accusation if proven amounted to an offence under the Electoral Abuses Act of 1923 and, could have barred him from the Dáil. In defending himself against that charge, Mr O’Dea swore an untrue affidavit for a High Court action. In doing so, he claims to have made an honest mistake. But he made no attempt to confirm the truthfulness of his denial. Had he done so at the time, he would have impailed [sic] himself on the original charge.
But think of it. A Minister resigns ultimately due to comments he made about a Sinn Féin candidate. Not that the media are making too much of that today. It’s all about the Coalition. As perhaps rightly it should be.
Consider too how quickly O’Dea was cut loose when the enormity of the issue finally… finally, for the love of God, struck them (and by the way, these are the people we trust to oversee this economy? People who didn’t quite see just how important this issue was). Of course, the narrative is that all changed utterly the moment that… well, let the FF Chief Whip do the heavy lifting for a moment…
Mr O’Dea resigned last night as Minister for Defence as a result of the controversy over his swearing of a false affidavit in a High Court case.
Speaking on Morning Ireland today, Mr Carey said the Government had supported Mr O’Dea during the confidence motion “on the basis of the information that was made to us at the time.”
He said a subsequent interview given by Mr O’Dea to RTE’s News at One mentioning garda involvement in his false affidavit had led to the minister resigning of his own volition.
“One of the issues that certainly raised concerns was the involvement of the gardaí, it was a combination of those issues which brought about the resignation on his own volition,” Mr Carey said.
Well, he might like us to believe that, but… From the off this was an issue that slowly snowballed. When I first heard about it some weeks ago my instinctive thought was that he was toast. Then I forgot about it to be honest, what with one thing and another. When it came to the fore more recently it struck me as bizarre that a Minister could ply his trade given the circumstances. But he was still there. As the week went on it seemed that he had to go, but he won the confidence vote. And I thought, in truth that he’d tough it out. Or the Government would. But in the long term it looked near impossible for him to stay.
Seems wiser heads prevailed.
But the damage to the Government is significant. And here their rhetoric that the economic situation is improving may play against them. Because as was notable during the Lee issue, and hardly at all as regards the bould Senator, there’s some appetite out there for political discussion which eschews the dismal issues of the economic. And even though, I’d suspect, most don’t believe a word about the situation improving, here’s an issue on a plate that goes to the heart of good governance. And what’s worse it strikes at an already sore spot (or gaping bloody wound) in regards to Fianna Fáil.
I’d bet the Green Party figure this has played well for them. But, it’s very striking how the opposition has made every effort to link them in the public mind…
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said the resignation was an inevitable consequence of his false affidavit. “Despite knowing the full facts, the Taoiseach and his Fianna Fáil and Green Ministers queued up just yesterday to vehemently support Deputy O’Dea, to assert that he had done nothing wrong other than a simple human mistake, and to vote complete confidence in him.”
Now, it’s not as if Kenny thinks that the Greens will suddenly manifest themselves as revenants in 2012, but it is the perception which is all. The gulf between a Green identity that is perceived as cleaner than clean and the confidence vote. This may be grossly unfair to the GP, there is some indication that they were bounced into the vote, but unfair or not that’s quite irrelevant. The major issue here is not the GP and its feelings, but FF and its credibility. And if the FF were the mudguard to the GP initially in this coalition, then that position reversed in more recent times, now the GP become a convenient proxy to attack FF, to make the latter appear even less authoritative.
Of course, this analysis may be completely wrong. It may be that the public is simply glad that O’Dea fell on his sword. But… therein lies another problem. If that narrative is correct then the government appears impotent. Once more reacting rather than initiating.
It’s all very messy and they all come out of it damaged to a greater or lesser extent. Does this make the government more likely to go early? I’m unconvinced. The ‘events’ trope that Stephen Collins mentioned last weekend works both ways of course… As much as fearing that something will crop up politicians hope that something will turn up.
There’s no percentage in them going early. Particularly after this. We’ll be seeing them a while yet…
I should add – the De Búrca issue? Good and gone after all this. Who would have thought – a week ago – that Willie would inflict more damage?
A particularly sad aspect of this is the way the editor of the Limerick Leader, journalist and then Fine Gael mayor of that town have all sort of expressed sadness “at their” minister going down the swany. It is all “their area”, if the tribal mucksavages are still playing at that level, and show no respect for law and order, I really think we in Dublin should think again about allowing our hard endeavors be squandered on supporting them. Dublin needs its own tax and spending powers, once we show the savages (I do accept there is a sprinkling of advanced humans in these areas but must go with the majority) how a civilized system works they could decide to affiliate with us – it is these same savages that would like to enforce their values on the North. These people have not even had a counter reformation farless a reformation and are about 500 years away from socialism – it would take an endeavor of Pol Pottian magnitude to reform them.
Of course the middle class dilitantees of the greens care more for that fabled polar bear than civilized values
Come back when you’ve had a fucking Soviet mate. (Apologies for posting this below). The above is reactionary nonsense.
Reactionary nonsense
What does that mean exactly. Its hardly the language I hear in my local.
If you mean the guy is an arsehole then just say it cause as an ordinard joe i dont know what reactionary means.
By the way ratata dont be silly.
Ratata really shouldn’t let hatred of Limerick people get in the way of criticism of the Green Party.
I also notice that WbS is extraordinarily reluctant to criticize John Gormley. Odd that.
Obviously, last month I was Gerry Adams, this month I am John Gormley. It’s a leadership thing. March… let me see here… ah yeah, I’m Eamon Gilmore.
To be honest soubresauts I suspect few could read the above without getting my now constant message that the GP is toast.
Most likely.
I also noticed that archly framed photo on the IT website this morning, WbS. Is it any coincidence that this news reaches us the same week as we hear of the Yanks having re-made The Prisoner
Is that a large sinister beachball down in the bottom right of the frame coming to bring W O’D off to Purgatory ?
Of which sinister organisation is the whiteboard the Property ?
Trapped by language Deputy O.D. ??
Willie O’Dea is a sneak, and like all sneaks, he can be a useful tool (in both senses of the word) when under the control of a good craftsman. O’Dea wasn’t controlled.
This is a welcome development.
I go along with the criticism of pork barrell politics but Limerick has its virtues as well. I am sure the criticism could be done of Dublin. The term good constituency worker has been applied across the spectrum. Maybe I shouls ee Ratata as making a joke but I have heard harris on similar note and he was not joking.
I am sure the criticism could be done of Dublin.
Haughey, Burke, Lawlor, Ahern, Tom Hand…
I see the Gardaí are conducting an investigation.
However, it is into the claim that Willie O’Dea got his (incorrect) information from a member of an Garda Síochana. There are at least two complaints to the Gardaí alleging criminal activity by Mr O’Dea: one that got some publicity today was lodged by a Green party activist and another was lodged some time ago by a lawyer (at the Bridewell Garda station, I believe). Are we to be told if these will be investigated?
@Ratata and Jim Monaghan.
I’m tempted every now and then to write a partial defence of Irish politics and politicians – ’2 Cheers for Clientism’ maybe?
There is a kind of reflex disdain, particularly noticeable in those of definite ideological conviction of the right or left for the sort of ‘good constituency man’ for the guy who devotes all his time to clinics and sorting out stuff for his constituents to the supposed neglect of lawmaking and stuff: it is also generally accompanied by half- concealed sneer at the kind of thinking that thinks a city the size of Limerick ‘should’ have a minister, as if office should be distribute geographically as opposed to by talent.
This view is based on two (at least) premises, neither of which really hold: one is that Ireland is somehow distinctive in this regard, and that it must therefore follow from, or contribute to, that which is definitely distinctive of Irish electoral politics – the absence of a constitutive left/ right divide. The second, related one, is that, if only politicians were freed from this pointless grind, the quality of our politics would improve immensely. In the first regard, we tend to look at Britain and a few other north European democracies and draw unflattering conclusions about ourselves from these, ignoring all of southern Europe, the US, and most of the rest of the world, where ‘clientism’ often on a scale way more corrupt than in Ireland is the norm. Nor is the distance from her constituents typical of the British MP always a good thing. It is that very distance that contributes to the rise of the BNP for instance. In the second regard, it imagines that parliamentary government – as opposed to cabinet government – survives elsewhere: it doesn’t much: if our TDs weren’t acting as emissaries for their constituents, they wouldn’t be re-enacting the genesis of the federalist papers, or holding the new Putney debates. They’d be bored lobby fodder, as most are most of the time at Westminster.
The fact that the view I deprecate is often put forward by the kind of FG politician whose constituents are never likely to need the sort of service other TDs need to provide – John Kelly in the past, Varadkar and, until recently George Lee – hides, as will be clear to most here, a deeper clientist relation – between politics and business and finance. Such would- be august legislators may disdain fetching and carrying for you and me, but they’ll do anything for you if you wave around the promise of jobs and describe yourself as an entrepreneur.
It’s true, clearly, as LATC pointed out in another thread, that the multi-member constituency exacerbates this tendency, but I’m not convinced it, by itself, works against the development of progressive politics – I think that has different, historical distinct causes.
On the geographical issue: it may all look amusingly provincial and crude to us here in Dublin, but I think there actually is a good case to be made for each of the cities and all the regions to be represented in government. The sort of government by experts and people with experience in ‘the real world’ that is so often mooted in Sindo- world would after all be similarly geographical distinct – except that it would represent a fairly small bit of south Dublin. As with the ‘hidden’ clientism of some of those within politics who sneer at the common or garden variety, this would be a hidden localism in the name of a higher cause: a pretence at being above interest while actually imposing an extreme sectional interest on the rest of us.
I dunno, SoS, seems like more of a dislocated rant against perceived anti-peasant sneering than a valid defence of the indefensible.
I think it’s fairly clear that the major argument of the left against clientelism has been its role as a hindrance to the development of class consciousness, which is inherent and inevitable. A parliament suffused with unprincipled gombeen men whose only exceptional feature is a rodentine instinct for self-advancement is not likely to be a progressive one. Besides which, local councillors exist for a reason (allegedly.)
Maybe.
I don’t actually think Irish pols are necessarily any more stupid or dishonest than those anywhere else – if they are ‘rodentine’ or ‘unprincipled gombeen men’ then they have their equals and ‘betters’ in other countries too.(and on the left as well as the right: expecting socialists to be saints because of the justice of their cause is unrealistic) Sure there’s the Liam Lawlors and CJHs and the like, but I’d hazard that the majority are no more or less ‘virtuous’ than the rest of us. I don’t really see that it’s our politicians that are preventing us from expressing the frustrated class-consciousness and progressiveness welling up inside: we get who we vote for……
I would allow that, historically, there was a deference build into the relation between politicians and constituents that may have had that effect, but i reckon that’s long over.
Nor do I buy the clientism as necessarily inimical to the development of class consciousness, or not completely anyway: countries with well developed levels of class consciousness, and clear left/ right politics are also bound to the same – or worse – kinds of client relations: Italy, and, even worse, the current hero-state of the left, Greece.
I didn’t think I was ranting either : )
Agree pretty much with SOS on this one. Living on the continent, I can see that many European mass left parties are every bit as clientalist, and sometimes even more corrupt, than FF or other parties in Ireland. Sometimes in Ireland we delight in seeing ourselves as being the worst in everything. This is as unhealthy as mindless nationalism.
SoS – Anything longer than two paragraphs is a rant. Unless I write it, in which case it’s an analysis.
You can’t deny that the political culture of FF is based on the machine and the ends justifying the means, with its concomitant distortion of political debate and consciousness locally and regionally. FF is admittedly moving away from this system in Dublin, towards a more business-centric, FG-flavoured model.
It’s interesting, back in my WP days the number of times where we’d have helped out in some way say a family with advice etc but where FF would do something else (which might be ‘better’, but might not) and while they’d be sympathetic to us they’d still give FF the number one. And be completely open about it. And yet, it was precisely by getting in there, rolling up the shirt sleeves, etc, that the WP (SF later too) and Tony Gregory and so on actually built credible support bases. In other words where the strongest left alternatives have emerged they’ve been built in, for want of a better term could be called community activism. I think that’s enormously powerful and one can still see at local level the difference between activism that engages with the community and activity which operates around it or attempts in some instances to bypass it.
Which I guess means that I think I’d tend more to SoS’s view…
That said, there are limits to this and I’ve been very open previously about how I felt that, for instnace, T. Gregory’s approach didn’t link sufficiently into broader campaigns (although in fairness he was very active on EU related issues amongst others). But then the answer there is to have national organisations which engage on the ground in a better way.
Come back when you’ve had a fucking Soviet mate.
That’s the typically abusive response I’ve come to expect from you. Pretty pathetic. And by the by, you’re still posting, despite your now numerous sock puppets? That’s pretty pathetic too.
I understand it’s meant to be abusive, but I’m not sure I understand it.
I’m not ratata! I’m responding to his abuse about Limerick.
Ah! sorry….
That guy Rat a Tat is an outrage – don’t know what your on about Limerick for
I’m on about all rural areas
Remember ‘The Steering Wheel’ 2007: invaders repelled again.
The only explanation of this bizarre debacle that makes sense is:
During the interview with Dwane, Willie O’Dea never saw the dictaphone because of his moustache.
You can’t deny that the political culture of FF is based on the machine and the ends justifying the means, with its concomitant distortion of political debate and consciousness locally and regionally.
Not denying it at all. What I am questioning is the view that this is a) unique to Ireland, and b) the sole or even most important obstacle to a ‘better’ politics.
@WBS – I guess this is one of those dialectics where there is no apparent resolving synthetic approach. The plain fact is that the people the left needs to represent (because the Greens, if nothing else, demonstrate the fragility of a ‘left’ party with a predominantly middle-class vote – as have Labour in the past and may again) need actual, on the ground engagement with their concrete problems: but, as you say, this leads to a view of ‘activist’ left parties – the old WP, the Gregory operation – as, if you like paramedics at the scene of emergencies, leaving health policy to the major parties.
That’s very true. And yet if they don’t do it they begin to drift away from the actual struggles of people day in day out on the ground.
and wbs to a certain extent FF wll drift away from the actual stuggles of people but via an agent over which they have no control.
Two fairly poor local elections back to back have weakened their coal face presence and the prospect of a hammering at the next GE will distance them further.
The Patronus-cliens relationship is the bedrock of Irish politics and FF have seen that bedrock cracked electorally.I have no doubt they will rebuild but its a climb back up the hill.
That’s a very good point. The last two years are particularly problematic for FF because they’re lashing into the very people they’ve claimed to represent (look after) in the past. I think, and this elides with SoS’s point, that a savvy left/further left from Labour on out, would be delighted at the opportunity to further connect with the struggles of people on the ground… a starting point for me, how about the proposals for the swimming pools run under the aegis of DCC….
Son,
it ” demostrates the fragility of a left party reliant on on a midle class vote”
true but it would be remiss of us not to note the fragility of left wing parties reliant on working class votes.
The sad fact is that once the greens implode down to 2-3% and maybe 1 or 2 tds they will be stronger than the Irish far left.
Really?
The far left already has about five times as many councillors as the Greens and, unlike the Greens, an MEP. I’d be willing to lay money on them having more TDs than the Greens after the next election.
As I’ve said elsewhere, Seamas Healy would have to start biting the heads off kittens in the centre of Clonmel to avoid winning a seat there, and it’s extremely hard to see past Joe Higgins for one of the now four seats in Dublin West. That’s two very likely wins, which is two more than the Greens have. And I’d rather have money on Richard Boyd Barrett or Clare Daly than Ciaran Cuffe or Mary White.
I think Mark P you’re on the money there. Albeit I could see two Green TDs returning in more favourable circumstances. But that would still see them less than the further left. I know you’d have quibbles about MOS (and let’s put FMcG to one side), but again, include her in or out and we’re talking at least four and potentially a few more further left seats. And I think there’d be few here who wouldn’t be delighted to have JH, CD, SH and indeed RBB in the Dáíl rather than outside it.
God, Mark P. You seem to be saying that there is the basis of a real left fightback. But the boiurgeoisie need not worry, what divides is stronger than what unites.
Seriously if Des O’Malley could prop up Haiughey, why canot the far left prop each other up.
On clientilism which is different than making class politics local and relevant.
A lot of the delivery by FF etc. is what people are entitled to anyway.They are very good at giving people the impression that say the pension would not have been given wothout intervention.
Mind you there is a special office in FAS for dealing with politicians.
Bourgeois politics is the same the world over, theproblem is whenthe left starts playing the same game.
Jim, I’m not sure what you are getting at here.
I think that there is the basis for the left to get a small group of TDs elected should there be an election in the near future. I think that there is a basis for the left to make a small but significant impact more generally. And the Socialist Party has proposed an alliance with that in mind.
A lot of the delivery by FF etc. is what people are entitled to anyway.They are very good at giving people the impression that say the pension would not have been given wothout intervention.
True enough.
But that’s not the same thing as saying people would be able to get what they are entitled to easily without such help. A very high proportion of adults in this country lack the basic functional level of literacy required to fill out a form , many find phoning any government body forbiddingly hard, and many, many are on the wrong side of the digital divide and cannot easily find out what they’re entitled to and how to get it without a trek to an often distant SW office or Citizens advice centre – a day’s work often without a car and with kids in tow. A politician’s clinic, by contrast, in the evening or at weekends, and with someone to do the stuff you find difficult or intimidating is a perfectly understandable short cut. And since the pol has something to gain – your vote – unlike the overworked and under-resourced public servant, this route is perhaps more likely to produce a result.
A society that worked hard to eradicate educational disadvantage and to promote real equality wouldn’t need the service such politicians provide, but its no use imagining that changing the electoral system to a list or something, or trying to recruit a different kind of politician will remove the need serviced by client (al)ism*
*Anyone have an opinion of the proper usage? I’ve seen ‘clientism’, ‘clientalism’, and clientelism’ …..
That’s another thing I’ve noticed myself, and having some experience of mediating queries to elected reps there’s no doubt that the function of assisting people is crucial. It’s what you say, some people can’t interact for one reason or another with the state agencies directly. Some don’t know their entitlements. Some need the reassurance that there’s someone who can act as a (sometimes) neutral arbiter. And that’s just that sort of interaction. In campaigns, holding the ring between state authorities or commercial bodies and communities it’s essential to have people above councillors who can intercede, negotiate, air the community’s views/needs, etc. The legislative side is vital too, but… representatives represent. And that means across a spectrum. And I’d add that it can help keep politics honest(ish), can prevent the sort of gulfs of experience and understanding that allow, for example CDPs to be shut down, opening up. Where I live, not too far from you, SOS, one of the CDP related areas has been to get young and elderly to meet up in ways that they simply wouldn’t in other ordinary contexts. That sort of work can’t be measured on a balance sheet but the effectiveness is very real indeed in generating more coherent communities with a sense of community. TDs who have a clear eye of that, who have that as part of their brief, are much more likely to be proponents of their retention than otherwise.
There’s a sort of slightly technocratic view that all that should be taken away, that TDs should deal essentially with ‘high’ politics. I can’t think of a better way to ensure what you referred to in terms of the UK situation. Representatives who don’t represent.
The CDP situation is a perfect example: Colm McCarthy thought they weren’t doing anyone much good because he couldn’t see a bottom line, but then why would he? he doesn’t live in a world where the kind of results such programmes produce have any purchase. And the Sindo and SBP would love if the country was run entirely by ‘experts’ such as he, above ‘interest’ and not beholden to inconvenient people in depressing places far from the economics dept. in UCD. While of course, beholden more completely than any rural FF TD, and to much more powerful interests.
And, again, that’s another thing: I’ve encountered a fair few pols from the two centre right parties in my time, and clearly some I would be glad never to meet again, but a disconcertingly high proportion have seemed relatively sane, normal, hard working, thoughtful individuals – certainly not people I feel any need to hate personally, whatever I feel about the policies of their party. and more than that, there have been and are one or two, who I wouldn’t have any compunction about seeking practical help from in minor ways – sort of like the people you mentioned above who would accept help from the WP, but vote FF, only in reverse……
And, as you say, in Britain – or England anyway – its quite different: people feel distant from and resentful of their MP, often don’t know who he or she is etc. Interestingly, the exceptions I’ve known of while being there have been MPs generally derided, even hated in the media: Bernie Grant, Gorgeous George and the like…and. universally of the left. Although I bet there are some Lib Dems who would fit right into FF….
being honest about it theres lazyness in it as well. i accept some people are intimidated by beurocracy and i agree our system problem reponds better to a phone call from a TD’s secetary than from joe blogs but just like homer simpson some people as a principle just want someone else to do it and when it comes to the most easyist of things concider uttering the words ‘what are you going to do about it’ being proactive on an issue. we may not be the worst/best in the word when it comes to clientelism but personaly think thats irrelevent because at the very least we do have a problem with it. a TD that spends the majority of there time dealing with mrs murphy’s gate may have a long career ahead of them but the trade of is there is poor debate on houseing education finance reports etc where seeing the consequences of that now the cuts the government is getting away with when no one can put up an argument to there programme and issue after issue issue is greated as a fait ecomple.
bitting my lip here but think george lee was right to ditch the parlimentry system because it does seem to be a vicious circle. the people seem to be motivated more by footpaths than nama and if thats where there at thats where there at. but the consequence of that is that debate has little or no value maybe instead of running for elections left wing people should go for jobs as recearch assistants to TD’s for established political parties and just get the social workers to read out a proposal the trade of being the idealist gets an idea on to the main stage the politician might get on oireactas report which could be good for his/her re =election project .
Interesting point about the pol having something to gain, and the public servant not. Maybe a proper system of incentives would be a good idea, money or maybe something else instead (extra time off, get to go on a course, extra points towards promotion). Also the opening hours for these info offices need to looking at, 9 to 5 and closed over lunch is not really useful to anyone in work. Also if people have difficulty with formfilling, the forms could be made simpler and rules for benifits and so could be simplified.
I think we are falling into the trap of simply wanting to replace FF as the agent interseeding with the state. Building a political base like that depends on a steady supply of downtroden to interseed for. Liberate and educate and puff your base disappears. Sew the seeds of failure in our own success.
slowly snowballed.
What?
Looking out the window just now… it’s bloody snowing again!
SonofStan says: The CDP situation is a perfect example: Colm McCarthy thought they weren’t doing anyone much good because he couldn’t see a bottom line, but then why would he? He doesn’t live in a world where the kind of results such programmes produce have any purchase.
I hear the staff at Seánie Lambe’s Inner City Renewal Group CDP in Dublin’s north inner city have spent the last fortnight working on and closing people’s cases without pay after being shut down as a matter of their commitment to the community. I wonder how many Government consultants (never mind TDs) would do that?
Seanie Lambe – working without pay!! This must be the funniest thing you’ve ever posted leveller. There cannot be anyone within ICON who hasn’t made a packet out of the gig.
ICONned leadership that is, not the ordinary joes.
May I nominate Eoghan Harris’s defense of Area Man in today’s Sindo for this week’s first prize summa cum laude?
He’ll have some competition from the fawning Aenghus Fanning.
Ah, the point was you can’t snowball slowly, snowballing is what happens when the process ceases to be slow…
I just noticed elsewhere on this site that Finian McGrath and Maureen O’Sullivan abstained on the no confidence vote. While we all know Finian is a moron, I think we are now seeing Gregorys seat going towards the centre ground and a possible Fianna Fail support position. I was told that at a recent Gregory Gang meeting that several leading activists were not present and perhaps this indicates a change in direction. perhaps Fianna Fail will have two seats, by default, in central Dublin next election. This also bodes well for Christy Burke, who will hope to pick up votes from people disappointed by the Gregory Gangs direction.
On late hours for advice clinics, a point of Amanda. The community people in the Councils (at least in Dublin) work a 4 day week and attend meetings in the evenings as [part of their 34 3/4 hours). It seems reasonable to me that workers who deal with people should be available in the evenings. Imagine school attendance officers who keep to school hours. They would never find anyone in.
Didn’t Burke vote for the City Council estimates. A pity because he was a real fighter.
“I swear on my ‘tache it’s decent hash”