Fianna Fail - The Wilderness Years

[Slim Buddha]

Did not know that about Lowry, it kinda completes the circle, all for one and one for all, just like the mafia you get yourself into the Dail then you are a made man/goodfella.

What has always amazed about our politicians how come, given their criminal tendencies, there are not a load more of sex scandals etc.,

Actually, the guy Lowry replaced seemed to have been one of the better TDs elected in the last 40 years.



http://www.oireachtas-debates.gov.ie...210090017.html

[PaddyJoe]

There's @MichealMartinTD on the Twitter machine. Is it a sign of the end days?

https://twitter.com/MichealMartinTD

[DCon]

The Peedee's are to blame for all the Nations ills. Not the FF passengers

The autobiography, 'Just Mary -- A Memoir', is published by Gill & Macmillan and was launched last night with former President Mary McAleese.

It also says that the roots of the financial crisis go back to the flawed budgetary policy in the early years of the boom. She blames Charlie McCreevy and Mary Harney for this, which was a result of their obsession with low taxes and stoking up the economy.

"Despite never joining the PDs, Charlie McCreevy remained a neo-liberal at heart. During the time they worked in Cabinet together, he and Mary Harney were essentially the nexus of much that happened there.

"It was in essence they who decided budgetary policy. . . they would only allow the Taoiseach in at the end of such deliberations," she writes.

"The parameters and small print of the Budget were often worked out between Charlie McCreevy and Mary Harney. . . Bertie Ahern was sometimes peripheral."

O'Rourke is also critical of the Croke Park Agreement, which, she says, has its roots in the benchmarking system that became a "ridiculous giant beyond our control".

"Initially, you had to show that you had increased your productivity. But of course that was soon forgotten."

She says this system "very quickly got out of hand and many of the work targets set for each sector of workers were just never achieved. . . the public sector grew out of control".

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...e-3264767.html

[disability student]

The Peedee's are to blame for all the Nations ills. Not the FF passengers





http://www.independent.ie/national-n...e-3264767.html

It's unusual for her to spill the beans re FF as they have had backed her re presidency elections.

Anyway, more of the same please

[Slim Buddha]

The Peedee's are to blame for all the Nations ills. Not the FF passengers





http://www.independent.ie/national-n...e-3264767.html

She is right. Harney's husband was a senior figure in IBEC who put many of his ideas into her head, Mc Creevy was a diehard neo-liberal and Ahern was happy to walk around wearing make-up and opening pubs.

The IBEC flea shook the PD tail which shook the FF dog. And that is how economic policy was formulated between 1997 and 2004.

[Dr. FIVE]

Harney's husband was a senior figure in IBEC who put many of his ideas into her head,

That's a bit rich actually, Mary Harney had plenty of her own ideas, awful ones. Unfortunitely for the rest of the PDs, Fianna Fáil took them on as their own leaving little need for the the Party by the time 2007 rolled around. Id think Mammy's book will spread the blame wide and thick. Not just because she trying to pave the way for next round of Dynasty but it's probably what her and her ilk really believe.

[Slim Buddha]

That's a bit rich actually, Mary Harney had plenty of her own ideas, awful ones. Unfortunitely for the rest of the PDs, Fianna Fáil took them on as their own leaving little need for the the Party by the time 2007 rolled around. Id think Mammy's book will spread the blame wide and thick. Not just because she trying to pave the way for next round of Dynasty but it's probably what her and her ilk really believe.

She may believe that FF is for saving. I sincerely hope she is wrong. In other countries she would be in Jail.

The really big idea Harney and her husband had was to find a way of living high on the hog in the health "industry". It has worked out for them, it has to be said.

http://www.mediabite.org/article_Har..._25017894.html

[Dr. FIVE]

http://circumlimina.wordpress.com/20...f-mary-harney/

[Slim Buddha]

http://circumlimina.wordpress.com/20...f-mary-harney/

" the most hated member of the most hated government"

She was a particularly vicious piece of work and I will keep my wishes for her private, out of respect to the sensitivities of others.

[PaddyJoe]

Big FF group hug on the Late Late later tonight as Mammy reminisces and pushes the book.

[Binn Beal]

I suspect that the swing back to FF is due to voters realising that FG/Lab are no different and they might as well go back to the familiar version of gombeen politics.
The Opposition meanwhile has been unable to show any unity or hope of unity and so endorses this no-alternative view.

[DCon]

Nice little loophole for the fortunate few

TWENTY-SIX former politicians who are earning pensions of more than €100,000 a year are escaping a super tax because of a legal loophole.

Former Fianna Fail ministers Charlie McCreevy, Dermot Ahern, Noel Dempsey, John O'Donoghue, Joe Walsh, Michael Woods and Martin Cullen -- and former Progressive Democrats leader Mary Harney -- are among those not having to pay the 20pc tax.

Another is former Fianna Fail minister Ray Burke, who was convicted of tax evasion.

The loophole arises because the higher rate applies only if a single pension is worth more than €100,000 but not if the politician is getting a number of pensions with a combined value above that level.

It means just six senior politicians are paying the super levy this year -- which is in stark contrast to what was expected when it was announced by the Government last November.

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...e-3265683.html

[Dr. FIVE]

what a coincidence

[Baron von Biffo]

Nice little loophole for the fortunate few

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...e-3265683.html

An obvious way to deal with this for the future is to combine career service in all offices and have a single 'Public Representative' pension for the office holder.

[DCon]

what the?

john burns ‏@JohnBurnsST
Sensational switching of columnists in Sindo: out goes Willie O'Dea, and in comes.... Niall Collins, another Fianna Fail TD from Limerick