General Election 2011

It will be interesting to see where the Fianna Fail dissenters go with their votes in this election. The nature of Fianna Fail is ‘one true Church’ and even moderate Fianna Fail supporters will not vote for Fine Gael. So I think you could have a large rise in the popularity of Independents which makes a balls
out of a possible Government if reliance has to be placed on their support.

I remarked to Rocko last week that despite all the hammering Bertie Ahern gets, and rightly so, his work in Northern Ireland to bring initially the Good Friday Agreement and then bring Sinn Fein and the DUP together was the work of a true Statesman and was nothing short of phenomenal. Economic issues are certainly important, but the fact that we have hopefully reached the end of civil war in ths country is something which Bertie can take an enormous amount of credit for. I think that needs to be pointed out every now and again.

This tratior should be smothered with a plastic bag.

Gullible fools like you will ensure that FF will regain power sometime in the near future. Ahern did fook all in relation to the North except smile and shake hands - if anybody in FF should take credit for anything it’s Reynolds. Labour’s election to power in Britain and Mo Mowlam’s work were infinitely more important than anything the Drumcondra reptile did.

Were you in the discussions? Because you sound as if you were.

Sid, I always thought that myself about Ahern that he piggy backed on all the good work that Reynolds and Mowlam did. Ahern should paraded down O’connell street and pelted with all sorts of filth as he is led up to mountjoy to rot in a hole.

Reynolds got a ceasefire from the IRA (although John Major had a huge part of play in that).

There was a ceasefire brokered back in the 70s as well.

Arguably, the biggest challenge was to get both sides talking to each other, and get them into Government. What makes you think Mo Mowlan did more than Bertie? Were you there? They both came to power at the same time so both would have been involved at the same time.

i suppose you think john hume was twiddling his thumbs and then swooped in to claim the plaudits on the back of benties hard work. bentie is nothing more than a grubby little thief who has consigned tje country and a couple of generations of irish people to the dustbin for the foreseeable future. a man of your intelligence should really know better farmer

That seems a silly argument farmer. Surely he could say the exact same thing to you?

I used to actually like Bertie now I really, really think he’s a cunt. A snakey, false cunt. That’s about all I know.

I don’t get your first line there Art - please explain.

Also, I accepted at the start that he fucked us over economically, but his work in the North must be commended.

I am not the one saying that all Bertie did was go in and shake hands, and that it was all about Labour and Mo Mowlan. The facts are that as Irish Taoiseach he had a critical role in the peace process which took us from Bruton’s disaster with the IRA ceasefire breaking down to McGuinness and Paisley sharing power.

Farmer’s been spending too much time with the racist and xenophobe larryduff

Larry in fairness to him is not a racist, he’s more of an ethnic critic.

Nick Griffin: “So instead of talking about racial purity, talk about identity”

Please expand wtb on how I am either a racist or a xenophobe.

Please contextualise this because on its own it means nothing when used in association with forum member larryduff.

Ahern bribed the unions to the point that in the midst of the collapse of Irish society they are a laughing stock and widely seen as part of the cartel that ruined the country rather than a check on the excesses of corporate power that they are supposed to be. I can never see the union movement recovering from this to be honest and Ahern will get a lot of credit from the bondholders that run the country for the effective neutering of the voice of the workers.

I don’t think he is as stupid as some made out either. Norn Iron it is far too simplistic to say he had nothing to do with it. He also is probably the most successful politican in Ireland in terms of winning elections. What was his record like as a Minister? As Taoiseach he presided over a boom economy that was hopelessly dependent on construction and tax dodging multinationals. He was never a man of vision, all he cared about was power and the masses bought it hook, line and sinker.

In any case, I’d have Lenihan and Cowen well ahead of him in the cunts gallery.

Irrelevant cunt decides he will not stand. Who cares.

Fucking desperate episode of Frontline at the moment. Kenny obviously decided he’d do a Dún Laoghaire special before the Cowen leadership issue and now he won’t let anyone talk about anything other than the FF contest and he’s firing questions at people who simply have no interest in the topic or relevance to it.

Brutal questions.

Awful stuff Rocko

Agreed. Very poor stuff, i expected better.

dunph would you consider a run for tha dail yourself