Martin is some operator. Imagine FF were making noises about getting rid of him not too long ago.
I’ve always said that man is holding that party together with sellotape. By any objective standards he’s saved that party.
Can you imagine a Fianna Fail leadership contest and the people that would contest it? Good lord.
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I think it’s safe to say that the Election has been a success.
SF kept out.
FFG staying in power.
Just need them to rope in a few sacrificial Independent lambs and hopefully destroy that pointless entity.
Soc Democrats & Labour should sit tight and build for the future. FFG sticking together indefinitely only makes them weaker.
This raft of Independents craze needs culling too. They’re pointless
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You’re pointless
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But who would run cataract buses travelling 600 mile round trips?
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Zing…
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He seems to be Teflon as well.
He set up the HSE and was at the cabinet table for the years before we had to give 84 billion to the banks.
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Selfless do gooders eh? Stay off the mushrooms pal
How many teachers, publicans and ex terrorists were voted in?
Until we devise a system that ends party and career politicians making decisions then i wouldn’t use the word success. Put them in a different house or on local boards.
But the majority of our problems moving forward will be technological, climate and disease/health.
Rooral independents and busy bodies on a school career break have had their day. As has the 19th century parliament system and 5 year year life.
Out, out, out
never
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I think people think he’s not the worst. He’s quite likeable. People like empathetic Corkness. People also like people who have been around a long time. I don’t really remember a time when Micheal Martin wasn’t around in Irish politics. About a year or three back a switch flicked in me. I realised I really, really like Des Cahill. I couldn’t remember a time when Des Cahill wasn’t around on RTE. I realised I don’t want there to be be a time when Des Cahill is not around on RTE. He makes me feel reassured and at ease. He’s the broadcasting equivalent of a hot water bottle and a nice cup of tea. Micheal Martin evokes the same things in people.
Politics isn’t about policy. It’s about whether you’d be happy with a politician to be your next door neighbour. You wouldn’t mind Micheal Martin as your next door neighbour. You’d be alright with that.
Even in their most obnoxious days FF always had a few people that most FF haters thought were “alright”. Martin was one of those. Seamus Brennan was another. Tom Kitt. David Andrews was quite well liked even if his father wasn’t. My granny was a diehard Fine Gaeler but always liked Gerry Collins. Even Bertie was quite well liked, for a long time actually, and now people are beginning to forget they hated him for a decade or more. And they’re beginning to forget they hated Fianna Fail.
Let’s get into a long EXPERT debate about the setting up of the HSE. What exactly was wrong with the concept of the HSE? Why should Ireland have a decentralised system of health boards compared to one centralised authority?
A lot of people did a lot of things in the years leading up to the crash. What did Martin do to cause the crash? Should he be CANCELLED merely because he was in cabinet? The voters clearly don’t think so.
No matter how much the howlers on social media try, Micheal Martin is the sort of figure who it’s just hard to whip up much genuine anger against.
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Not factually correct (see Labour).
The rest is just your notions, not how voters feel.
I always laugh at this phrase. Who has more experience in how to be a politician than a politician?
If you were to be elected for one full Dail term of 5 years, and failed to be re-elected, what sort of Lump sum/pension would you be looking at getting?
Quite a few barristers voted in.
What’s Simon Harris’s life experience for example ? I think the prerequisite for governance should extend far beyond sitting on a local council then in a bubble in party politics. Career politician also, and more importantly, signifies self interest first and foremost… but no surprise that you cant join the dots.
I was out for a few traditional last Friday of November Christmas pints in The 51 the other night. Lapsed poster @ClarkeyCat was telling us he was heading into his local Dublin south west polling station on Friday lunchtime when an auld wan in a car called at him & beckoned him over, like Harry Redknapp with his window down on transfer deadline day in times past. She asked would he be able to help her bring John inside to vote. John is in his 90s & he has Alzheimer’s, she explained.
What could Clarkey do only oblige. So he helps her lift John out of the car & half links him, half carries him towards the front door. Next thing, the auld wan is approached by another old dear & they have a right chat for around 5 minutes while Clarkey’s standing beside them holding John upright. They make it inside & same thing happens again on the corridor outside the room where voting’s taking place.
She eventually ends the second chat & then takes her time figuring out which specific desk covers their address. She heads over & has another lengthy chat with the person at the desk about her predicament & how John’s not steady on his feet & his mind isn’t quite what it used to be but he’s committed to voting & this kind man here (pointing at Clarkey) is going to help them at the voting booth & was this okay. Yer man at the desk says grand, no bother at all.
So they get their three (3) voting pages & Clarkey manoeuvres John over to the booth. “Now John”, says his missus, “I’m going to fill in our 2 sheets - 1 Aontú & 2 The National Party and that’s us sorted.” Clarkey aghast still holding John upright & then carries him back down the room to pop the sheets in the box & back out to the car.
He said it should have been a 15 minute round trip for him, including the voting itself but he was gone for 1hr 20 minutes. He later looked up the local National Party candidate online who received the 2 second preference votes. He’s called Yan O’[Gaeilge Name] & his anti-immigration campaigning slogan was:
Get Me In To Get Them Out!
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This is the system @glasagusban and @carryharry want to hold up.
People, whose only interest is self interest, repeatedly sitting in the dail and potentially in government. In the 21st century 
Pay peanuts then we vote for monkeys i suppose