Thats all you got? Game set and match then
Big Phil is a modern day Cu Chulainn.
Irish politics didnāt challenge him enough
Heās a modern day Cromwelll. He tried to kill half the country driving around on the phone spreading a virus he was negative for according to @Lazarus
2 Likes
I was in Kildare every other day during the LOK and Offaly twice
You and your fellow āedgelordsā would have been defending his movements around Ireland too no doubt
This reminds me of a famous quote. There is two types of people. People who pissed in swimming pools when their younger and liars.
Nah this lad has taken on the entire forces of the rest of the country combined and so far heās come out on top. Heās far far stronger than Me-hole and probably far stronger than Leo as well. On the basis of the past few days heās the most impressive Irish politician Iāve seen for years, maybe even in my lifetime. Big Phil should be Taoiseach.
1 Like
And unlike Cromwell had the decency to end up in Connaught
1 Like
Hogan Hogan Hogan
1 Like
Frau Ursula will not be denied
Itās utterly disgraceful the way Mehaul Martin has tried to interfere in the European Council
3 Likes
Boris Johnson canāt believe his luck. Paddy doing his dirty work for him
1 Like
Is it any wonder Irelandās history is full of glorious failure snatched from the jaws of victory.
There will be folk songs written about the betrayal of the Irish people by this administration.
1 Like
You couldnāt make it up. You just couldnāt
āGolfgateā is just the latest sign that our politics needs a reset
The parties in power have simply failed to recognise that the world has changed
about 4 hours ago
Taoiseach MicheƔl Martin takes questions from the media Photo Damien Storan. PA Photo.
Share to FacebookShare to TwitterShare to Email App
The first step in democracy failing is trust evaporating. Fair-minded people have had their worst, almost clichĆ©d, suspicions about the political establishment confirmed by what has emerged over the past week. One phrase that keeps being repeated is: āyou couldnāt make it up.ā The dominant feeling is anger in all its forms; fuming, appalled, disgusted. You can feel the rage in the air.
The crossovers of elitism, backslapping, clubbiness, cavalierness, arrogance and the sense of āone rule for them, one for the rest of usā all exist within golfgate ā and the political establishment doesnāt have any defence against what people have read about and listened to in terms of the cascading details of the scandal. Fine Gael and Fianna FĆ”il have been potentially irreparably bruised, and no matter who loses a position or a job, it will be impossible to draw a line under this incident without drastic action that remedies the entire political system. If they want to save themselves, then itās time for a reset.
This disintegration of trust is compounded by the dominant characteristic of this government, whichā in its opening weeks ā is incompetence. The Government is populated by ministers who do not appear to have a handle on their briefs.
For years, the perception that unqualified ministers were appointed to head departments, positions that demand a tremendous amount of expertise, has dogged Irish electoral politics. Promotions to ministerial positions are all too often based on a geographical carving up on territories to appease a partyās membership and voter base, or on the basis of intra-party pecking orders and leadership loyalties. This is no way to appoint people to run large departments that are of utmost importance to the functioning of almost every aspect of our society.
Parties and individuals involved in electoral politics take very seriously the gravity of this moment. While things seem dire, this is also an opportunity to reimagine how we ādoā politics as a nation. This is a new era, and we need a new approach.
If this does not happen, then it is clear that the centre will not hold, and not because we live in a culture where hyperbole and polarisation thrives, but because the centre has failed to address its fundamental flaws. People want accountability, transparency and competence. When political parties lack those, and paper over them with clubbiness, nepotism, and inherited intergenerational political power, itās no wonder the public responds by gravitating towards political spheres and discourse that offer something radically oppositional, or indeed relief and comfort through raging against the establishment machine, or at the most extreme end, conspiracy theories and a dark assessment of both the present and future.
Ireland, like all countries, has specific desires regarding what its public wants from its politicians. Fairness, empathy, accountability, and competence are top of that list.
What many politicians in the kinda-centre-right parties that have occupied our governments for a century fail to grasp, is the cultural shift that has occurred and continues to occur in the 21st century. The game has changed, the pitch markings have been redrawn, yet theyāre barely warming up on the sidelines.
The vast majority of āpoliticsā young people in this country experience is not party politics ā yet Fine Gael and Fianna FĆ”il continue to fight a phoney war of ancient irrelevant tribalism. The fact that they viewed their coming-together in coalition as āhistoricā amplifies that detachment. People want ambitious ideas, yet nothing even approaching inspiring or novel has emerged from Fine Gael or Fianna FĆ”il in recent years. If anything, the latter has reverted to type, and the former is seen in conflict with many Irish peopleās visions for society as a culturally rich, community-driven, interconnected, liveable and affordable place where people arenāt tormented by the ugly gazumping forces of global capital.
Peopleās standards are higher now, and many are not interested in the 20th century throwback politicians Fianna FĆ”il offers, nor the neoliberal besuited shininess of Fine Gael. Both parties are out of step with the times and the public. They have not built movements, and the votes they get feel driven by habit, conservatism, or down to of a lack of alternatives. The new politics is also about how people orientate around issues, often issues that donāt even directly impact them, but that are part of a broader aspirational vista for society. This is an age of new solidarity that resists the traumas caused by the inequities of late-stage capitalism.
But the unifying key to all of this is accountability culture. Accountability is one of the most dominant cultural forces of our time, yet Irish party politics ā stuck in a reactive loop responding to events within its own bubble, instead of understanding the broader forces that actually move politics - cannot seem to grasp that.
Is she hoping for a mention in the New York Times.
1 Like
Let me get this rightā¦ There are a few fellas here that actually visualised (even if only for a brief second) Big Phil sitting down and turning on his PC and going onto the citizensinformatiom website 
15 Likes
Is that Philoccio?
All her articles can be summarised as āLeo closed down the Bernard Shaw and now Iāve to go to the northside for my smashed avocadoā
4 Likes