Maman Poulet

The Minister was like a chased hare at a coursing event. He was getting attacked and questioned from all sides on this. This session of committee stage had to finish by 1:30pm and I reckon it couldn’t come soon enough for the Minister. He was taken away by his minders and we all went back to our kennels. He returns to the house next Wednesday for the third session and I’m hoping that he will have had time to gather his thoughts in the meantime.

Senator Dominic Hannigan blogs about Minister John Gormley’s recent visit to the Seanad to bring the Dog Breeding Establishments Bill through the house. I might tune in next Wednesday for phase three!

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The Public Sector workers in Kerry are still protesting on TD’s doorsteps. A short video published this week gives me an opportunity to ponder on the special backbencher that is Jackie Healy Rae.

From his website

June 1997. The night Jackie Healy-Rae was elected TD for South Kerry the scene in Killarney was like Puck Fair, the Rose of Tralee and a Kerry welcome for the Sam McGuire Cup rolled into one. The party went on for weeks as the new TD went back over pot-holed roads to the villages and parishes that had
sent him to Leinster House with such a resounding mandate.

In the 13 years since Jackie has done deals and voted with the government and claimed fame for very single bit of grit and tar that ever went near a road in Kerry whether he had a ‘hand, act or part’ in it.

This week he was asked by public sector workers in Kerry about voting against further cuts to Public service pay cuts and jobs.

Jackie didn’t claim responsibility for past or future votes, He has only one vote, he has no hand, act or part in anything there it seems!

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• Tom McEllstrim TD on his doorstep (mamanpoulet.com)

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Leaving aside Sargent’s error in writing the letter.

This is not rocket science. Help me out here.

There are maybe three general groupings that the letters could have come from (and it could have been from one or more of them)

• Trevor Sargent’s Office
• The Gardai,  or sources close to the Gardai, DPP’s office or sources acting on behalf of someone with something to gain from a smack in the face to the Greens.  (via Hurt Govt Partner, former member,  civil servant or opposition three times removed to protect the source.)
• The Constituent – but did he have a copy of both to give even if he wanted to give them??

Cowen doesn’t like innuendo. Roll on the Docklands report, Moriarity Tribunal.  Actually no I don’t think I can last that long.

Kevin Doyle from the Herald says on RTE’s Primetime tonight that  he won’t say either way whatever that bloody means. I don’t mean he should tell us where he got them – just perhaps be better at not telling us.

Again the Greens are so shell shocked to have not had time to think about what is going on. Now I’m are they thinking and wondering what they are in the middle of.  While Fianna Fáilers come out to patronise them to get them to stay in government.

From Dan Boyle tonight (who some might say is getting us ready for the end.)

Do the Green Party have any dignity left?

I don’t fancy the opposition in government much either by the way in case you are wondering.  Feck the lot of them is how I’m thinking at the moment.  I wish someone would just govern.

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At 12.15pm  Ciaran Cuffe posted on his blog with reflections on the last two weeks in Irish politics.  An hour or so later the word on Trevor Sargent’s error of judgement emerged.

By 5.00pm Trevor had resigned.

Trevor Sargent resignation speech from Alexia Golez on Vimeo.

Having listened to his interview on Six One News I don’t understand why Trevor didn’t send the constituent to a solicitor?

We’re not going to get any time off this to talk about the economy, NAMA taking charge of those many many ghost estates, hotels and office blocks, Incinerators, you know the important stuff?

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There has been much coverage in the past few weeks of a major disagreement between Niall Mellon’s Township Trust and Irish Aid – the state funding agency for overseas development aid.

While the funding questions that Irish Aid have about the Trust may be resolved, I’m wondering about the questions about the sustainability of the project and the impact of the building of houses using what many call  ‘experience tourists’ (self funded volunteers going out for a week to build houses) on the skillsbase and infrastructure of the local economy.

We’ve too often heard the mantra -  it takes a village to raise a child – it also takes a community to house jobs to sustain mortgages. I’m wondering what NMTT does to actually create employment, seek investment, provide education and training and support communities to be able to pay for the houses that are being built by the Mellon army?

Mark Tighe reported earlier this month in the Sunday Times on the concerns of the Irish Government

An Irish Aid monitoring report last year found the South African government was concerned that NMTT “may be crowding out local subcontractors and South African companies who are losing business as a result�. It said: “There is concern that the fund-raising activities of NMTT enable it to tender at a commercial advantage.� The report found Mellon’s charity had reached its building targets, but failed to meet development goals. Its training for poor South Africans was limited.

These were questions that those monitoring the project were asking and I’m not sure what the answers are to them. Any use looking forward to Niall Mellon being asked about these issues rather than Des Cahill, Pat Kenny and others giving him hours of free time on their programmes in the months to come.

Mellon is recruiting another 500 people to go to South Africa to build houses and is running ads on television and says he’s oversubscribed.

I don’t understand why we’re not ‘just’ giving money for South Africans to build the houses and supporting the development of sustainable communities?

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In a new series on Maman Poulet, from time to time I’ll be bringing you snapshots of backbench TD’s you may never have heard of unless you are from their neck of the woods and well even then you may not know them!

First up is James Bannon – a Fine Gael TD for Longford Westmeath. You may not know much about James unless you like me watch the Dáil live from time to time.

James is renowned in the Dáil for his attempting to raise all manner of issues under Requests to move Adjournment of Dáil under Standing Order 32.  He’s rarely ever successful. But that doesn’t stop James from trying!

And all around him as he begins each attempt to get some motion on a crisis somewhere in Longford debated his colleagues titter to themselves.

This little nugget is a recent interview James gave to the Longford Leader last week following the departure of George Lee.

James loves Enda – he thinks he will serve two terms as Taoiseach and everybody loves him when he’s out meeting people.

And yes I know James is a FG spokesperson on the Environment with special responsibility for heritage and so the notion of backbencher status may not really apply – but this is my series and I’ll stretch it if I want to.

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Interesting footage from a protest last week by Kerry Public Sector Workers.  They went to protest at the clinic of Tom McEllstrim TD, a Fianna Fáil backbencher.

Tom warned them that they would face more cuts under any alternative government and he made a jibe at George Lee and also said his expenses were the lowest in Kerry, and that his job was less secure than the protesters.

Is this sort of thing happening around the country?

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Ah Young Fine Gael what would we do without you for amusing posters?

Wednesday night sees the TCD YFG annual general meeting take place.  And they are looking for new recruits – just like Lucinda once was!  Leo Varakar also ex TCD YFG not good enough for them?

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There has been a flurry of searches of late on the blog for things concerning Palin and Ireland. A little digging led me to  the news that Irish Central, the online brainchild of Irish American Publisher Niall O’Dowd, had published an article on Palin’s Irish cousin.

The story said that Palin was being disowned by her Irish cousin, Rev. Simon Lathrop

The intensity of it got me curious and when I probed further I discovered that the people who are searching were connected to the Palin campaign,” he told the website.

They told me that they were trying to establish some Irish credentials for her in the build up to the campaign, but I have told them that I have no interest in being used as some sort of electoral pawn.�Lathrop does not intend to help his relative achieve her political ambitions, the site reports.

I wish the lady all the luck in the world, but if she is in favor of hunting and shooting and warmongering, then I for one will not be welcoming her and will not be encouraging the Irish to vote for her if she runs in 2012,” he said.

He added that he would be happy to have tea with Palin should she visit Ireland but his overtures to her would go no further than that.

A commenter on Irish Central smelled a rat and  chimed in with a bit of local knowledge

Leitrim would be Kilmore diocese – www.kilmore.anglican.org and Galway would be Tuam diocese – www.tuam.anglican.org Some old ‘parishes’ so-called were actually civic units of area and did not always correspond to modern ecclesiastical parishes. The CofI website is, as far as I know, complete and certainly each diocesan one would be. The Church of Ireland has fewer than 500 rectors in total, and I have not heard of this fellow, unless he has recently been appointed. There doesn’t seem to be any mention of him on the web apart from this news report, which seems a bit suspicious to me.

And soon enough Irish Central had to take the story down (cached here) and admit they had been spoofed.  Even ABC were taken in for a while.

It seems the story was taken from a satirical/spoof blog,  NewsfromIreland.com - Original post from 12/02/10 can be read below the Continue Reading button – reprinted as the site was down earlier.

Now of course if you are a relative of Sarah Palin and want to own or disown her please let me know As of now it seems her only link to Ireland is the stopover in Shannon.

h/t Palin’s Q&A fun

Continue Reading »

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It’s been mentioned in the run up to previous elections but today I think is the first time Senator David Norris has seriously thrown his hat in the ring for nomination to contest the Presidency (Election to take place next year).

In today’s Sunday Tribune Norris admits he is interested.  There is a facebook group and petitions underway already.

“The pressure has come from people. And it’s pretty consistent, and, of course, I feel obliged to say yes of course, I would consider it and it would be a huge honour,” Norris said.

“I’m an ideas man. And I’ve contributed ideas. I mean the Metro, for example, was my idea, for the last 25 years. And I skillfully steered it through. And it looks as if even in the recession we might get it.

“All this Joyce stuff, Bloomsday and all this, that was my brainwave 30 or 40 years ago,and look where it’s gone.”

Norris does not want to run for Dublin Mayor as he does not feel he has the correct set of talents for the job.

In order to receive a nomination for the Presidency he must receive the support of 20 members of the Oireachtas or 4 County Councils.

Brian Crowley MEP is touted as being in line for the Fianna Fáil nomination. No news on Fine Gael. Norris said that he would have difficulty running not only because securing the votes of enough parliamentarians  but there is also the Michael D. Higgins factor – Michael D. is someone that Norris much admires. No word on whether Michael D. is interested in running though.

Cue the campaign for the 3rd Mary. (Thanks to Junior Larkin for that particular inspiration )

By the way Ivan Yates is listed in the Paddy Power odds for the Presidency as 33/1 – the same odds as David Norris.  Not sure if anyone has asked Ivan if he is interested in running – see previous post on my reaction?

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