Free Willie?

Raiser

http://tiny.cc/d72YP

Anyone seen Free Willie?

- I hear its a heart-warming tale of a Fianna Failer giving unbelievable amounts of our tax money to his mates to put propaganda, or as many see it, litter in peoples letterboxes.......

Kess73

Ah sure it's grand. He gets people medical cards don't you know?

They are all doing it. He's a man of the people.

Shure Willie would drink a pint in the pub with you.


No doubt his defenders will roll out lines like the above for a man who just bumbles his way through any set of questions to do with politics in this country. I actually think his role is to get his face into the Limerick Post as often as he can for openings of things and to make Mary Coughlan feel like there is someone who is at her level within the money grasping political party.

kyp_durron

He once bought me a snickers. You guys don't know the real Willie.

Raiser

kyp_durron wrote: »

He once bought me a snickers. You guys don't know the real Willie.

I'd just like to clarify right away that there is absolutely nobody suggesting that Willie bought kyp_durron knickers.

Liam Byrne

Careful, Raiser, or you could open your door/newspaper and find him pointing a gun at you!

Or if you do - as Kess said - go for a drink with him and mention what you said above, you could end up in a brawl.

All that said, he was quoted on the scroller on the Referendum coverage on RTE in a way that made me go "bollox - missed opportunity", because he said that if Lisbon 2 hadn't been passed, it would have made life very difficult for the Government; given that - according to FF posters - a Yes vote means the jobs and economy are now immediately sorted, I can only think that a No vote would somehow have meant that scum who spend €62K in expenses, and former Taoisigh who haven't explained things would have been turfed out on their ear, giving the Galway Tent Party a minority.

Anyway, we're being hard on him; I mean, everyone thinks that because he's a politician in the legislature and meant to be representing his locality that he can get stuff done, but when Aer Lingus abandoned Shannon he said there was nothing he could do, and didn't even try.

Kinda makes you wonder why people vote for him, really.

baza1976

Kess73 wrote: »

Ah sure it's grand. He gets people medical cards don't you know?

They are all doing it. He's a man of the people.

Shure Willie would drink a pint in the pub with you.


No doubt his defenders will roll out lines like the above for a man who just bumbles his way through any set of questions to do with politics in this country. I actually think his role is to get his face into the Limerick Post as often as he can for openings of things and to make Mary Coughlan feel like there is someone who is at her level within the money grasping political party.

Lads

I don't get it,are you implying that Limerick would be better of without Wille O' Dea?

I think it's very important for a city/county to have Minister. I know there wasn't much he did about shannon but then there wasn't much he could do. The Shannon thing was all argeed 2 years earlier in talks with the north. ANd I don't think Shannon has done too bad since when you take the world economic climate in to consideration. Since Aer Lingus to Heathrow was canceled we got Air France, which means you can fly to Charles DE gal where again you can fly to anywhere in the world. and recently BA have announced that they are going to fly from Shannon to Heathrow.

Basically if you think things are bad in Limerick now they would be a lot worse if we didn't have a Minister at the table representing Limerick. ANd that doesn't just go for Willie we benefited also when Michael Noonan was a Minster sitting at the government table.

Poxyshamrock

baza1976 wrote: »

Lads

I don't get it,are you implying that Limerick would be better of without Wille O' Dea?

I think it's very important for a city/county to have Minister. I know there wasn't much he did about shannon but then there wasn't much he could do. The Shannon thing was all argeed 2 years earlier in talks with the north. ANd I don't think Shannon has done too bad since when you take the world economic climate in to consideration. Since Aer Lingus to Heathrow was canceled we got Air France, which means you can fly to Charles DE gal where again you can fly to anywhere in the world. and recently BA have announced that they are going to fly from Shannon to Heathrow.

Basically if you think things are bad in Limerick now they would be a lot worse if we didn't have a Minister at the table representing Limerick. ANd that doesn't just go for Willie we benefited also when Michael Noonan was a Minster sitting at the government table.

Air France from Shannon is gone but Aer Lingus to LHR is back!
Never heard about BA from SNN to LHR but they do operate from London City to JFK via SNN!

Liam Byrne

baza1976 wrote: »

I know there wasn't much he did about shannon but then there wasn't much he could do. The Shannon thing was all argeed 2 years earlier in talks with the north.

We weren't told this, and if it's true then it shows how good FF are at shafting people and keeping them in the dark.

baza1976

Poxyshamrock wrote: »

Air France from Shannon is gone but Aer Lingus to LHR is back!
Never heard about BA from SNN to LHR but they do operate from London City to JFK via SNN!

Announced during the week. Was on RTE news too.

baza1976

Liam Byrne wrote: »

We weren't told this, and if it's true then it shows how good FF are at shafting people and keeping them in the dark.

Your right and at the time we weren't told this. But it came out in drips and draps later but never officially.

I don't know if you remember but when there was talks going on in the north regarding peace talks the aer lingus thing was agreed around the same time the government were asking us to shop in the north. Just trying to jog peoples memory, think about 4 or 5 years ago. But they never told us about the Shannon thing. I'm sure there was other stuff too.

But doesn't change the fact that no matter what party is in government we are better off having a Minister in cabinet table. Even willy

zuroph

should be merged with bargain alerts?! :pac:

Kess73

baza1976 wrote: »

Lads

I don't get it,are you implying that Limerick would be better of without Wille O' Dea?

I think it's very important for a city/county to have Minister. I know there wasn't much he did about shannon but then there wasn't much he could do. The Shannon thing was all argeed 2 years earlier in talks with the north. ANd I don't think Shannon has done too bad since when you take the world economic climate in to consideration. Since Aer Lingus to Heathrow was canceled we got Air France, which means you can fly to Charles DE gal where again you can fly to anywhere in the world. and recently BA have announced that they are going to fly from Shannon to Heathrow.

Basically if you think things are bad in Limerick now they would be a lot worse if we didn't have a Minister at the table representing Limerick. ANd that doesn't just go for Willie we benefited also when Michael Noonan was a Minster sitting at the government table.

I will agree with you in that Michael Noonan did bring about changes in Limerick when he was a minister, especially his work toward improvements in the local health system, but please don't try and compare the work that Michael Noonan did to the lack of the same by Minister O'Dea.

You say we are lucky to have Willie helping Limerick? Balls to that. This is the same Willie that was personally going to ensure that stiff sentences were going to be given to Limerick criminals? The same Willie who was going to ensure a higher garda presence on the city streets during the day and night? The same Willie who went on about how he was going to fight for Shannon in the Dail and the very same week was shown on tv in the Dail backing the decision to pull the flights from Shannon? You might say that those things fall under the remit of other ministers, and you would be right. But that did not stop Willie from getting his name into the papers with falso promises. A bit like when him and Coughlan flew out to Texas after talk to the local media of how he was very confident of saving the jobs. I did not notice him saying much afterwards.

There is a very good reason why Willie O'Dea is lumped in with Mary Coughlan in the eyes of many people in Ireland, with both being nothing more than figures of fun.

He is a minister because those that have been in power know that he will tow the party line, and do as he is told.

baza1976

Kess73 wrote: »

I will agree with you in that Michael Noonan did bring about changes in Limerick when he was a minister, especially his work toward improvements in the local health system, but please don't try and compare the work that Michael Noonan did to the lack of the same by Minister O'Dea.

You say we are lucky to have Willie helping Limerick? Balls to that. .



He is a minister because those that have been in power know that he will tow the party line, and do as he is told.

Where did i say "we are lucky to have Willie helping Limerick" ? I didn't say that. The nearest I said to that it is good to for Limerick to have a Cabinet Minister. Don't make up statements and then say I said it .

He is a Minister because for the last 2 elections he got the 2nd highest vote in Ireland behind Biffo. ANd for towing the party line, well every member of the 3 major parties tow the line if not they are asked to leave.

My point is in Limerick we need a cabinet minister and if that means Willie or Peter Power or whoever, it is better than no cabinet minister.

Kess73

baza1976 wrote: »

Where did i say "we are lucky to have Willie helping Limerick" ? I didn't say that. The nearest I said to that it is good to for Limerick to have a Cabinet Minister. Don't make up statements and then say I said it .

He is a Minister because for the last 2 elections he got the 2nd highest vote in Ireland behind Biffo. ANd for towing the party line, well every member of the 3 major parties tow the line if not they are asked to leave.

My point is in Limerick we need a cabinet minister and if that means Willie or Peter Power or whoever, it is better than no cabinet minister.

Sorry for using the word lucky I should have said that you said we would be worse off for not having a minister. Even one like Willie. I just took it that you thought that Limerick was lucky/better off/fill in whatever you like here for having him as an elected minister.


I still disagree with you for the same reasons though.

All Willie O'Dea ever does is run to the media after a local incident, be it criminal or economic, and bleat on about how he is putting plans in motion to counter it. Then we neither hear from him on the subject again nor do we see the plans in motion.

I could not give a hoot as to how many votes he gets. All that shows me is that there are plenty of people who just vote for the same people/parties regardless of performance.

You say that they all tow the party line? Well the other example you gave, Michael Noonan, went against the party line on a number of occasions and Limerick did benefit from it.