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Willie O Dea to stand for re-election?

  • 11-09-2010 11:00am
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,461 ✭✭✭


    I see we have the misfortune that o dea has decided to stand for re-election. Surely even he and his most ardent of supporters must realise the man was a complete flop and totally out of his depth. The region would be better served with fresher faces and more intelligent people.

    Practically 0 jobs into region in 13 years of unprecedented growth in the country.
    No upgrade to our hospitals, which are in a desperate state.

    Should o dea quit? 60 votes

    Yes, he was a complete and total flop.
    0% 0 votes
    No.
    56% 34 votes
    No opinion
    43% 26 votes


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,155 ✭✭✭✭Berty


    liammur wrote: »
    The region would be better served with fresher faces and more intelligent people.

    As you started the thread, who is your opinion to replace him?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,461 ✭✭✭liammur


    Berty wrote: »
    As you started the thread, who is your opinion to replace him?

    I would like to see an independent run, someone who knows the concerns of the people and what the region needs.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,155 ✭✭✭✭Berty


    liammur wrote: »
    I would like to see an independent run, someone who knows the concerns of the people and what the region needs.

    Like who? There must be a candidate you're thinking of right now who would be suitable.

    (1)Somebody who can suddenly pull jobs out of their hole?
    (2)Somebody who can find that invisible money in the health service / exchequer to fund our hospitals and schools

    It all good and well knocking people because the world has changed but just because somebody offers you "HOPE" with a fresher face exuding intelligence it does not mean things will change. Willie O'Dea has been in the political life long enough to make an ass of himself of more than one occasion but a fresher face would be the opposite. Give them 20+ years in local / national politics and they will likely suffer the same ill fate.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 124 ✭✭molard


    for what wiilie has do for us, filling in potholes he should be working in the council not in the dail.


  • Moderators, Regional East Moderators Posts: 21,504 Mod ✭✭✭✭Agent Smith


    liammur wrote: »
    I would like to see an independent run, someone who knows the concerns of the people and what the region needs.

    1scai1.gif


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,461 ✭✭✭liammur


    1scai1.gif

    That kid can't be any worse than o dea was :)

    Middle class limerick & surrounding areas need to be protected. That's what I would be looking for in the next election. There are no jobs for graduates and the whole focus seems to be on regeneration.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,033 ✭✭✭Limerick_Lass


    He may change his mind and go for the presidents job :)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,155 ✭✭✭✭Berty


    He may change his mind and go for the presidents job :)

    Throw his hat into the ring I guess. I think there are 7 people interested now.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,461 ✭✭✭liammur


    Berty wrote: »
    Throw his hat into the ring I guess. I think there are 7 people interested now.

    Well as they say, if the likes of o dea or ahern got the president's job, it would be time to emigrate for sure.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,560 ✭✭✭✭Kess73


    Berty wrote: »
    Like who? There must be a candidate you're thinking of right now who would be suitable.

    (1)Somebody who can suddenly pull jobs out of their hole?
    (2)Somebody who can find that invisible money in the health service / exchequer to fund our hospitals and schools

    It all good and well knocking people because the world has changed but just because somebody offers you "HOPE" with a fresher face exuding intelligence it does not mean things will change. Willie O'Dea has been in the political life long enough to make an ass of himself of more than one occasion but a fresher face would be the opposite. Give them 20+ years in local / national politics and they will likely suffer the same ill fate.




    Similar arguements get made in terms of FF staying in government. People and governments who do poor jobs should not be voted back in on the basis of better the devil you know.

    Why reward failure and incompetence?

    O' Dea's main achievements seem to be his various court appearances, and the fact that he gets people medical cards and other such things that people are entitled to anyway.

    If he wants to deal in medical cards and potholes then he should be a local councillor, and not trying to waste a seat in the Dail.

    I would have no problem with seeing a younger type like Joe Leddin or similar try his hand at Dail level.

    If the same old heads keep getting voted back in over and over regardless of performance, how are we ever supposed to find out if there are genuine contenders out there who could do the job in the proper manner.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,155 ✭✭✭✭Berty


    Kess73 wrote: »
    I would have no problem with seeing a younger type like Joe Leddin or similar try his hand at Dail level.

    If the same old heads keep getting voted back in over and over regardless of performance, how are we ever supposed to find out if there are genuine contenders out there who could do the job in the proper manner.

    First off. Im not pro FF. Im not anti FF.

    You would like somebody to "try their hand" at Dail Level.

    Is that what we need though? Somebody to go through a steep learning curve before getting up to speed?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,461 ✭✭✭liammur


    Berty wrote: »
    First off. Im not pro FF. Im not anti FF.

    You would like somebody to "try their hand" at Dail Level.

    Is that what we need though? Somebody to go through a steep learning curve before getting up to speed?

    I doubt there is a steep learning curve. Look at the likes of dempsey/o dea/cullen. Pure dead wood. If any of these guys came up a steep learning curve, I'd hate to have seen where they were before that.

    People give politicians far too much respect, the steep learning curve probably is more about how to claim expenses after 30 years of milking the system.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,560 ✭✭✭✭Kess73


    Berty wrote: »
    First off. Im not pro FF. Im not anti FF.

    You would like somebody to "try their hand" at Dail Level.

    Is that what we need though? Somebody to go through a steep learning curve before getting up to speed?




    I never questioned whether you were pro or con with regards to FF, nor do I care where your political allegiences may rest as it makes no difference to me.


    I would have no problem with someone having a steep learning curve, afterall the people in power right now are mainly made up of names with years and years of supposed experience and they seem clueless.

    You seem to highlight the fact I used the phrase "Try their hand".

    In my eyes anyone who has never had a particular role will be doing exactly that. Afterall if the only choices we can have for TDs and the like are people who have already been there in government, then we suddenly end up with a very short list of choices in terms of who can be voted in.

    If the likes of O'Dea and co are an example of the quality that 20+ years experience in the Irish political system brings, then I can think of no stronger arguement for younger blood that has not been corrupted by such a system.

    Leddin I picked as just one example as I am fairly familiar with his profile and some of what he has been involved in , I am sure that there are other names that could be thrown into the ring as genuine contenders with the potential to be very good in a TD role.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,155 ✭✭✭✭Berty


    Sorry I re-read my comment starting with "First Off" and it seems rude.

    What I meant to say was

    "I should point out from the start just so everybody is clear"

    :o


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,560 ✭✭✭✭Kess73


    Berty wrote: »
    Sorry I re-read my comment starting with "First Off" and it seems rude.

    What I meant to say was

    "I should point out from the start just so everybody is clear"

    :o


    It is no big deal as I did not find it rude.:) Whether you were pro or anti FF made no difference to me at all in the context of the discussion tbh. It was/is an exchange of opinions, nothing more, nothing less.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,912 ✭✭✭kilburn


    We need to smash the political dynasties and shake it up abit.
    Although i would wonder who could go forward for a nomination as the current lot seem incompetent


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,048 ✭✭✭Amazotheamazing


    The guy should be judged by his achievements, anyone care to list them?

    I think he's been completely useless has had long enough to show us what he can do. Time for change.


  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,463 Mod ✭✭✭✭Cookiemunster


    Unfortunately because he gets potholes filled and streetlamps fixed he will walk straight back in. Thats the problem with our political system. TDs are more interested in protecting their seats than doing their actual jobs, and they protect their seats by doing what Wille does.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,461 ✭✭✭liammur


    Unfortunately because he gets potholes filled and streetlamps fixed he will walk straight back in. Thats the problem with our political system. TDs are more interested in protecting their seats than doing their actual jobs, and they protect their seats by doing what Wille does.

    I'd buy that but for the fact that the guys in Galway also fill in the pot holes, but have brought thousands upon thousands of IDA jobs into the city in IBM, SAP, Boston & S just to name a few. Cork has even got more jobs again.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,929 ✭✭✭Raiser


    There's a Pothole outside my Nanna's House that needs filling in.

    I think I will ask Willie O'Dea to make sure its taken care of.

    Then I can vote for him blindly for the next 50 years until he retires to a Gold-Plated Villa in The Bahamas and leaves us all to fester in our forgotten City.

    - Surely Wayne Dundon would get more votes than Willie O'Dea at this stage?


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 990 ✭✭✭daveob007


    Its the whole political system that needs a shakeup,not just the current government.
    Don't be fooled by the others either,will they give us back our income levy,pension levy or haelth levy,or undo all the bad stuff the ff and Gormless have done. NO THEY WILL NOT.
    what ff and green have taken from our left pockets,fg and labour will go after our right pockets.
    I will never vote O Dea again for my own personal reasons but have no confidence in the rest either.
    Ordinary working taxpayers will always take the hit no matter who runs the country.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,560 ✭✭✭✭Kess73


    Raiser wrote: »
    There's a Pothole outside my Nanna's House that needs filling in.

    I think I will ask Willie O'Dea to make sure its taken care of.

    Then I can vote for him blindly for the next 50 years until he retires to a Gold-Plated Villa in The Bahamas and leaves us all to fester in our forgotten City.

    - Surely Wayne Dundon would get more votes than Willie O'Dea at this stage?



    Gis a Job.

    Gis twenty quid and I'll fill the pothole for her.

    Hell I even have the right accent for it. :D

    blackstuff_003_470x336.jpg


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,942 ✭✭✭topper75


    O'Dea shot himself in the foot. But he is an able man (requests by Berty to name someone more able are not answered yet on the thread) and it is a shame he was only given the junior education and then the defence portfolio, as you can't do much with those. Shame he didn't have more influence (the guy knows both law and accounting).

    I'll shake my vote up next time round alright but it'll be the 2,3,4,5 that'll be shuffled.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5 apochraphy


    The question at the top of this thread Should o'dea stand again? is really the wrong question.
    It should be Why is he not standing up in court for perjury?

    And what he said about the greens on the Late Late on friday was shocking. Well not so shocking as id expect as much from him.
    i refer to when he said that the greens should not be tweeting and saying that they were against a government idea when the party has decided to go that route. i.e they should shut up and tow the line.
    I am para phrasing what he said but i was shocked and angry at Tubridy letting him away with that.
    The guy (O'Dea) is as one poster here mentioned part of the whole "Dynasties" that we have in government, He is a relic of an old system and he should be up in court.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,560 ✭✭✭✭Kess73


    topper75 wrote: »
    O'Dea shot himself in the foot. But he is an able man (requests by Berty to name someone more able are not answered yet on the thread) and it is a shame he was only given the junior education and then the defence portfolio, as you can't do much with those. Shame he didn't have more influence (the guy knows both law and accounting).

    I'll shake my vote up next time round alright but it'll be the 2,3,4,5 that'll be shuffled.



    Shame he did not show much evidence of this knowledge before his less than flattering recent incidents where he tried to bluff and bull his way rather than falling back on his keen legal mind.


    You want a name I would trust more than O'Dea in a Dail seat?

    Michael Noonan.

    I would have more faith in him not being an embarrassment whenever he opens his mouth than O'Dea. I would also have more faith in Noonan fighting Limerick's corner in the Dail than O'Dea.

    Now I am no Fine Gael apologist and I do view them with a degree of wariness, but then again my attitude is why reward a political party or figure who has proven incompetent with another term rather than gamble on another party or individual who may or may not do better.

    Granted the other options may turn out to be no better, but the only way to find out to to let them have the same go at running the current that the current failures have had.

    Some will disagree with me on that, which is fair enough as it is only my own opinion, but better the devil you know is not the way to go when failure has been the only real result.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,942 ✭✭✭topper75


    apochraphy wrote: »
    The guy (O'Dea) is as one poster here mentioned part of the whole "Dynasties" that we have in government,
    You and that other poster need to learn what dynasty means. It means he inherited his position of power from being member of a certain family. This does not apply to O'Dea so I don't know what ye are on about. Also you can't have dynasties in a democracy. The people have free choice to vote them out. If they didn't, you have to accept it that the candidate is elected on merit regardless of their relations. If you can't accept it, you are not a democrat.
    Kess73 wrote: »
    You want a name I would trust more than O'Dea in a Dail seat?

    Michael Noonan.

    Credit for proposing a name. More than others did.

    However, if Michael wasn't good enough as boss of Fine Gael, how is he good enough for the people of Limerick? I know that sounds smart, but it's an honest question at the same time and one Limerick people have to ask themselves at the next ballot.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,560 ✭✭✭✭Kess73


    topper75 wrote: »
    You and that other poster need to learn what dynasty means. It means he inherited his position of power from being member of a certain family. This does not apply to O'Dea so I don't know what ye are on about. Also you can't have dynasties in a democracy. The people have free choice to vote them out. If they didn't, you have to accept it that the candidate is elected on merit regardless of their relations. If you can't accept it, you are not a democrat.



    Credit for proposing a name. More than others did.

    However, if Michael wasn't good enough as boss of Fine Gael, how is he good enough for the people of Limerick? I know that sounds smart, but it's an honest question at the same time and one Limerick people have to ask themselves at the next ballot.


    I actually suggested Joe Leddin as a name earlier as well.:p More as an example of potential new blodd than as an experienced Dail head though.

    Fair enough on the comment about Noonan as the boss of FG, but when he was a minster when FG were in government, it would seem that Noonan has things like improvements in the Regional Hospital and direct involvement in businesses setting up in the Raheen industrail estate to his name. So it could be argued that he has more to his name, in terms of stuff for Limerick, in less time as part of a government than O'Dea has achieved in more time.

    Also if Noonan not being good enough a leader of FG is to be held against him, should the fact that O'Dea has never even been in contention for leadership of FF be held against him?

    I'm sure others here can put forward good arguements as to why either of the names I suggested would be unsuitable for the role of being a minister from Limerick who could do more for Limerick than our most recent version, but I will always fall back on my own arguement that lack of achievement should not be rewarded with another term just because a person is familar in the role.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,048 ✭✭✭Amazotheamazing


    topper75 wrote: »
    O'Dea shot himself in the foot. But he is an able man (requests by Berty to name someone more able are not answered yet on the thread) and it is a shame he was only given the junior education and then the defence portfolio, as you can't do much with those. Shame he didn't have more influence (the guy knows both law and accounting).

    I'll shake my vote up next time round alright but it'll be the 2,3,4,5 that'll be shuffled.

    Leaving aside the stuff O'Dea should leave to local councillors, what has he achieved for the city, or even the country?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,048 ✭✭✭Amazotheamazing


    topper75 wrote: »

    However, if Michael wasn't good enough as boss of Fine Gael, how is he good enough for the people of Limerick? I know that sounds smart, but it's an honest question at the same time and one Limerick people have to ask themselves at the next ballot.

    Noonan was a capable minister when he was in the front bench for Fine Gael and is the only person getting real hits in against FF at the minute.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 220 ✭✭Aesop


    Couldn't agree more Kess73, why keep a regime in power that has brought the country and the mid-west area in particular to it's knees. How badly would Fianna Fail need to mismanage this country before people would knock Fianna Fail off their first preference?

    Willie O'Dea has been a disaster for the mid-west region and you need no further than look at the job creation numbers from the IDA. Limerick continues to be an unemployment black spot. Shannon airport continues to be downgraded as an international airport. Regeneration seems to have only succeeded in spreading a localized problem to a larger area. Meanwhile there seems to be no improvement in crime within limerick city and the city center businesses are leaving en-masse.

    Wille was at his best cozing up to the real leaders in fianna fail and getting rewarded for his loyalty. His portfolio's are an indication of how even within Fianna Fail of how he was viewed. Now that he has made a complete mess of his position within Fianna Fail party, some here would vote him back in again. For what so he can be a political pariah in an opposition party that got slaughtered in an election?

    Really how bad does it have to get before we send him on his way.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,048 ✭✭✭Amazotheamazing


    From the Irish Times, fair appraisal of how bad O'Dea has been for his constituents.


    Limerick's champion left people powerless

    Paradoxically it is the failure of Willie O’Dea’s advocacy for Limerick that makes the city so dependent on him, writes FINTAN O’TOOLE

    IN ALL the talk about Willie O’Dea over the last week, one question has scarcely been asked – why did almost 20,000 people vote for him in the 2007 general election? Answering that question gives us some idea of the depth of the problems in Irish political culture.

    We know, at least, where the answer does not lie. It is not Willie’s irresistible charm, which teams of intrepid explorers have so far failed to locate. It is not the allure of his sexy moustache. And it is not his inner nobility.

    If Willie were the captain of the Titanic, he would have been the first man in the lifeboat, dressed in bonnet and frock. He was, after all, quite prepared to see a journalist lose his job in order to save his own skin. (If Mike Dwane of the Limerick Leader had, as Willie implied, invented the smear that created all the trouble, no media outlet would employ him.) He even suggested in his last-ditch interview with Seán O’Rourke that he would consider naming the garda who allegedly gave him the false information – another potential sacking to save his own job.

    So, what is it about Willie that makes him so extraordinarily successful in Limerick? Here we get to the heart of the paradox that is Fianna Fáil. It is not the success of Willie O’Dea’s advocacy for Limerick that makes the city so dependent on him. It is its failure. The relationship between the ultimate clientelist politician and his clients depends on the continuation of powerlessness. Instead of being punished for Limerick’s underdevelopment, O’Dea has thrived on it. The worse the city’s problems, the greater its need of a supposed champion.

    I do not wish to indulge in the crude caricatures of Limerick as Stab City. The proportion of the Limerick workforce in professional occupations is higher than the national average. It has an innovative university on a magnificent campus and a very good third-level educational infrastructure. There is a thriving, sophisticated, beautiful middle-class Limerick.

    But there is also the Limerick that is a national disgrace, that, for all Willie O’Dea’s supposed prowess as its political champion, benefited least from the boom and has been hurt most brutally by the recession.

    Of the 18,900 houses in the city area, 8,000 were built as social housing. Even at the height of the boom, Moyross and Southill had an unemployment rate five times the national average and were among the most disadvantaged areas in the State. (In 2005, just 16 per cent of Limerick City Council’s tenants were in paid employment and youth unemployment stood at 62 per cent.) About a third of the houses in Moyross and half of those in Southill are effectively unfit for human habitation – so much so that John Fitzgerald, in his report on regeneration in Limerick, reckoned that they were beyond repair.

    The drug problem in Moyross, O’Malley Park, Ballinacurra/ Weston and St Mary’s Park, both in terms of addiction and of the vicious gangs that feed off it, is worse than anywhere else in Ireland. Intimidation and constant, low-level threats of violence have made life hard for the vast majority of decent people trying to raise good families. A third of those over 65 in O’Dea’s constituency have a disability – way above the national average. There is also a significantly higher proportion of single-parent families.

    The boom passed most of these people by. Even property mania did not take off in Limerick’s estates – people who put everything they had into buying their council houses got nothing back on their investment. Uniquely in Ireland, commercial rents in Limerick city centre remained substantially lower than those in the suburbs – a pattern more typical of devastated American cities like Baltimore.

    John Fitzgerald, who was hardly an innocent abroad after his years as Dublin city manager, found conditions in the Limerick estates “quite shocking” and described the overall quality of life as “extremely poor”.

    As “Mister Limerick”, therefore, Willie O’Dea has been a spectacular failure. The State that he embodies has not produced the goods for those of his constituents who most depend on it. The Fitzgerald report pointed out, damningly, that “it would be hard to conclude that public funding is achieving an acceptable, let alone optimum, level of direct benefits to the communities concerned”.

    Time and again, Willie O’Dea, for all his local bluster, failed to deliver for those communities. The function of his moustache has always been to prevent anyone seeing that he is talking through both sides of his mouth at once. Just a few days before he was overtaken by the scandal that did for him, O’Dea was letting it be known, in his usual sidling manner, that the desperately needed regeneration programme for the city will not be delivered.

    And yet O’Dea will probably get his 20,000 votes again. Our political culture is such that the worse things get, the more we look for a fixer to do us a few little favours. The more powerless we feel, the more we cling to those who keep us that way.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 67 ✭✭anti_c


    "IRISH INDEPENDENT MONDAY 13 SEPTEMBER 2010 .THEIR DREAM HOUSE TURNED INTO A TERROR TRAP.IN SEPTEMBER 2004 A LETTER FROM LOCAL TD AND THEN JUNIOR MINISTER "WILLIE O"DEA " TOLD THEM THOSE RESPONSIBLE HAD BEEN WARNED OF THE REPERCUSSION"REGARDLESS OF THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES UNLESS THEIR CONDUCT IMPROVED. BY BARRY DUGGAN IRISH TIMES . THIS IS NOW FAIRVIEW CRESTENT GARRYOWEN LIMERICK 20 FAMILIES HOUNDED OUT OF THERE HOMES


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,048 ✭✭✭Amazotheamazing


    anti_c wrote: »
    "IRISH INDEPENDENT MONDAY 13 SEPTEMBER 2010 .THEIR DREAM HOUSE TURNED INTO A TERROR TRAP.IN SEPTEMBER 2004 A LETTER FROM LOCAL TD AND THEN JUNIOR MINISTER "WILLIE O"DEA " TOLD THEM THOSE RESPONSIBLE HAD BEEN WARNED OF THE REPERCUSSION"REGARDLESS OF THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES UNLESS THEIR CONDUCT IMPROVED. BY BARRY DUGGAN IRISH TIMES . THIS IS NOW FAIRVIEW CRESTENT GARRYOWEN LIMERICK 20 FAMILIES HOUNDED OUT OF THERE HOMES

    Why are you typing in capital letters?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,929 ✭✭✭Raiser


    In my opinoon etc. etc.

    Willie O'Dea has never done anything of note for the people of Limerick via the correct and proper channel of diligent political process.

    Willie O'Dea has very obviously done countless 'nixers', 'fixes', 'favours' and 'strokes' for every Príck who thought they were crafty and smart enough to 'work the system' over the years.

    - Willie O'Dea will be elected in a landslide victory by the same inbred, low IQ, small-time, idiotic, uneducated, feeble People who re-elected Bertie Ahern and as a consequence gave us the present unelected Leadership who are making us sigh, groan and suffer each and every day.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,097 ✭✭✭✭zuroph


    I could do a better job. I wouldnt let the DAA kill shannon airport for one thing.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,461 ✭✭✭liammur


    From the Irish Times, fair appraisal of how bad O'Dea has been for his constituents.


    Limerick's champion left people powerless

    Paradoxically it is the failure of Willie O’Dea’s advocacy for Limerick that makes the city so dependent on him, writes FINTAN O’TOOLE

    IN ALL the talk about Willie O’Dea over the last week, one question has scarcely been asked – why did almost 20,000 people vote for him in the 2007 general election? Answering that question gives us some idea of the depth of the problems in Irish political culture.

    We know, at least, where the answer does not lie. It is not Willie’s irresistible charm, which teams of intrepid explorers have so far failed to locate. It is not the allure of his sexy moustache. And it is not his inner nobility.

    If Willie were the captain of the Titanic, he would have been the first man in the lifeboat, dressed in bonnet and frock. He was, after all, quite prepared to see a journalist lose his job in order to save his own skin. (If Mike Dwane of the Limerick Leader had, as Willie implied, invented the smear that created all the trouble, no media outlet would employ him.) He even suggested in his last-ditch interview with Seán O’Rourke that he would consider naming the garda who allegedly gave him the false information – another potential sacking to save his own job.

    So, what is it about Willie that makes him so extraordinarily successful in Limerick? Here we get to the heart of the paradox that is Fianna Fáil. It is not the success of Willie O’Dea’s advocacy for Limerick that makes the city so dependent on him. It is its failure. The relationship between the ultimate clientelist politician and his clients depends on the continuation of powerlessness. Instead of being punished for Limerick’s underdevelopment, O’Dea has thrived on it. The worse the city’s problems, the greater its need of a supposed champion.

    I do not wish to indulge in the crude caricatures of Limerick as Stab City. The proportion of the Limerick workforce in professional occupations is higher than the national average. It has an innovative university on a magnificent campus and a very good third-level educational infrastructure. There is a thriving, sophisticated, beautiful middle-class Limerick.

    But there is also the Limerick that is a national disgrace, that, for all Willie O’Dea’s supposed prowess as its political champion, benefited least from the boom and has been hurt most brutally by the recession.

    Of the 18,900 houses in the city area, 8,000 were built as social housing. Even at the height of the boom, Moyross and Southill had an unemployment rate five times the national average and were among the most disadvantaged areas in the State. (In 2005, just 16 per cent of Limerick City Council’s tenants were in paid employment and youth unemployment stood at 62 per cent.) About a third of the houses in Moyross and half of those in Southill are effectively unfit for human habitation – so much so that John Fitzgerald, in his report on regeneration in Limerick, reckoned that they were beyond repair.

    The drug problem in Moyross, O’Malley Park, Ballinacurra/ Weston and St Mary’s Park, both in terms of addiction and of the vicious gangs that feed off it, is worse than anywhere else in Ireland. Intimidation and constant, low-level threats of violence have made life hard for the vast majority of decent people trying to raise good families. A third of those over 65 in O’Dea’s constituency have a disability – way above the national average. There is also a significantly higher proportion of single-parent families.

    The boom passed most of these people by. Even property mania did not take off in Limerick’s estates – people who put everything they had into buying their council houses got nothing back on their investment. Uniquely in Ireland, commercial rents in Limerick city centre remained substantially lower than those in the suburbs – a pattern more typical of devastated American cities like Baltimore.

    John Fitzgerald, who was hardly an innocent abroad after his years as Dublin city manager, found conditions in the Limerick estates “quite shocking” and described the overall quality of life as “extremely poor”.

    As “Mister Limerick”, therefore, Willie O’Dea has been a spectacular failure. The State that he embodies has not produced the goods for those of his constituents who most depend on it. The Fitzgerald report pointed out, damningly, that “it would be hard to conclude that public funding is achieving an acceptable, let alone optimum, level of direct benefits to the communities concerned”.

    Time and again, Willie O’Dea, for all his local bluster, failed to deliver for those communities. The function of his moustache has always been to prevent anyone seeing that he is talking through both sides of his mouth at once. Just a few days before he was overtaken by the scandal that did for him, O’Dea was letting it be known, in his usual sidling manner, that the desperately needed regeneration programme for the city will not be delivered.

    And yet O’Dea will probably get his 20,000 votes again. Our political culture is such that the worse things get, the more we look for a fixer to do us a few little favours. The more powerless we feel, the more we cling to those who keep us that way.

    Very good article, well done.

    I always felt O Dea appealed to the working class or those with little initiative.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 124 ✭✭molard


    he looks after his pal cathal. gave him 13000e for delievering leaflets. nothing done in our estate for ages .could it be that those doing the work got fed up with cathal taking credit.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,916 ✭✭✭RonMexico


    Interesting to see that 25 people who voted in this poll don't care one bit for the unethical conduct of our politicians.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 218 ✭✭Reaganomical


    The man's an embarrassing gombeen. A qualified barrister who doesn't know how to swear an affidavit...:rolleyes:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,929 ✭✭✭Raiser


    The man's an embarrassing gombeen. A qualified barrister who doesn't know how to swear an affidavit...:rolleyes:

    Will Limerick stand for him standing for re-election?

    Damn right they will, they'll be queuing outside the Polling Station from the crack of dawn in their thousands to support the little Fcuk.

    - All excitedly thinking how handy it will be to have their own personal Pocket Politician to do their bidding & how they won't even have to leave the Pub to ask him.......


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,461 ✭✭✭liammur


    I see O dea is only 1 of 8 FF tds to be deemed safe in the next election.

    When will we learn in Limerick :mad:


    ONLY eight Fianna Fail TDs are 'safe' after the collapse in support for the party, as revealed by the latest TV3 opinion poll.
    The implosion in the party's support means that none of its other 63 TDs can be sure of being re-elected. On the basis of last week's poll, Fianna Fail is poised to lose a minimum of 40 seats.
    At the party's present standing in the polls, the only TDs whose seats are safe are: Taoiseach Brian Cowen; former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern; Tanaiste Mary Coughlan; Finance Minister Brian Lenihan; Social Protection Minister Eamon O Cuiv and Limerick TD Willie O'Dea.
    The Ceann Comhairle, Seamus Kirk, would be automatically re-elected and this would mean that his running mate in Louth, Justice Minister Dermot Ahern, would also be safe.
    Amongst Fianna Fail ministers, those who are seen to be in dire trouble include possible leadership candidates Micheal Martin, who has fared poorly in private polls in Cork, and Mary Hanafin in Dublin.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,710 ✭✭✭flutered


    it seems aherne b is not as home and dried as dff would like to think.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 67 ✭✭anti_c


    anti_c wrote: »
    "IRISH INDEPENDENT MONDAY 13 SEPTEMBER 2010 .THEIR DREAM HOUSE TURNED INTO A TERROR TRAP.IN SEPTEMBER 2004 A LETTER FROM LOCAL TD AND THEN JUNIOR MINISTER "WILLIE O"DEA " TOLD THEM THOSE RESPONSIBLE HAD BEEN WARNED OF THE REPERCUSSION"REGARDLESS OF THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES UNLESS THEIR CONDUCT IMPROVED. BY BARRY DUGGAN IRISH TIMES . THIS IS NOW FAIRVIEW CRESTENT GARRYOWEN LIMERICK 20 FAMILIES HOUNDED OUT OF THERE HOMES
    o my god what a horror story and willie o dea did nothing to help this poor old women shame on you .


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