Worst TD ever elected

Looks kind of like a low-rent Paschal Donohoe body double.

There should be a law against being a career parliamentarian. He would be significantly detached from reality.

I don't even agree with people going into politics in their early 20s, very little real world experience.

Ruth Coppinger once showed up at a charity event at a park, argued with volunteers about the €10 entry fee claiming she was a TD who just wanted to see what was happening, then left in a huff when she didn't get in for free. So she gets my vote.

There must be loads of TDs from the early days, severely bending to the whims of Catholicism in a secular State. Causing massive societal problems, that we still have with school patronage, hospital locations, adoption records...

Quite a reaction to my discription of Helen McEntee as being Likeable, Efficient, ability to show empathy, Traits not normally to be found in FG TDs , I felt an honest observation but I equally said she's an enigma and I just wasn't sure about her as in like or dislike (Open minded)

I also mentioned a liitle matter of the Indo chasing a curious story regarding political donations, a Donor and Helen McEntee and the fact if it was anyone else, media generally would be all over the story. I thought the story had quietly gone away, it has not, 3rd Indo story on the matter this morning.

I personally prefer King Crisps myself 😉

There is no right or wrong answer to the question of the thread but CJ was around long enough to do a lot of good things in his time as well as bad

Posters seem to imagine that we've had bad TDs since about 2000. There were a whole lot of bad ones before that, all those implicated by Mahon for example. It might also be useful to identify what a bad TD is rather than list of every TD people hate. Haughey and Bertie were good TDs, Cowen and Deasy too. It's other parts of their careers that people have trouble with.

I think we are showing our age by saying that these were good TDs because we lived through the good & bad. Absolutely nothing wrong with being young, I'm envious of youth myself, but I think younger posters might not know the full history of TDs pre 2000. At one time Bertie was the most popular Leader of all time. To this day no leader has had such a high rating as Bertie. That's not to say they didn't do wrong

Really? No mention of David "up the r@" Cullinane? He must be one of the best SF have to offer too if he gets the health spokesman position during the pandemic!

Roderic O' Gorman, he was a very poor fingal Councillor, most people in D15 didn't vote for, I call him the accidental TD/minister.

He got through on the 5th count and because FG hate SF so much he found himself in a position that he's not fit for.

What have they actually achieved other than shouting though?

Some people just naming names as they're anti-government or a TD such as Varadkar may have an unappealing personality is not a reason to name a politician bad.

For me corrupt politicians like Liam Lawlor, Michael Lowry, Charles Haughey and Ray Burke have to be up there.

Also, I'd go right back and put Eamon de Valera up there for handing power in Ireland to the Catholic Church.

Don’t forget Wardy16 …got in on the surplus of O’Broin…

who?????

What does any opposition TD achieve, in Opposition, the same question about shouting could easily be asked of the Governments best ever Spokespeople, Alan Kelly and Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, indeed if you want to discuss shouting, I'd wager the decibels alot higher coming from the independent benches, albeit most of it incomprehensible.

Ultimately, wether its liked or not, SF have successfully raised far more issues that affect the lives of many ordinary peoples than government TD'S, who appear oblivious as to what is going on in the real world.

I believe the above one of many reasons, SF polling numbers high and I might add, their support base growing daily and not as is often perceived from a left wing looney cohort.