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You'd wonder if they were playing with a full deck at times. Have Covid unemployment payments been blamed for the DAA's failure to recruit people yet?
Regards...jmcc
Himself and Hildegard have been meeting the DAA weekly for some months. They knew a rise in passengers was happening months ago. They never replaced the staff they let go.
Like all things government related we are left asking was it incompetence or greed?
Someone woke him up? :) He's probably quite lucky in that most of the fallout on this seems to be focused on FF and FG.
It is amazing that when you call out homophobia, you get accused of "using the gay community". It is bizarre and worrying stuff.
The problem for FF and FG is that their duopoly on power is under threat. They want to put off the reunification of Ireland for as long as possible. FF is at 15% in the latest opinion poll and FG is at 20%/ SF is at 36%. It is a RedC poll and its methodology is different to other pollsters in that it uses a pre-qualified panel of about 40K people that it thinks represents the electorate. Other pollsters use random samples of the electorate. The B&A polls seem to be better at estimating the support for FF as they use face to face polling rather than online/phone polling. Older FF voters are more likely to respond in face to face polling. The current polling %s for FF/FG/Greens are dire but I think that the Greens are falling back to their core support levels. On these %s, FG is going to lose more seats in the next GE.
Cowen is a bit smarter than people think. He and a few others were on a kind of virtual rubber chicken circuit during the Covid lockdowns. He and a few others were meeting other FFers to build support for the removal of Martin and his replacement possibly with Jim O'Callaghan. Cowen also lost his frontbench position as did Calleary. It was like Martin sacrificed FFers to appease Varadkar and FG. FF's performance in the Dublin Bay South bye-election, O'Callaghan's constituency, dampened some of those leadership moves as FF only managed to get 5% of the FPVs there. Varadkar and FG really screwed up that election and essentially gave away what should have been a safe FG seat.
FF and FG have to merge to survive but the problem is that their candidates are now dependent on transfers from each other rather than from floating votes. The political model shifted from being a 2.5 party model with Labour being the half-party to a Big Three model around 2013. The problem with the Big Three model is that no two parties have enough seats on their own for a majority. The floating vote that used to oscillate between FF and Labour disappeared and the incompetence of Labour's Stickies leadership in chasing ministerial pensions caused Labour to go into government in 2011 when it should have remained out. In the 2016 GE, the Labour's support collapsed and it went from 37 seats in the 2011 GE to just 7 in 2016. The transfers on which Labour candidates depended disappeared as FG and FF struggled to keep those transfers within their own sets of candidates.
The 2020 GE was a shock to FF/FG and Labour. The Dublin media also had problems in understanding what was happening and couldn't properly analyse the polling data. The Black and Tans/RIC commemoration by Charlie Flanagan caused massive problems for FG. The useless Martin compounded the problem for FF in that he wanted to commemorate the Black and Tans/RIC too. That, and Martin's confidence and supply (or more accurately, collaboration and surrender) agreement with FG and FF's history on housing, caused FF to lose an election where it should have been expecting to get between 50 and 60 seats.
FG would also have done a lot better had it not given into the neo-Unionist element represented by Charlie Flanagan. It had been polling around 30% before Christmas 2019 and the Black and Tans/RIC commemoration effectively controlled much of the media coverage before the GE. FG's woes were, and still are, amplified by the sheer incompetence of Varadkar. Varadkar has been a disaster for FG and he unnecessarily lost FG seats. With a competent FG leader, FG could have done a lot better. But Varadkar was the FG Politburo choice of candidate. The FG grassroots had voted for Coveney but Varadkar was installed as leader due to the FG parliamentary party's votes having more weight than those of the FG grassroots. Varadkar has led FG from one disaster to another (the LEs, the 2020 GE, leaking a document to his friend, losing a safe seat in FG heartland) and FG needs to remove him.
If FF and FG had both had competent leaders then SF would not have done as well in 2020 and would certainly not be the most popular party in the polls. Cowen is bright enough to realise the absolute toxicity of Martin's leadership and grovelling to FG. What will be interesting to see is which potential replacement for Martin will be proposed. O'Callaghan's seat is possibly safe but the prospect of an FF leader losing his seat in the next GE will be a factor. Michael McGrath may also be a possibility. Before Christmas it seemed that Pascal Donohoe was launching his own leadership challenge with an interview in the Indo where he said that he had worked well with McGrath. The memory of how Martin effectively stabbed Brian Cowen in the back to get the leadership is still there and Martin does seem to be increasingly isolated in FF. He may be lucky to make it to December.
I was not talking to you and I am not trying to shut down anything. Tbh, I have zero idea what you are talking or rambling about anymore.
He discovered the airport delays are due to the DAA letting so many people go and not replacing them. On the ball he is.
You raise this a lot. Sounds convenient. I quoted a trolling post Leo made and you are using the gay community. Perfect example of biased internet folk trying to shut down criticism using minorities and the plight of the Ukrainians. Stay classy.
Talk to blanch he brought it in, along with his homophobia shtick.
O BA , I have been in Touch and you know full well why 😏😏😏
No, thats false. I think I've mentioned him 3 times in the last few weeks. Also if you have issue address the comment. Nobody wants your newspaper critic internal struggle shite.
Im devastated but I was telling you to contact Beasty, not me.
What are ye clowns on about? Can ye leave discussions on other threads in those threads. I can smell the fakery from here and I have no interest.
No comments on the Galway A&E project which is now set to cost half a billion in Euro and won't be operational for 5 years? Thought not.
You asked me for evidence that politicians in government paid for social media likes. I never claimed that. I called you on it and several posts later, here we are.
Eamon Ryan in the Dail today saying increase to Social Welfare will be needed.
Sinn Fein TD was getting stick for mentioning the same recently.
I await the stick Eamon will get on here
You really are kidding , Seriously 🤣🤣 are you referring to the near 1000 needless redundancies they signed off on when wage subsidies were available at little or no cost to the DAA , Hillarious post.
The airport problems are because the government did such a good job protecting employment and wages during the pandemic that people have enough money to travel again. It really is a first world problem compared to something like Ukraine.
x1000
The usual crew will try and pass it off as 'debating'.
That poster with that homophobic username wasn't fooling anyone of his real intentions. Scurried off and closed his account to try and hide the shame.
I seen the thread and very similar posters reappearing here
But it isn't part of society now. It is a very limited part of society and for some reason these people seem to think they have the right. No idea why as it is disgusting to everyone else.
Why can't FG/Greens and FF supporters go online and discuss topics without getting messages abusing them and calling them every name under the sun?
It's a small minority, time to shut them down. Everyone else has had enough
There was a thread just closed because of this type of lying vitriolic attacks on a man who just happened to be a FG politician.
It is dreadful to see how politicians like Leo are abused online right down to someone adopting his partner's name in what looked like low-level homophobia.
Unfortunately, it is part of society now, and the people who engage in it hide behind anonymity to protect the party they defend at all costs. Twitter and Reddit are as bad.
It is actually disturbing the obsession with Leo, the guy is just doing a job and the vitriol he is subjected to online is disgusting, this attacking people has to stop. It doesn't matter if they are a TD or a sports star or just a kid down the road. It should be seen the same by the public and same punishment
I ain't hiding anything, my posts are all available to read
What are you on about now? Maria Cahill or Jean McConville?
The big trolling move on social media is to use Putin as the stick to hit the opposition with. There's an obvious use of the name to try silence any critics. MM himself used the term 'putin trap' when questioned about inflation. FF/FG always have a ham fisted see through effort which nobody buys. Its like using homophobia and mysogny, The plight of the Ukrainians are just the latest group to be abused for political one-up-mansnship. I get great laugh out of Varadkar's trolling, "SF don't like white men". What a child.
It is quite bizarre how that poster manages to get a single person into every single discussion.
You are trying to hide the fact that you only want to talk about trolling if its not about government parties.
Lets have a look at the last 3 posts on the topic
What or who is mentioned in all 3 posts?
We are trying to have a reasonable discussion about online trolls, you are off on a typical rant about a single TD
get up the yard
It is just the usual propaganda.
I am discussing troll accounts. I commented on the known facts about FF/FG. You refuted claims I never made. I called you on it, you pulled you patented confused nonsense and pretending I was off topic.
Not what you said, but you are saying it now? Always the victims fault when FF/FG/Greens are on the hook.
I heard Harris's interview, Grating as ever, very noticeable his Promised €3000 reduction in student Fees does not appear to have universal government support, its now being "Didcussed " reports from reliable sources in the Irish Times suggest it will be as low as €500 🙄
Apparently Simon is excited about his party leader and Tanaistes announcements this morning.
Curiously when clare Byrne asked about the Airport Debacle, he referred to Minister Naughton and the Minister for Transport, desperately trying not to mention Eamonn by name or even surname.
Everyone is wondering were Hildagarde is, she popped up announcing another handout for post masters , has not said a word about the mess at the airport all week.
