The accelerating fall in Sinn Féin support

Bertie Aherne used to do similar - claimed to be an accountant when he was a book keeper.

Inflation of qualifications is very common. Personally know a fella who calls himself an architect but he's an architectural technician. And another who calls themselves a physiotherapist but is a physical therapist.

SF are more interested in catering to the whims of every class of outsider migrant who rocks up to Dublin airport than actually looking after the Irish.

Hopefully more and more ppl cotton on to this.

Michael McGrath is harmless ffs. He is a councillor level operator who got a break.

Nothing against the man personally but he isn't a heavyweight politically, just that he stands out in FF and in a Dáil where talent is remarkably rare.

A few but they live normal lives and do well enough I guess.

It was just a point about the absurdity of college drop outs etc as if it was relevant.

He’s not Taoiseach material but is very well suited to Finance and Public Expenditure as a Chartered Accountant and his approach.

He is very good at talking to business, civil servants and international politicians which is part and parcel of the role.

The general perception of people I know in various industry bodies is that they find O’Broin far more convincing than Doherty. O’Broin is actually far more radical though when you strip away the shouty shouty approach of Doherty, ironically enough.

The downturn in their support seems to have coincided with people beginning to realise they want free for all immigration and therefore are no different than all other major parties.

You'd think a party who's name means "ourselves alone" would live up to that name and be opposed to free for all immigration and have some sort of plan to control it and control our population .You'd think the party that has traditionally been nationalistic would put Irish people's concerns and only Irish people's concerns at the top of their list of priorities. However they've just proven to be every bit as untrustworthy as FF/FG and quite happy to do what the EU and other international bodies and NGO's want from them so why vote for a new party for government when they are basically the same as the shower we have already.

O Broin was on Newstalk getting a soft soap interview recently, talking about his band and their performances in 1988.

When you're trying to promote your party as the fresh new thing, you absolutely do not go and remind people that you were already old enough to consider record deals three and a half decades ago.

There was a specific reference to supporting Rory Gallagher, who is well known to have passed away young nearly 30 years ago

What seemed like a cool young lineup in 2016 or even 2020 is now old men and women.

Only someone who pretty much nothing about 21st-century SF beyond their name would think that. They have had a consistent immigrant/refugee-friendly line for over 20 years.

Yes as the opposition they are more pro than even the current government

He comes across as one of the stupidest politicians to me. Doesn't have a handle for his brief.

He is great on the soundbites though, if people want to fall for that sort of thing.

Mary Lou McD's speech in the USA last weekend reminds me of someone who should resign soon.

In her SF fund raising speech there, she proved she only cared about one thing in Ireland, and that SF was a single issue party. She may say her speech was not fund-raising, but I'm sure here party does not refuse cheques all the same. Last year SF raised over a million euro from the USA. ..from gullible Americans some would say.

As part of her long rant about a U.I., she laid in to the British government, saying things like "Tory governments in London never cared for the people of the north of Ireland".

Sorry Mary Lou, what else could the Conservative government in the UK to help Ireland more than it has already, this past few decades? She forgets how many billions does the British government put in to N. Ireland every year? 100 billion over 15 or 20 years? How they (along with IMF and EU) helped bail out the country here just over a decade ago, to keep our lights on. How we call up their jets to intercept Russian planes over our west coast, because we have no military radar or jets of our own? And all the Irish people who have got good jobs in Britain. And how after the UK people told the government their they wanted Brexit, the Tory govt put a border within the UK, somewhat damaging their own union, rather than around the UK as a whole. How could the Tory government have done more for Ireland and n. Ireland this past few decades? The mind boggles. And still Mary Lou McD goes to America, and bad mouths the Tory government over there.

And in the same speech Mary Lou goes on to praise and glorify Rita O'Heir, who served a sentence in prison here in the Republic for IRA explosives etc. You could not make it up. Some Republicans just cannot help themselves.

Does Mary Lou McD write the speeches herself or are this scripted for her in Belfast, I wonder.

There are so many things I could say about the speech, how wrong much of it was, but I guess I should be doing other things this afternoon.