Leo Varadkar resigns as Taoiseach

Oh i dont disagree at all, i just feel the idiots didnt previously have access to the instagram/X/etc likes that they get for acting like fuckheads like they do now

My point was they have always been here, its just now they have a platform to show how thick they are

Irish net migration is close to zero.

For every irish person that leaves, another irish person returns.

Broadly speaking, about 30k people migrating and immigrating, annually.

Exactly. This narrative that politicians are been bullied out of office doesn’t cut the mustard with me. Yes they get abuse and it’s completely wrong and shouldn’t happen. For the most part they have a team to help protect them from the worse of it. Leo played the social media game better than anyone. They knew the pitfalls that that comes with that territory.

Id say Leo was pushed and maybe for the first time he had a sense of that it was time to go. History will judge his track record. Personally he was disappointment after Enda Kenny who really had a chance to transform this country and how it does politics. varadker leaves a country deeply divided over housing, health and immigration.

I don’t expect much from Harris. But listening to Frank Flannery today about how is mentored by Phil Hogan who for me represents the worse of Fine Gael arrogance leaves me with the thought that the more things change the more they stay the same.

Social media is the difference it can be constant and instant. Year's ago a disgruntled member of a constituency would have to had penned an abusive letter. By which stage they likely would have cooled off or had a fear of being identified eventually. Nowadays you can have instant abuse and nearly guaranteed anonymity, unless there is serious abuse where a court case is brought against such a person.

For all the good a few forward thinking visionary politicians and public servants have done in creating free secondary education, accession to EEC, IDA, tax environment to attract FDI, IFSC, the rest have done their best to continously fook things up.

For all the wealth created in this country just look how much has been needlessly wasted in healthcare, infrastructure projects, open borders being the latest along with allowing public housing provision by private sector at much higher economic and social costs.

I agree with you on lots of things, but I don't subscribe to fact that Ahern had anything to do with building our celtic economy of the mid to late 90s and start the great FDI input that has us where we are today.

Haughey alright can actually lay claim to some of the kudos for that, but so too can people as far back as Lemass, TK Whittaker (a very much under appreciated man in Irish history, Donncha O'Malley.

McSharry in the 1980s and Dukes for backing FF in late 80s also contributed to the boom from 90s onwards.

Ahern inheritied a thriving economy and presided over the creation of the credit fueled construction bubble and subsequent massive public spending hike.

Moving McGreevey to Europe was part of that.

Cowen was left holding the cr** when the ar** fell out of the bucket.

Kenny then inherited a sh**show, where the previous arrogant twats had alienated half of EU.

The worse thing that happened was electorate would not give him full mandate on his own and he had to do deal with Labour.

FG in 2011 were a very much different beast than FG today or even in 2020.

He stood by his promise to hold vote on Seanad and people turned down opportunity to get rid of a nonsense talking shop.

Yeah we know they were supposed to reform it, but people had the chance to dump the clown show.

People actually thought it holds Dail to account, but one can only see how they could do nothing to stop referendums happening.

Yes senator Michael McDowell had major bearing in highlighting the issues with the referendums, but he didn't do that in Seanad but outside it as ex minister of justice and ex AG.

But you'd never say that Leo Varadkar or any other FG TD who made people homeless following voting to end the eviction ban . . . should be ashamed of themselves.

Sorry but Irish society has a problem. We must be the only country in the world which has a media class which treats politicians in government as royalty with a servile class online standing behind him.

Leo Varadkar was a desperate taoiseach, totally out of his depth. He even realised it himself because he has cowardly run away from upcoming elections to leave someone else (Harris) to clean up his mess. Yet no one is allowed to criticise him? Gimme a break - he was worse than useless.

Did Leo Varadkar turn up in Athlone for the unveiling of Harris as the new leader this afternoon?

Big emphasis on law and order today.

That suggests Helen McEntee will be sacked.

That is not what I said.

Leo is very smart. In my opinion, he has run the scenarios, and he has realised that in the Ireland of 2024, where rabid nationalism is growing, that intolerant right-wing politics is growing, that the acceptance of a homosexual mixed-race Taoiseach was diminishing and that this was bad for his party so he resigned.

That tells you everything you need to know about the man… no stranger to turning up smiling and pontificating for the cameras when he is victorious or there is something in it for him….

but when he loses and the people comprehensively reject him, his plans and his ideals…. He goes scuttling off to wherever…. In defeat he should be man enough to overcome his colossal ego and have the respect for citizens, democracy and their decision….man up, own it and lead… be there… but, nope…. Off to his little corner to be an invisible little coward …. Some leadership. Awful politician.

100%.

We need to develop our cities, towns and villages at the expense of those who continue to insist on living outside those environs.

Absolute nonsense. Varadkar resigned because the government he has led has alienated itself from the electorate and it was about to be gutted in the local and European elections. The choice was go now and of his own volition or be ungratifingly deposed post election. He chose the former.

Beyond a few cranks, Varadkars ethnicity or sexuality has never been used to attack him. On threads here, it's not even an undertone.