General Irish politics discussion thread

Who I suspect spoke the least in the Dáil of any TD that took their seat. Was going to say elected, but we had plenty of abstentionist TDs.

Four times

One asking Ray Burke if he took a bribe from an MMDS operator, one general speech about MMDS, once about the Garda corruption in Donegal tribunal (where he mentioned MMDS) and one last time apologising for some of what he said in that previous contribution!

Didn't have the backing/confidence of the parliamentary party in FG who went against the membership vote in the Coveney/Varadkar leadership contest. They over ruled 20,000+ members to anoint Varadkar. Can't say I blame him for saying sod that. tbh.

If I remember correctly Coveney was in charge of designing and implementing FGs internal electoral system so he can blame himself for that.

Only if you want it to imply that.

Nothing in your post contradicts what I said - the system is set up in such a way that it allowed the PP to ignore/over rule what the members voted for.

Every party has their way of doing things.

I think that when a party picks their leader it really should be up to them to decide in whatever way they want, except if the leader is from the party that holds the office of Taoiseach. In that specific scenario they should be obliged to just have the vote from elected reps.

Yes Vin, I’ve read your posts reprimanding those referencing the boys from Belfast dictating, haven’tI? ? ?

As I said, excuse it all you want, essentially it is a system to. allow the PP to stay in ultimate control.
Not that unusual. Political parties control.

Parties have their ways of doing things. Sugar coating what FG's way is your prerogative, It doesn't change what it is designed to do. As I said, it has nothing to do with me, it is for members to decide if they are happy that their vote ultimately doesn't count.

And for the elected members a way of seeing if the PP has confidence in them or supports them various jobs. If it was me, it would be quite clear the PP had no confidence/didn't support me.

The problem with members having the power to decide party leaders can be seen in the UK. Corbyn, Johnson, Truss etc. Party members are minority of the overall voting population so they are completely unrepresentative of the voting population. You get away with that in the UK where under FPTP you only have only 2 parties(normally anyway) with any hope of government. Under the Irish voting system you need a relatively broad appeal. If you only appeal to your very hard core voters/party members it's going to make life very difficult in any election.

TDs who gets elected have to work with any leader and also rely on 2nd,3rd, 4th etc preferences to get elected and are as a result far more representative and arguably in tune with the public.

You like the system, that's fine. You decided you like it. If I was a member I wouldn't.
Horses for courses.

And leads to far better results 

Unless you are the competing candidate or a supporter of the competing candidate.