Presidential Election 2025

I am shocked after hearing about Catherine Connolly close association with a gun criminal.I was going to vote for her but not now.

In what way are you baffled? Gardai advised her that this person couldn't be employed in the position she sought to use her and Connolly tried to override that, what's baffling?

OK.

From the article:

The presidential candidate sought to hire Ursula Ní Shionnáin as an administrative support when she was on the Oireachtas committee for the Irish language in 2018.

According to multiple sources, An Garda Siochána refused to grant the necessary clearance to allow Ní Shionnáin work in the buildings of the national parliament over security concerns.

Connolly contested the decision and wrote to authorities seeking to overturn it, but the decision was upheld.

My reading is as follows:

CC attempted to position said person in a role in Gorvernment buildings, which required a background check. The check triggered a red flag and the gardai refused to sign off on the lady. CC, decided to appeal this decision, but the original decision was upheld. That is literally the end of the story. Everything was above board, and no deceptive measures were applied. The ladys background triggered a red flag, legitimately, and CC decided to exercise her right to appeal this, unsuccessfully. Again, all above board, and legitimate.

No political pressure was applied. CC had the right to appeal the decision, and did so, publically.

Look i dont know, if this story gets picked up more broadly, then so be it. If something else emerges, if deception was employed by anyone involved, then it is very damaging. And in that case I will comment again. If there is any hint of political pressure or corruption involved then yes. Its a story, and we need more information.

Right now, with what i have from the article, i dont need any more information.

As it stands, its perhaps an error in judgement but thats it, IMHO. Honestly i probably wont comment on this story again, because I dont see it as relevent to the election.

Unless and until it emerges that CC abused her power in some way.

Nothing leads me to believe that such information will emerge, and i just see this as the Journal, desperately looking to create some interest, surrounding a fairly bland election cycle. The media are fully capable of making a mountain out of an ant hill, and to me the story is a prime example of this. Im defending CC in this case, despite being very critical of her candidacy, because i dont like this type of journalism. I think its wrong to drag this 'story' into an election cycle. I also think its ridiculous to drag the lady at the center of this story, into an attempt to create scandal where none exists.

That is my position. If you want to hear my thoughts on CC's candidacy more broadly, read my posts. I am very critical of her, despite being a life long lefty. But i wont buy into a hyped up story, that is all flash, and no substance. If this issue matters to you, and other posters. Fine! By all means discuss it in great detail. But unless more emerges, i have said all i can say, and given my opinion.

No offense intended to anyone, you are all welcome to draw whatever conclusions you wish. Even reading back over this post i can see a painful amount of repitition - but considering the small nature of the story, this was probably inevitable. Im leaving it there, with all due respect

Well the GAA have a President position.

There’s no question she’s a good speaker.

Could this see soft left support peeling off CC? Greens/Labour/Soc Dems wouldn't want to be linked to Eirigi in any shape or form…

I'm looking at a fairly lengthy Reddit thread about this story, very few, even apparent Shinners, sticking up for CC…

Just on the drone thing, the bigger story here IMO is that the IAA should have been pushing DJI (drone manufacturer) to continue to include the list of Restricted zones in their app.

The DJI app gives some warnings, whereas is used to give all warnings, and would actively stop you from flying into restricted zones. It was probably too much of an overhead to maintain by DJI, but we now have a situation where the app gives you some warnings, but not all warnings, and no restrictions, so it's very much a false sense of security once you click past the warning

DJI Map - Orange areas all treated the same with just a warning.

IAA Map

It certainly explains and marries the two. If ever anyone was in doubt about her Hamas support, this nails it for me. And her fake Hamas condemnation doesn’t change this. And her appealing and fighting AGS decision on this shows she has a real contempt for them, and for the public!!

The electorate might be a bit more sophisticated than you think and may interpret this as an attempt to slime Connolly.

I'll await more detail on the story.
Will just say this, if you asked me, before this to name the TD in the Dáil most likely to give someone a chance, I'd have named Catherine every day of the week.

That's what this looks like to me, given what this woman has done with her life since. Hasn't re-offended, doesn't seem to be a member of the group anymore and has built a successful career that has seen her work in the Houses of Oireachtas

CC must address it though.

Standard enough hit piece. She is the leading candidate in the election and the others are falling behind. The amazing thing is that people are so naive and do not realise that this is exactly what happens in an election. The media will be trawling for any dirt on a candidate that will sell copies or get advertising.

The Alan Kelly types would not support her and the Labour vote in her favour was about 60%. There's an FF/FG element in Labour that's more of the "social democrat" variety rather than traditional Working Class Labour type. Connolly might appeal more to the student union radicals and younger Labour supporters. (Labour is weaker in the younger demographics.) That age demographic split could be important because there is a distinct difference in how trust for the legacy media with younger voters often relying more on Social Media than legacy media. Could it affect some older voters? Perhaps. Will it affect voters who have decided to support Connolly on ideological grounds? No.