General Irish politics discussion thread

I don't like her and her kind and what she stands for.

If they wanted to do something for small business, they should have done something about business rates. This hospitality VAT cut is far too broad, far too expensive, will benefit the biggest most profitable players the most, and may not help its intended targets that much at all.

I just noticed politics.ie is no more,,I used glance at it maybe a few times a year, mainly if there was an upcoming election to look at polls discussion on them,a shame it's gone though,,Francie must have alot of spare time.

Yes, but so are e.g. Norway and Azerbaijan, and they were both there.

I think the possible significance of Irish participation in Unifil is that IRISHBATT, and now IRISHPOLBATT, effectively forms the front line, so those are the troops that are most likely to, and in fact do most often, interact with Israeli forces, or with local elements engaging Israeli forces. It's a particular sensitive position.

But, yeah, I may be reading to much into that. Another factor which might account for the presence at, or absence from, the summit of smaller and more distant nations is simply whether they wanted to be there or not. And we didn't.

Kermit's original post presumes that there is some reason why we should wish to be at the summit. But is that true?

Bear in mind that the only outcome of the summit was a declaration entitled the "Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity" (yes, "Trump" is part of the title) which was signed by Egypt, the US, Qatar and Turkey. It seems that none of the other participants at the summit could bring themselves to sign it, or perhaps they weren't invited to. And of course neither Israel, nor Hamas, nor the Palestinian Authority, signed it. The declaration has been widely criticised as being simplistic, lacking in detail, symbolic and virtue-signalling. But it does hail "the Trump Peace Agreement" (yes, by that exact title) and applaud "President Trump’s sincere efforts to end the war in Gaza". No other person or country is mentioned in the declaration. It seems that (a) the declaration was little more than an opportunity for countries that wished to do so to insert their tongues into Trump's anus, and (b) not many countries wished to do so.

So perhaps the question that we should be asking ourselves is not "Why did Ireland not attend?" so much as "Why did those other countries attend?" — a question they might well be asking themselves at this point.

I don't think we do spend a lot of parliamentary time on the topic.

Are you assuming that the "someone" was speaking for the Irish government, or do you know this?

I'd like to know (a) who the "someone was and what their relationship to the government was, (b) when they said this (with a bit more precision than "some time in 2023 or 2024") and (c) what exactly they said. I'll suspend judgment until then.