Presidential Election 2025

She was very involved with the Green's Climate Change Plan which stopped recently

"The Minister raised the question of what the two managers in Galway said when the decision was made to quash the order. Galway County Council, Galway City Council and Transport Infrastructure Ireland, three main bodies to which we look to do transformative change, said they were disappointed to learn from An Bord Pleanála that it would not be opposing on a "very limited ground" the judicial review proceedings taken by the Friends of the Irish Environment challenging the board’s decision. I wish to pay tribute to the Friends of the Irish Environment, which, along with its legal team of solicitors and barristers, succeeded in getting the order quashed. On what ground was it quashed? It was quashed because An Bord Pleanála failed to consider climate action and the urgency - the géarchéim - attached to it. The local authority management in Galway and the NTA, to which we now look to bring in transformative action, tell us it was a "very limited ground". The purpose of my motion is not to highlight the narrowness of the vision of the management, but to highlight the need for the Government to take a hands-on approach in leading out transformative action. We cannot blame motorists or people on the ground when the policies are embedded in the Government’s policy of car dependency." - Cathrine Connolly

Friends of the Irish Environment are financed by the Dept of Commerce…

She has campaigned and campaigned against a bypass that here city desperately needs…She looks on their views as intellectually and morally inferior… She doesn't engage in knowing the other side…

The vast majority of people that want the bypass want it so the city can breath and we can put in the infrastructure for an expanding city increasing bike lanes, public transport and pedestrian areas… But Cathrine (and the Greens) can't stomach a road bridge, even though it will give them what they want…

The moral of the storey is that Cathrine Connolly doesn't have a history of governing for all the people, only the people that agree with her… Look at her comments on the bypass, there is no empathy…

HH is now as high as 6/1 with bookies

everything Connolly says and does is driven by her far left, indeed dangerous ideology- there’s no middle ground or pragmatic approach or taking on board others views with her. I can only imagine the drivel with her blocking the Galway bypass- leftist ideology comes above the needs and concerns of many above all with her.
Her campaign and slogan is a total fraud as she must certainly does not represent the majority of us who have no interest in this far left dogma and all its hypocrisy

Kenny initially, she had it for the 1916 centenary. Then Leo gave it to her again in 2017 (think the portfolio was slightly different)

If she'd taken that job without Irish but with the intention of learning it I'd say fair play brave move. But a decade later she seems unable to hold a basic conversation so I'm skeptical as to how much she actually learned - did she try? In the debate she mentioned leaving cert which was long before being a TD I haven't heard her talk about her steps to learn it on the job.

I do agree it's not mandatory for the role of President though highly desirable - but in the debate she's pledged again to learn it which I just don't get

Why will you learn it now but not back then? Will you actually do it this time? How will your learning be different? Who will pay for the lessons?

It's not outrageous not to speak Irish and run for President, but it's pretty outrageous to take the Gaeltacht portfolio, say you'll learn it, perform the job for years, and now say you can't speak it and will go off and learn it again

The media have raised several issues (not smears by the way) with Connolly, some of which she has addressed poorly.

Given the media's supposed pro-FFG bias it's curious that the only candidate they succeeded in damaging was FF's.

Do you think Michael Martin uses all his own money when he goes to Israel to point at ceilings?

Politician uses expenses they are entitled to use isn’t really a story. Another attempt to smear went down in flames.

No, but if I also wouldn't expect him to say he "funded it himself" if asked who paid.

I consider her July answer that "I funded it myself" to be less than forthright. Following up until clarified and subsequently questioning the evasiveness of the original answer is not smearing ; it's journalism.

Great the way you folk can ignore context at will.

It went down in flames RD.

The question was first asked in seeking to see if it was paid for by Assad regime supporters.

Context is everything.

“Do you think Michael Martin uses all his own money when he goes to Israel to point at ceilings?”

Where has MM stated that he funded such trips himself?

Apparently CC “funds it herself” - or was she lying?

Yes using the expenses she is entitled to.

As gotchas go, that one was painful to watch as it nosedived

We both know that isn’t how 99% of normal people would interpret “I funded it myself”- the lengths you go to defend the indefensible are simply laughable at this point

It has died as a story for a reason.

I think her "fact finding" mission was based on an automatic assumption that the colonialist imperialist west were lying about what was happening in Syria and that Assad was a murderous dictator.

She can't even look at the Russia-Ukraine war without talking about European "military industrial complexes" as if it wasn't a completely sane, logical and correct action for a completely demilitarised Europe to take in light of Russian warmongering.

It's all well and good saying she's repeatedly condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine but she cannot do that without talking about European rearmament as if it's happening in a total vaccum, or "NATO warmongering" even though countries want to be in NATO as a direct deterrence to Russian warmongering and aggression.

Waxing about how the money would be better spent on social endeavors is insanely illogical. One of the worlds biggest militaries is engaged in a genocidal war on the borders of Europe at the behest of a brutal dicator, but there's no need at all for Europe to invest in defense after decades of total demilitarisation to an almost point of non-fuctionality?

She's a fine speaker on most if not all topics save for that, but I do not want someone of that illogical mindset representing this country on the international stage and I'm amazed many of her supporters gloss over it like it's no big deal.