Fianna Fáil Leadership Challenge Underway

beanie. wrote: »

Tomorrows Irish Daily Mail, just read out by Vincent Browne.
http://yfrog.com/f/gz4mxmj/
http://yfrog.com/h4a6yhj
The images can be enlarged enough to read by clicking on them. Going to buy the mail tomorrow anyway, they deserve it.

Deleted User wrote: »

He's all but gone.
He won't be gone untill the election though as no ff td wants to be leader in an election Rout.
FF are not saying it to the media but no doubt cowen is in cahoots with his t.d's to grin and bear it untill that finance act is passed.
He knows his days as leader are numbered.
FF won't eject him,bar the mail has pictures of him in bed with an alterboy untill after the election.

No one should be in any doubt that we have an honours system. It exists in all but name, and it has been extremely prevalent in recent weeks.

Appointments to state boards are effectively the Irish answer to Britain's honours scheme. It is a 'cute hoor/jobs for the boys' system.

Since the Green Party announced its intention to pull out of government in November, 35 appointments and reappointments have been made to state boards. And according to information dug up by Fine Gael TD Leo Varadkar, the government is to make almost 300 of these appointments before it leaves office in the spring.

While most of the positions are not remunerated and only offer travel and subsistence expenses, they do bestow kudos as they can open up doors for board members.

Jackie Gallagher, a public relations consultant and former special adviser to Bertie Ahern, has been nominated to the board of Trinity College Dublin. Gerry Horkan, a Fianna Fáil councillor in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, was recently appointed to the Dental Council. And barrister Rosemary Healy-Rae was reappointed to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal on 11 November. She is the daughter of independent TD Jackie Healy-Rae, who supported the budget. And the list goes on.

Varadkar claims the posts include "some very lucrative ones and some very powerful ones" and he has called on a moratorium on such appointments until after the election. While careful not to criticise those who have been appointed, Varadkar has made the correct call that there should be more Oireachtas scrutiny of the appointments.

THE TAOISEACH IS CONTINUING to consult his Fianna Fáil colleagues today about his future, as he comes under further pressure following fresh claims by the former Anglo Irish Bank boss, David Drumm.

Drumm said he’d spoken to Brian Cowen about Anglo’s “funding worries”, which the Taoiseach has repeatedly denied.

Drumm claims that Cowen asked the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) to invest in Anglo in April 2008 at David Drumm’s request, the Irish Daily Mail reports (not available online).

However, the head of the NTMA Michael Somers has said that no such request was made of him.

In the Dáil on Wednesday, Cowen specifically denied that Drumm had asked him to talk to Michael Somers. Today, a spokesperson for the Taoiseach Drumm’s claims were not based in fact, and had already been discredited by Somers.

Cowen was responding to queries posed by TDs during an extended Leader’s Questions session, following revelations at the weekend that he had spoken by phone to Sean Fitzpatrick in March 2008 to discuss Anglo shares and had played golf and had dinner with the former Anglo chairman in July 2008.

On Wednesday, the Taoiseach revealed that former Central Bank board member Alan Gray and former Anglo director Gary McGann were also present when he dined with Fitzpatrick in July.

The Irish Times reports today that Drumm and Fitzpatrick met Central Banker Gray privately the day before the banking guarantee was introduced in September 2008. They approached Gray in a bid for the Central Bank to lobby the government in support of Anglo, which was running out of money.

Drumm has already criticised some of Fitzpatrick’s account of issues at Anglo, made in interviews for a book published last Sunday by two Sunday Times journalists. Drumm told Simon Carswell of the Irish Times that Fitzpatrick’s characterisation of his chairmanship at Anglo was “bull****”, adding: “He was all over it”.

Heave?

Yesterday, amid rumours of a Fianna Fáil leadership heave, reports from within the parliamentary party suggested Cowen was resisting any motion against him and had refused to step down.

Instead, he said he would meet with party TDs and senators in the coming days to discuss their ideas about the party’s leadership. Those meetings are expected to conclude by tomorrow evening.

Meanwhile, Minister Micheal Martin has sent a clear signal that he believes the battle for the Fianna Fail leadership is not over. Martin’s spokesperson is quoted in the Examiner as saying the minister welcomes the consultation process, and believes it is “important that members use this opportunity to have their say on the future of the party”.

In a short statement issued last night, Fianna Fáil’s coalition partner the Green Party said it remained concerned about the revelation Cowen had dined with McGann and Gray, and said it had “already stated that Mr Cowen should himself have revealed his contacts with Anglo Irish Bank”.