FG to still just do nothing for the next 5 years - part 2

Brendan Bendar wrote: »

This place turning into TWITTER CENTRAL... folk trawling Twitter for stuff and hoying it up here.

No wonder the lads from the ‘heathery hills’ get so agitated when genuine folk shine a light under the slates and expose pond life that really exists there.

Will kill the thread if these Twitter scrapes continue to take hold and engulf the thread.

Flinging mud against a wall and hoping 2% of it sticks doesn’t hold the interest for too long.

McMurphy wrote: »

Imagine whinging about a poster linking to Fine Gael tweets on twitter on a Fine Gael thread, you couldn't make it up.

Pretty sure there's a feedback forum where you can start a thread to discuss the merits of getting admins or mods to make a decision on posting links to twitter - or any other source of information that might contain news and information on stuff you don't like.

Falmin hell. :pac:

tobsey wrote: »

A timeline of what happened and why I think this is a non-story:

2015 - Paddy Cosgrave demands the then FG government to give the same public supports to his Web Summit that they are being offered elsewhere. The then FG government decline and the summit moves to Lisbon

2016 - Government attempts to strike deal with IMO for provission of GMS services but no deal is reached

2018 - Talks on deal for GMS gathers pace

2019 - April 5th, deal agreed between IMO and Government. IMO release details of the deal on their website: https://www.imo.ie/news-media/news-press-releases/2019/statement-imo-reaches-210/index.xml

2019 - April 6th, Government give press conference giving high level information on the deal

2019 - April 9th (I think) O Tuathail asks Harris for a copy of the deal. O'Tuathail says that the IMO will only share it with its own members. Says all GPs need to see it or it won't be supported. Harris says he'd look into it, but ultimately decided not to forward it to him.

2019 - April 9th - 16th, IMO give details of deal to members, as confirmed in the Dáil

2019 - April 11th - 15th, Varadkar gets a copy of the deal and sends it to O'Tuathail

2019 - April 15th, Vardakar confirms to O'Tuathail it's in the post

2019 - April 17th, O'Tuathail receives the document and shares it with the NAGP board. Claims to have Varadkar as an ally. They make a plan to review the document and get information out to their members in an attempt to undermine the IMO and gain an advantage

2019 - May 17th, Deparment of Health publish full contents of deal

2019 - May 22nd, IMO votes to accept the deal. Majority of GPs in the country subsequently sign up to the deal

2020 - March, Coronavirus starts to spread in Ireland. Matt O'Tuathail starts appearing on media discussing the pandemic.

2020 - April, Paddy Cosgrave tweets that Matt O'Tuathail is attempting trap healthcare workers attempting to whistle-blow about PPE. Also tweets about 4 nurses dying from Coronavirus and receives backlash from INMO and others

2020 - Unknown, O'Tuathail instigates libel proceedings against Cosgrave for defamation of character

2020 - August 7th, Paddy Cosgrave tweets to apogise for and retract comments he made about O'Tuathail in April

2020 - Oct 26th week of, High Court informed that the libel case between Cosgrave and O'Tuathail has been settled

2020 - unkown, Paddy Cosgrave introduces Chay Bowes to editor of Village magazine

2020 - October 31st, Village magazine publishes screenshots of text messages between Chay Bowes and O'Tuathail which are very damaging to O'Tuathail and Varadkar, two parties to who Cosgrave had a grievance


So at some point Paddy Cosgrave met Chay Bowes and discovered he had information that would be damaging to O'Tuathail, Varadkar and Fine Gael. He had a strong motive to make this information public due to his history with each.

So Varadkar decided that it was a good idea to share this document with O'Tuathail before it was made public. He claims it was in order to get the information out to the GP community in order to assist adoption of the deal. Obviousy his true motives cannot be confirmed. He's said it was a mistake and he shouldn't have done it.

What was the impact of Varadkar sharing the document with O'Tuathail? It's clear it was a break in procedure. It doesn't appear there was any commercially sensitive information in it from a government point of view, the value of the deal had already been released to the public domain. Was there a commercial advantage given to NAGP and O'Tuathail? Maybe, they could gain an advantage in that they show they can provide good information for their members that the members couldn't get on their own.

Did the document contain secrets that should not have been published as per the Secrets act? No, the full text was made public a month later when the document was finalised.

So what happened was Paddy Cosgrave saw an opportunity to land a blow on two parties he had past dissagreements with. Mission accomplished. Dis Varadkar do something wrong? Yes probably, he undermined the agreement with the IMO that they would be the sole negotiaters for the agreement. However what he did had no negative impact on the state as far as anyone has determined. The deal was ratified and signed by most GPs such that GMS services continued across the country.

All told this is maybe slightly above a non-issue. Varadkar has taken a lot of criticism for his acts. He's admitted he made a mistake. In the end though there was no harm done.

Cosgrave is probably happy with himself, but I guess his settlement will have cost him a few thousand euro.

Varadkar's reputation has taken a hit, he'll never fully recover from that. But this issue will go away and he'll carry on.

McMurphy wrote: »

The fact that you can't the link between people that are homeless, and those that are in need of psychiatric help and counselling either because of being homeless, or have become homeless through their mental illnesses says it all really dude.