Roisin Shortall Resigns

[mylestheslasher]

This could be a serious blow for the government. Shortall has a good reputation as hard working and idealistic politician. James Reilly, the senior minister, seems unable to work with anyone. His unilateral decision to add 2 primary care facilities in his own constituency to a list Shortall put together based on merit stinks of stroke politics. Seems to me the wrong minister was allowed to resign and it just goes to show that FG's "new transparent politics" is a pile of stinking dung just like all the other lies Enda and his mates told prior to the election.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0926/reilly-and-shortall-meeting-tense-and-difficult.html?3401958,3401958,flash,247

[seafoid]

I'd say it has more to do with the health cuts that are coming down the line with the budget.
Salaries are protected by the Croke Park Agreement* and that means cuts will have to come from non salary expenditure and they are going to be big. Labour is going to have to tell its voters that it is time to face economic reality and I am not sure they are ready for that.

*The CPA conditions include 1.28 which states that if there is a substantial change to the budget situation the deal is off. And there has been a significant worsening since 2010.

[armaghniac]

I think she is acting the prima donna. Being idealistic is fine, but you have to actually do things not just stand outside ranting. She had made her point about the primary care facilities and should have carried on.

[mylestheslasher]

I think she is acting the prima donna. Being idealistic is fine, but you have to actually do things not just stand outside ranting. She had made her point about the primary care facilities and should have carried on.

What a load of bollox, if that's your attitude you get the politics you deserve.

[Shamrock Shore]

Labour are soul searching this evening. Shortall was well respected in the party. With Gilmore over in NYC playing the 'statesman' one can almost imagine plots being hatched in Buswells.

Reilly is a buffoon and Enda will axe him before Christmas and throw in Leo to see what he is made of.

I wonder when Gilmore comes back who will he line up for Roisin's replacement. Can anyone work with Reilly now that he has, more or less, forced out the head of the HSE and now his junior.

[Dougal Maguire]

Hopefully this setback might take away some of Gilmore's smugness. Mind you he has little to be smug about. As far as I'm concerned he's on a par with Nick Clegg in the 'I'd sell my granny for a taste of power' stakes. Fair play to Shortall she wasn't prepared to be walked over.

[seafoid]

Hopefully this setback might take away some of Gilmore's smugness. Mind you he has little to be smug about. As far as I'm concerned he's on a par with Nick Clegg in the 'I'd sell my granny for a taste of power' stakes. Fair play to Shortall she wasn't prepared to be walked over.

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-05-14/news/30003035_1_greek-debt-debt-restructuring-greece/4#ixzz27c8xNa2c
Just as the Lenihan bailout destroyed Fianna Fáil, so the Noonan bankruptcy will destroy Fine Gael and Labour, leaving them as reviled and mistrusted as their predecessors. And that will leave Ireland in the interesting situation where the economic crisis has chewed up and spat out all of the State's constitutional parties. The last election was reassuringly dull and predictable but the next, after the trauma and chaos of the bankruptcy will be anything but

Read more:

[Dougal Maguire]

The Irish people have themselves to blame if the EU reneges on their June promises. Had they voted No on the Lisbon Treaty the Country would be in a strong position from a bargaining point of view. 

[Mentalman]

I think she has probably won back a little credibility with this move? She looked a fool last week, making a speech more or less condemning her senior minister but still voting confidence in him. It looked churlish, she appeared to be grandstanding as she was not willing to put her money where her mouth was. At that point I thought she was merely being uppity and thought a bit too much of herself. However as this primary care centre site fiasco has developed I could see her reasons for being annoyed, and I think the letter today from Reilly was probably the final straw - apparently it explains the reasons for expanding the list of 20 sites for proposed primary care centres to 35. However, it does not explain the criteria for choosing what 15 locations would be added. In other words Reilly is deliberately dissembling. I have to say that I thought Reilly was a genuine type of guy, that his ineptness as a minister was more down to him being a Doctor than a career politician, but these past few weeks my eyes have been opened. If Fine Gael had ever been genuine about bringing more accountability to Irish politics he would have stepped down, at least until such time as he had cleared up his interests in nursing homes etc. But things have just snowballed from there.

On top of all this we have the bank debt situation today, with Enda and Noonoo apparently living in cloud cuckoo land, swearing black is white. How would anyone take seriously someone who walks into a negotiation discarding some of your key weapons, showing your full hand i.e. no matter what happens we will not renege on debt, we will not burn unsecured bond holders. "We pay our debts"? Sure we fuckin' do, but only when they are our debts!

"meet the new boss - same as the old boss"

[mylestheslasher]

Exactly right mental man. FF and FG have left us in the shit with not one card to play. If I were Enda I would have my advisors looking at one thing and one thing only, what action or series of actions by Ireland could wreck the euro - a nuclear type strike and then I'd tell Merkel and her buddies in the central bank that I am going to push the button.

[seafoid]

Exactly right mental man. FF and FG have left us in the shit with not one card to play. If I were Enda I would have my advisors looking at one thing and one thing only, what action or series of actions by Ireland could wreck the euro - a nuclear type strike and then I'd tell Merkel and her buddies in the central bank that I am going to push the button.

Myles

The only way to do that is to reduce the deficit to zero . That means cutting Government spending by 12bn or so.
As long as Ireland is borrowing money to pay for day to day spending it can't do anything.   

[armaghniac]

That means cutting Government spending by 12bn or so.

And watch the labour benches vacate when dole etc is cut to achieve that.

[Capt Pat]

Exactly right mental man. FF and FG have left us in the shit with not one card to play. If I were Enda I would have my advisors looking at one thing and one thing only, what action or series of actions by Ireland could wreck the euro - a nuclear type strike and then I'd tell Merkel and her buddies in the central bank that I am going to push the button.

The only way to do that is to reduce the deficit to zero . That means cutting Government spending by 12bn or so.
As long as Ireland is borrowing money to pay for day to day spending it can't do anything.   

Just get rid of the poision pill health sercice we have. Nobody wants it.

[seafoid]

That means cutting Government spending by 12bn or so.

And watch the labour benches vacate when dole etc is cut to achieve that.

Cutting dole while 3.1 bn is paid  every year for Anglo Irish and Irish Nationwide. 
It is a mess.

[magpie seanie]

Exactly right mental man. FF and FG have left us in the shit with not one card to play. If I were Enda I would have my advisors looking at one thing and one thing only, what action or series of actions by Ireland could wreck the euro - a nuclear type strike and then I'd tell Merkel and her buddies in the central bank that I am going to push the button.

Myles

The only way to do that is to reduce the deficit to zero . That means cutting Government spending by 12bn or so.
As long as Ireland is borrowing money to pay for day to day spending it can't do anything.   

It's painful but better than the alternative of this death by a billion cuts route.

Politics in Ireland is a complete joke. There really was little alternative to the status quo at the last general election. It could be argued that Pearse Doherty and one or two others knew what they were on about and offered an alternative route but it was guesswork to know if they could really do it.

The attitude that we have to be sooooo grateful to Europe for dragging us up out of poverty really irks me. We have contributed handsomely to Europe and got some assistance in return but it was the Irish people that were the main drivers of the true boom. Unfortunately there is still this lack of confidence in ourselves at all levels in Irish society and frankly it sickens me. Why can't we stand up for ourselves? Why do we think we need to go with the begging bowl? If that's the attitude why bother being an independent country?

The whole situation depresses me. Roisin Shortall is one of the better ones and was disgracefully treated in this case. She had no option but to resign. Reilly is a disgrace and Kenny is worse. They are making no improvement or impact and should go if they had any decency.