Sinn Fein? They have gone away, you know.

[foxcommander]

They'll be lucky to get 6% in Ros/North Galway.

I take it you're on the census board? or have you insider knowledge ?

prat.

[stephenite]

We all have opinions. However if you want to look at the evidence, they got 10% in the last election in the south, 6% in the election before that and will probably get 15-16% in the next election. That decent growth is happening all around the country in area where SF have no real foundations or presence while constantly under attack from what passes as MSM in the south. Those aren't opinions they're the facts of SF progression in the south under Adams. They point to him doing a good job and there's no evidence that I can see of them doing better under anyone else.

Donagh, is that you?

You were saying the exact same thing back in 2007 - making bold predictions about significant gains, then the opposite happened. Now I'm out of the country long enough to be unable to make any accurate predictions but my suspicion is that not a whole lot has changed in regards to how Gerry Adams is viewed by the public in the South

[ashman]

My opinion and that of anyone I've spoken to about it this week.

We all have opinions. However if you want to look at the evidence, they got 10% in the last election in the south, 6% in the election before that and will probably get 15-16% in the next election. That decent growth is happening all around the country in area where SF have no real foundations or presence while constantly under attack from what passes as MSM in the south. Those aren't opinions they're the facts of SF progression in the south under Adams. They point to him doing a good job and there's no evidence that I can see of them doing better under anyone else. For example, how would Pearse or Mary Lou taking over affect the Party support in the north or have you factored that into your considerations?

SF will be fine in the next election and will double their seats I think.

They want to beat Ff and effectively lead the opposition.  That is fine and dandy.  Then what ?? More populist promises and maybe government . 

Then what   Then they will realise you will have to call in the promises .  This means the next election will be carnage .   

[armaghniac]

Apparently it is all a misprint and farmer Slab made his money from being an IFA leader.

[johnneycool]

Brian Feeney sums it up well IMO;;

Brian Feeney
23 December, 2015 01:00
Gerry Adams owes Slab Murphy a debt of gratitude
Brian Feeney

In a radio interview on Monday Gerry Kelly was correct to bat away contrived SDLP concern about Sinn Féin's response to the conviction of 'Slab' Murphy for tax evasion. The SDLP had simply jumped on the bandwagon alongside every party in the Republic once Dublin's Special Criminal Court had handed down its decision.

As Kelly pointed out, the SDLP have no dog in the fight. They don't stand in the Republic's elections or play any part in its politics. It was simply an opportunity to have a crack at Sinn Féin. He might also have pointed out that the BBC took no notice of the worst floods for years in the Republic with thousands of acres inundated by the River Shannon and water rising at Shannon Pot near the Fermanagh border. Yet a comment by Gerry Adams about a Dublin court case merited a lengthy interview.

You could hear the frustration in Kelly's voice at the hypocrisy because the SDLP like all the other parties lining up to take a pop, know, or if they don't should know, why Gerry Adams felt it necessary to issue a detailed statement about the case.

Let's not beat about the bush here. Slab Murphy lost a libel case in Dublin before a jury, please note, whom he failed to convince that allegations about his IRA activities were false. Murphy became IRA chief of staff at a crucial time in the peace process, the end of 1997. At an IRA general army convention in Gortahork then the quartermaster Michael McKevitt led a dangerous split out of which emerged the Real IRA but he was unable to take any substantial group with him.

Murphy was able to hold the vast majority of the IRA, but critically carry south Armagh with him into the Good Friday Agreement and the commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means. Murphy presided as chief of staff through the process of elections and decommissioning and for all we know may still be on the army council.

Gerry Adams owes him an enormous debt of gratitude. Murphy's people in south Armagh think to be pursued through the courts is a poor reward for his efforts through those difficult and dangerous years. The offences of which he was found guilty were committed more than ten years ago, 1996-2004 – a different time. What's Adams supposed to do? Walk away? Join the condemnation? He knows, as Gerry Kelly knows and all those sanctimonious critics north and south know, that if it hadn't been for Murphy events after 1997 would have taken an entirely different direction.

To say the least it wouldn't go down too well in south Armagh if Gerry Adams were now to rat on the man to whom he owes so much. Of course Slab Murphy is not related to the Archangel Gabriel or even a mere Irish saint. He has been linked to many dreadful incidents but like many of those now in prominent positions in northern politics that was then.

People forget that Murphy is not the only one who has fallen foul of officials pursuing cases they were unable to prosecute before 1998. His close colleague Sean Hughes, the man the British army nicknamed 'The Surgeon' because of the precision of his IRA operations, was prosecuted in 2001 for money laundering and other offences. He pleaded guilty. The then Minister for Regional Development Conor Murphy MP said: ``I know him [Hughes] very well. He's a good friend of mine and has been for very many years and I'm very proud of that.''

Hiding behind parliamentary privilege as senior DUP men tend to do, Peter Robinson said Hughes had been appointed to the IRA army council in 2002. And why might that have been except to consolidate the position of the supporters of the peace process in the IRA as the movement edged towards decommissioning?

Now none of this is secret. On the contrary, if those politicians wringing their hands in righteous rage at tax evasion don't know chapter and verse of this detail they shouldn't be in politics. On the other hand because they do know but ignore the real background they provide an authentic example of politicians' behaviour. Not edifying.

[Applesisapples]

Mcguinness was praising yer man Slab yesterday for the 'work' he did for the peace process.

Could anyone shed any light as to what this 'work' was?

Read Brian Feeney in todays Irish News, interesting take on the case.

[Bord na Mona man]

For how long should work done for the peace process give someone a free pass?
Can Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair use it to excuse the various messes they created after 1998?

[seafoid]

For how long should work done for the peace process give someone a free pass?
Can Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair use it to excuse the various messes they created after 1998?

Killers and psychopaths  always get a free pass after wars. Bosnia was EXACTLY the same

http://www.mikepope.com/blog/displayblog.aspx?permalink=2109
What unites many countries in the world, both the ones that don't give a fig about human rights and the ones that profess they do, is their unwillingness to punish their war criminals. When it comes to accountability, instances of confronting their own guilt are exceedingly rare among nations, especially when the victims are members of some other race, religion, or country. Even international leaders concerned with situations such as the one in Yugoslavia, despite their protest to the contrary , are often reluctant to see the guilty punished since political interests usually take precedence over justice.

In addition, there's an unwritten understanding that crimes committed by the United States and a few other Western powers go unpunished. When the International Criminal Court was launched in 2003, the Bush administration refused to join, fearing that its military and its leaders could be arbitrarily indicted by some grandstanding foreign prosecutor. But that was just dissembling. The real reason is that the United States considered itself as a country whose exceptional moral standing exempts it from accountability for the war crimes it commits. The trouble with that is that everybody else feels the same way. The belief that one ought to be able to kill one's enemies and live happily ever after is nearly universal.

Not many people care to know what their governments do to others in their name. No society can bear the thought that it is committing some injustice against innocents, so elaborate excuses have to be made. Justifying war crimes to their fellow citizens is what nationalist intellectuals are expected to do. The editorial and opinion pages of our newspapers and magazines have recently published articles pleading with President Bush to pardon the lawyers in the Department of Justice who devised the regime of torture and detention and the officials who put them into practice, and not allow them to be criminally prosecuted, since, allegedly, they broke the law out of a sincere wish to keep us safe. What nationalist ideologues everywhere tell their own people is that they occupy a unique moral universe in which the laws of the outside world do not apply. Unlike everyone else in the world, they, and only they, are good even when they are slaughtering women and children. Anyone who objects to that view either suffers from self-hatred or is some sort of traitor in the employ of a foreign power.

-- Charles Simic, "Connoisseurs of Cruelty," New York Review of Books, March 12, 2009

[Rossfan]

For how long should work done for the peace process give someone a free pass?

Seems Slabeen got one until the raid on Ballybinaby in 2006.

[Il Bomber Destro]

For how long should work done for the peace process give someone a free pass?

Seems Slabeen got one until the raid on Ballybinaby in 2006.

Who do you vote for?

[Il Bomber Destro]

My opinion and that of anyone I've spoken to about it this week.

We all have opinions. However if you want to look at the evidence, they got 10% in the last election in the south, 6% in the election before that and will probably get 15-16% in the next election. That decent growth is happening all around the country in area where SF have no real foundations or presence while constantly under attack from what passes as MSM in the south. Those aren't opinions they're the facts of SF progression in the south under Adams. They point to him doing a good job and there's no evidence that I can see of them doing better under anyone else. For example, how would Pearse or Mary Lou taking over affect the Party support in the north or have you factored that into your considerations?

SF will be fine in the next election and will double their seats I think.

They want to beat Ff and effectively lead the opposition.  That is fine and dandy.  Then what ?? More populist promises and maybe government . 

Then what   Then they will realise you will have to call in the promises .  This means the next election will be carnage .

Maybe they will enforce change. Maybe the first thing they will do if they got into power is to drastically reduce the salaries and expenses of TDs and cap what they can earn and claim.

[Rossfan]

For how long should work done for the peace process give someone a free pass?

Seems Slabeen got one until the raid on Ballybinaby in 2006.

Who do you vote for?

None of your effn business. We have secret ballot here.

[Rossfan]

My opinion and that of anyone I've spoken to about it this week.

We all have opinions. However if you want to look at the evidence, they got 10% in the last election in the south, 6% in the election before that and will probably get 15-16% in the next election. That decent growth is happening all around the country in area where SF have no real foundations or presence while constantly under attack from what passes as MSM in the south. Those aren't opinions they're the facts of SF progression in the south under Adams. They point to him doing a good job and there's no evidence that I can see of them doing better under anyone else. For example, how would Pearse or Mary Lou taking over affect the Party support in the north or have you factored that into your considerations?

SF will be fine in the next election and will double their seats I think.

They want to beat Ff and effectively lead the opposition.  That is fine and dandy.  Then what ?? More populist promises and maybe government . 

Then what   Then they will realise you will have to call in the promises .  This means the next election will be carnage .

Maybe they will enforce change. Maybe the first thing they will do if they got into power is to drastically reduce the salaries and expenses of TDs and cap what they can earn and claim.

They will in my bolx. That would reduce the amount the 80 SF TDs would hand over to Party HQ.

[Tubberman]

My opinion and that of anyone I've spoken to about it this week.

We all have opinions. However if you want to look at the evidence, they got 10% in the last election in the south, 6% in the election before that and will probably get 15-16% in the next election. That decent growth is happening all around the country in area where SF have no real foundations or presence while constantly under attack from what passes as MSM in the south. Those aren't opinions they're the facts of SF progression in the south under Adams. They point to him doing a good job and there's no evidence that I can see of them doing better under anyone else. For example, how would Pearse or Mary Lou taking over affect the Party support in the north or have you factored that into your considerations?

SF will be fine in the next election and will double their seats I think.

They want to beat Ff and effectively lead the opposition.  That is fine and dandy.  Then what ?? More populist promises and maybe government . 

Then what   Then they will realise you will have to call in the promises .  This means the next election will be carnage .

Maybe they will enforce change. Maybe the first thing they will do if they got into power is to drastically reduce the salaries and expenses of TDs and cap what they can earn and claim.

Will go down well the public for a week or two. That's hardly going to result in a budget surplus though!
A few hundred grand is meaningless in the overall economy.
Maybe the change they will enforce will be to disband the special criminal court? Then perhaps give special status to 'volunteers' so they can't be prosecuted for any misdemeanour's due to their service history?

[mikehunt]

For how long should work done for the peace process give someone a free pass?

Seems Slabeen got one until the raid on Ballybinaby in 2006.

Who do you vote for?

Rossfan is quite the talented debater. If you don't agree with him or call him on his spoof and bluster he will ignore you. He mocks people who question govt policy , (calling them lefty loons, yet he despises wealthy people). A trough eating public sector worker who wants things to stay just the way they are. He is quite happy for Fine Gael to borrow money to pay for his pay increases yet sneers at those on welfare. He is so full of contradictions it is no surprise he comes across as confused.