Race for the ARAS 2025

[Rossfan]

Trileac,Stormont already allows the party whose MLA dies, retires  or whatever to co-opt a replacement.
Same in Euro Parliament and Councils here.
The Party or organisation won the seat,which should be theirs for the full term.

[Rossfan]

Whitey off his meds again.

[trileacman]

Trileac,Stormont already allows the party whose MLA dies, retires  or whatever to co-opt a replacement.
Same in Euro Parliament and Councils here.
The Party or organisation won the seat,which should be theirs for the full term.

Of relatively little importance so there isn't the need to drag the electorate to the polls to find a replacement. I stand by my earlier points in regards to national elections. More than one Prime Minister has been ousted because of a disappointing by-election result.

[Baile Brigín 2]

Michael D called an American conservative talker a w**ker on radio.

To be fair it was the best bit of radio I ever listened to.

Any links to that?

The guy was running rings around Michael D and Michael D flew into a rage and started screaming and yelling at him

Made a complete show of himself and exposed himself as nothing more than a blabbermouth with a nice dog

I don't think we are talking about the same incident.

https://youtu.be/WwvMNkCruGw?si=8hEA7ZY8HVY8PbUt

[Baile Brigín 2]

A fair point and a real consideration, but one that ignores the fact that for independents and smaller parties or loosely aligned groups, the vote is much more personal in nature.

As you mention Stormont, take Gerry Carroll in West Belfast for example. Obviously I can't and haven't spoken with everyone who votes for him, but I struggle to believe and you'd struggle to convince anyone with half a brain that his base is anything other than a highly personal one. Nobody in West Belfast is voting for the inspirational leadership of Dun Laoghaoire's own RBB. If something were to happen GC, why on earth should RBB and co get to decide who fills the seat?

Because he is in a party. The party has a leadership, admittedly an unusual type.

This is just the reverse of the Wesst brit 'West Belfast are in charge' anti SF nonsense

What the absolute f**k are you talking about?

You have decided Carroll gets his votes because he is nice, not for his positions or constituency work. His party apparently becomes irrelevant as a result and leadership in that Dublin should butt out. You parked there yourself.

I've heard this before. SF ad blah blah because of lads in West Belfast. Same nonsense.

We have cooption because running by elections for councillors or MEP's would be ruinesly expensive. Yes, it would be cleaner if prospective councellors registered their alternate ahead of the poll like MEP's do, but it is the system and does work.

[Rossfan]

Brilliant by Ml D.
Unfortunately the wankers have taken over the US since.

[DaleCooper]

Barack Obama and Hillary bombed Libya. Obama gets the freedom of Dublin and Hillary is worshipped the insufferable denizens of the Malone Road faculty at QUB.

The good guys

[Armagh18]

Barack Obama and Hillary bombed Libya. Obama gets the freedom of Dublin and Hillary is worshipped the insufferable denizens of the Malone Road faculty at QUB.

The good guys

Yeah imagine how bad you have to be to be worse than those pair of murdering c***ts.

[seafoid]

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2025/10/08/taoiseach-apologises-to-party-over-disastrous-presidential-election-campaign/

Micheál Martin has apologised and acknowledged the "hurt and shock" of Fianna Fáil members as he addressed his party on its disastrous presidential election campaign.

The Taoiseach is understood to have told a packed meeting of his parliamentary party how he was sorry for how things had turned out and was "devastated" by the situation

[gallsman]

A fair point and a real consideration, but one that ignores the fact that for independents and smaller parties or loosely aligned groups, the vote is much more personal in nature.

As you mention Stormont, take Gerry Carroll in West Belfast for example. Obviously I can't and haven't spoken with everyone who votes for him, but I struggle to believe and you'd struggle to convince anyone with half a brain that his base is anything other than a highly personal one. Nobody in West Belfast is voting for the inspirational leadership of Dun Laoghaoire's own RBB. If something were to happen GC, why on earth should RBB and co get to decide who fills the seat?

Because he is in a party. The party has a leadership, admittedly an unusual type.

This is just the reverse of the Wesst brit 'West Belfast are in charge' anti SF nonsense

What the absolute f**k are you talking about?

You have decided Carroll gets his votes because he is nice, not for his positions or constituency work. His party apparently becomes irrelevant as a result and leadership in that Dublin should butt out. You parked there yourself.

I've heard this before. SF ad blah blah because of lads in West Belfast. Same nonsense.

We have cooption because running by elections for councillors or MEP's would be ruinesly expensive. Yes, it would be cleaner if prospective councellors registered their alternate ahead of the poll like MEP's do, but it is the system and does work.

Where on earth did I say this? I think he's a f**king useless eejit to tell you the truth.

I said his vote was personal, as in they're voting for him. If he left and RBB decided to move to West Belfast, he'd not be getting that vote at all. I'm sure you're very close to it all in Balbriggan.

[weareros]

The latest dirt, again harsh given a barrister has to taken on clients, but if the shoe was on the other foot:

Catherine Connolly says she did represent banks in courts but fails to clarify whether it included home repossession cases
Áras candidate previously said claim by Fine Gael councillor made about time as barrister a 'cowardly attack'
Eavan Murray and Maeve McTaggart
October 8 2025 2:50 PM

O'Reilly's bar in Salthill faces out towards the choppy waters of Galway Bay, but it was the scene of a stormy exchange that Catherine Connolly described as "a cowardly personal attack".


The Independent TD was accused by a Fine Gael councillor of representing a bank in repossession cases despite "jumping up and down" about �housing and homelessness.

Clips of the interaction during a political panel with Councillor Frank Fahy five years ago are now appearing in WhatsApp groups as Galway TD Ms Connolly runs for the presidency.

In the footage, Mr Fahy says Ms Connolly "knows issues" on bank repossessions "where banks were putting people out on the street".

"That is a cowardly, personal attack," Ms Connolly says immediately.

"It's not a cowardly personal attack. It's fact. I asked you in the council chamber if you actually worked for Bank of Scotland Ireland and you said you did," Mr Fahy continues.

Ms Connolly responds: "When you are finished harassing me. That is a cowardly personal attack without even the courage to mention something. Let's look at housing. Please let's look at housing."

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"No, it's fact. It's fact," Mr Fahy replies.

Ms Connolly is a qualified barrister who once practised on the western courts circuit. Now she is running for the presidency and insists she has "no difficulty with scrutiny and accountability".

Except when it comes to answering questions about whether she did indeed work for financial institutions in repossession cases during the economic crash.

During a campaign stop yesterday at the offices of the charity Alone, the national organisation supporting older people, Ms Connolly repeatedly �evaded queries on whether the accusation she worked for the banks on repossessions was true.

What is clear is that Ms Connolly has said she worked for banks as a barrister. What is not clear is whether she represented them in repossession cases.

Yesterday, the candidate said she worked on "all sorts of cases" when she was a barrister in Galway before being elected to the Dáil in 2016, when she quit her legal work.

"In the course of my life as a barrister, I took all types of work. That's the role of a barrister – you take work where you get it and you do your best," she said.

Ms Connolly said she worked as a barrister "for every side".

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"For people who had committed offences, for banking institutions, for people on the other side of the pitch," she said.

"People who were going under in terms of orders for possession, absolutely. That's the work of a barrister, and you take it on professionally and you do it as professionally as you can."

Ms Connolly refused to say if she acted for banks in repossession cases: "I am not going to itemise what I did."

There is a principle in the legal world, known as the "cab-rank" rule, that a barrister accepts any work in an area where they practise. Clients are entitled to representation and accepting the work does not indicate the barrister supports their position.

Ms Connolly said she had represented both financial institutions and those "on the other side of financial institutions".

"It included work for financial institutions," she said.

"It included work for people on the other side of financial institutions. It included work for people who had committed crimes. It included work in family law, absolutely.

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"I'm not at liberty to go into the details of this work; as a barrister, I take a commitment to keeping confidential."

Ms Connolly said her work was �conducted in open court and was "all there for anybody to see".

"There is a duty as a professional barrister to take the brief and to do it as professionally as you can and to represent that person or entity as professionally as you can," she added.

As for the original comments made by Mr Fahy at the forum in Salthill five years ago, Ms Connolly declined to deny his accusations.

"I don't want to respond to comments that were made a long time ago by a certain Fine Gael councillor. I'll leave him to reflect on that," she said.

However, Mr Fahy is standing by his claim.

"I have challenged her twice. I challenged her once in a personal capacity in the council chamber one day. I asked her were the rumours I was hearing true," he said yesterday.

"That was around or before the 2014 election. There was nobody there but the two of us. I asked her did she work for a bank as a barrister against people who were unwilling or unable to pay their mortgages.

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"There was silence for about 20 or 30 seconds and the answer I got was, 'And I would work for you too, Frank'.

"I looked at her and I said, 'Catherine, I would rather eat dog dirt'.

"She didn't deny it. If there wasn't truth in that, she would have challenged me there and then to withdraw it."

Retired former councillor Pádraig Conneely also claimed he challenged Ms Connolly during a row in the council chamber, during which he accused her of "hypocrisy".

"I did challenge her in the chamber. It was initially a throw-away remark. She was talking about housing and I threw it up to her," he said.

"I said, 'you have some neck, aren't you representing banks that are evicting people from their homes? You have no authority to speak on housing. You are hypocritical.'

"And then a row developed. She said back to me, 'Oh, you are so personal. That is your way'.

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"I said, 'I am not personal at all. It is hypocrisy I don't like'."

"She used to criticise vulture funds all the time," he added.

After pausing her legal career when she became a TD, Ms Connolly was �often vocal about repossessions amid the housing crisis.

A year into her time in the Dáil, she was among protesters campaigning about Galway's growing accommodation shortage and calling on the city council to declare a housing emergency.

Ms Connolly was a member of the Galway Housing Action Group, which staged protests and called for a freeze on all further repossessions due to mortgage difficulties.

The group also started giving away tea and coffee at the Galway repossession court.

The court was held on the last Tuesday of every month and heard anywhere between 80 and 100 repossession cases each session.

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The action group Ms Connolly was a member of also warned at the time that the housing situation was likely to get worse, as 50,000 people were in arrears of two years or more with their mortgage and were at risk of repossession.

"Where will they go? Twenty people sleep rough on our streets every night and a huge amount of people, including Travellers, students, couples, families and single people are failing to find suitable affordable accommodation in the private sector in Galway city," a spokesperson for the group told the Galway Advertiser in 2017.

Now though, the presidential candidate is less than vocal about her legal work.

[armaghniac]

What will CC say about peace having broken out in Gaza?

[Truthsayer]

What will CC say about peace having broken out in Gaza?

Not be like the farmer (and many leaders) who come out of the basement after the hurricane, when all around was devastation, and said: "ain't it grand the wind stopped blowing".
She'll probably say: "that was genocide and Israel's leaders should be in the Hague for war crimes as should those who aided them"