Mary O'Rourke

Do you remember when there was a problem with a big race in England - probably the Grand National? Some English horse trainer said something to the effect "This wouldn't happen in a point-to-point in Ireland".

A tiny minority of Irish people got upset. The rest of us just laughed at the ill judged comment made in the heat of the moment.

Politics needs a bit of spontaneity and if that results in an occasionally inappropriate use of words, it's well worth it.

If the words used indicate a deep seated racism or other unacceptable point of view, then the person should be disciplined.

Brendan
 
I can't belive Mary has the "balls" to go back into politics after the whole Eircom debacle she presided over. Irish people must have short memories!
 
Thats the reason the opposition and her "harshest" critics arent making a big deal of it...they WANT her to stand in the next election. If she lost last time, surely she will this time. She has refused to apologize, so she is a fool.

Anyone catch the last word last night? Matt Cooper basically baited her along and allowed her to put her foot in it.

"It is better to be silent and thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."
 
ClubMan said:
Nobody has criticised political correctness (gone mad or otherwise) or dismissed it as a bad thing in this thread so far as I can see.

It might be worth noting that President McAleese didn't resign over [broken link removed] about some NI Protestants a while ago - comments that I would consider much more serious and harmful than O'Rourke's ill judged comment above:
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Yes, but at least President McAleese had the good grace to recognize the hurt her remarks caused, and publically apologised, as reported here

Mary should do the decent thing, and quit diggin. Most people recognioze that she was not intending to be racially abusive, but she should recognize that people in public lfe have a duty to be vigilant, and never to give offence, whether intended or not.
 
I agree that it would probably be best for O'Rourke to acknowledge that her comments were at best ill judged, apologise and move on.
 
ClubMan said:
I agree that it would probably be best for O'Rourke to acknowledge that her comments were at best ill judged, apologise and move on.
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Likewise. She should have taken the opportunity to do so as soon as it was presented to her.
 
I can't belive Mary has the "balls" to go back into politics after the whole Eircom debacle she presided over. Irish people must have short memories!
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What debacle? I sold very soon after flotation, and made a very tasty profit. Why should people who held on to their shares out of greed, ignorance, or the sheep mentality bleat about Mary O'Rourke, the government, or anyone else? They have only themselves to blame.
 
Sherman said:
What debacle? I sold very soon after flotation, and made a very tasty profit. Why should people who held on to their shares out of greed, ignorance, or the sheep mentality bleat about Mary O'Rourke, the government, or anyone else? They have only themselves to blame.
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so did I and made over 1k, I wasn't gready. if you gamble and lose tough luck.
 
irishpancake said:
but she should recognize that people in public lfe have a duty to be vigilant, and never to give offence, whether intended or not.
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People in public life have a duty never to give offence? That is nonsense to be honest. People in public life have a duty to do the job they've been elected to do, to do that job well and to provide the taxpayer with value for money spent. They are bound to offend someone sometime, as anyone is when they are constantly in the public eye.
 
jem said:
if you gamble and lose tough luck.
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I did and have nobody to blame but myself. And maybe the ineffectual board of eircom at the time. But certainly not the Government/minister at the time.
 
Sherman said:
What debacle? I sold very soon after flotation, and made a very tasty profit. Why should people who held on to their shares out of greed, ignorance, or the sheep mentality bleat about Mary O'Rourke, the government, or anyone else? They have only themselves to blame.
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Unless you subscribe to the belief that, because of the greed you mention above, Mrs. O'Rourke and her cabinet colleagues agreed to set the flotation price at an unrealistically high price in the first place. Or was this because of ignorance?
 
Regardless of what the flotation price was the point is the market price went substantially above this price for your average Joe Bloggs investor to make a decent killing. In any event a lower flotation price would not have presented as a de facto price floor - enough selling pressure in any market will result in a fall in price, the flotation price won't save it regardless of what that price was originally.
 
Unless you subscribe to the belief that, because of the greed you mention above, Mrs. O'Rourke and her cabinet colleagues agreed to set the flotation price at an unrealistically high price in the first place. Or was this because of ignorance?
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Why was the price unrealistically high? What would have been a more realistic price in your opinion?

As myself and others have pointed out, the price was obviously not set too high, as it went quite a bit higher after flotation, enabling many people to sell at a substantial profit.
 
Sherman said:
Why was the price unrealistically high? What would have been a more realistic price in your opinion?
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I don't know. I didn't say I was of the belief. I know that others, including some experts (ABN AMRO?) were of the opinion that the company was overvalued at the time of flotation

Sherman said:
As myself and others have pointed out, the price was obviously not set too high, as it went quite a bit higher after flotation, enabling many people to sell at a substantial profit.
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This happens in most cases as most companys when floated are undervalued when floated, so that they will rise on floatation and then settle back to the true value of the share (around about, or just over, the flotation price).

So, Eircom started at its floatation price, then it did spike on floatation as is natural, and the downside was substantially below the floatation price, which would indicates an overvalued flotation price.
 
ronan_d_john said:
So, Eircom started at its floatation price, then it did spike on floatation as is natural, and the downside was substantially below the floatation price, which would indicates an overvalued flotation price.
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So in most or all other cases any immediate post IPO rise is due to undervaluation of the company but in eircom's case it was just a kneejerk reaction by the market? Er ... right... People really should get over this idea that they were somehow ripped-off by the Government in relation to the flotation of eircom. :rolleyes:
 
I don't think its fair to say that greed was behind most people's decision to hold their stock, a lot of investors viewed eircom as a long term buy and the only way selling would have made sense would have been if they felt the stock would fall back where they could buy back in after having taken a profit. Even when things had been going badly for some time people still felt that as a long term investment they were still ok, they were simply unlucky that they were forced to take their hit and not allow to convert their shares into the new company's stock.
Of course that is not to say that a siginificant amount of people didn't take a good profit out of greed. I know several people who had borrowed significantly to buy eircom stock and intended to sell after a month or so but got greedy and got stung badly. But older people like my parents viewed it as a secure long term investment and they were generally the age group who were hit the worst.
 
Agree with Clubman. I also lost a few quid on eircom, but could have made a killing if I wasn't so greedy.

I'm not sure if the flotation price was too high or not, but as the This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language fell out of the telecom sector soon after, I can't see how Mary O'Rourke, Governemnt or maybe even the BOD can be blamed for the losses suffered by people.
 
ClubMan said:
So in most or all other cases any immediate post IPO rise is due to undervaluation of the company but in eircom's case it was just a kneejerk reaction by the market? Er ... right... People really should get over this idea that they were somehow ripped-off by the Government in relation to the flotation of eircom. :rolleyes:
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Clubman. I did not say that eircom shareholders after flotation were ripped off. Anyone who lost money on this has to take the blame themselves for whatever reason. Others here implied the rip-off.

Nor did I make any differentiation between the spike after the IPO by eircom and spikes by any other floated company. I said that this was a normal occurrance for all IPOs.

I did differentiate between where the share prices ended up once the initial IPO fever had died down. The fact that the eircom share price dipped below the flotation price and stayed there, I indicated was due to an overpriced flotation.
 
I agree with icantbelieve. Inertia was also a factor -- even the selling procedure was daunting for a first-time shareholder.

The initial post-flotation spike was demand driven. If all the shareholders had tried to sell, the stock would have plummeted. So I don't buy the line that everyone could have got out in time to avoid a loss.

For the record, I lost money on eircom by holding. But I didn't hold out of greed, and I don't blame the Minister or the Government. I'm not sure if eircom was overvalued. Line rental is a cash-cow and eircom had significant real estate assets. If I had to blame anyone it would be the management that did such a poor job of extracting value from the assets that it became a very attractive takeover target for Valentia.
 
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