McDowell's Departure

ang1170 said:
Anyone else feel that Michael McDowell’s departure was oh-so typical of the man?
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i though he behaved well considering what was done to him when he conceded defeat...he was chanted at by the shinners and a few of them jostled hon and threw rubbish at him as he left. absolutely shocking behaviour in a democracy but then the shinners are'nt real democrats.

ireland will be a poorer place for not having him serve the people....
 
Purple said:
ang1170, I find your post mean spirited and small minded. The man lost his job, it must be a terrible blow for any TD and I would not gloat the way you are about any of them loosing their seats, no matter what the party.
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OK, point taken - not the best time to offer criticisms of the man's character, which is what the post was about.

I certainly wasn't gloating, and I think it's very distaseful some of the comments that have been made and more especially the abuse that's been heaped on him, especially by those who'd never dream of putting themselves up for election in the first place.

By the way, I couldn't help notice the difference between Mary Harney on Drivetime this evening and himself. I though her comment about not being a quitter and best when her back's against the wall made quite a contrast with his own behaviour (maybe deliberately so?). As I said, although I'm not a fan of either of them, I think she's a lot more balls than he does.
 


I didn't hear Drivetime myself but your comment above made me smile. After the way McDowell and O'Donnell shafted Mary Harney over the leadership I wouldn't blame her at all.

I thought his desertion while his troops were still battling it out around the country was despicable. Tom Parlon intereviewed live shortly after looked livid and totally broken. McDowell showed very poor leadership when his party's back was against the wall. His announcement would have been much more appropriate on the following Sunday or Monday when all votes were counted. On Sunday morning on Marian Finucane's show, Parlon (The PD President) said he still hadn't been speaking to McDowell. He still sounded angry over it all. BTW, I'm not a pro PD or Parlonite person!
 
Does anyone think that Mary Harney boxed extremely clever? She saw the writing on the wall for the PDs last summer so decided to resign as leader, and now that the party's been decimated, she'll take over again.....thereby avoiding the blame which leaders often get for disastrous election results!
 
I think you'e both right and wrong: right in that she probably saw election problems and "Bertiegate" coming down the tracks (anyone else think she was tipped off beforehand by Madam Editor at the IT on the latter?). Wrong in that it was all part of a master plan to regain control when the dust settled: I'm guessing, but I suspect the last place she wants to be now is back in charge.
 
McDowell made a big mistake in the run up to the election, he brushed away Berties troubles and figured that letting it all slide was showing how he would put politics and progress above knifing his boss. However his bosses are the Irish people and while a large percent were willing to turn a blind eye to Bertigate, obviously a substantial amount were not. I wonder if he could turn time back would he have stepped away from Bertie and gained respect from the voters? We have to wonder.
 
I thought it ironic that both Joe Higgins & Michael McDowell, two of the best speakers in the Dail, although on opposite sides of the political spectrum, both lost their seats, while a whole raft of lesser lights (Jackie Healy Rae, anyone?) had no problem in retaining theirs. It would seem that the electorate prefers harmless, inoffensive, anonymous TDs than those who make a virtue of being challenging and/or controversial.

McDowell's main misfortune was that he was handed the poisioned chalice of the PD leadership a week or two before the "Bertiegate 1" story emerged. Had Mary Harney held onto the leadership, my own view is that she would have lost her seat & McDowell would have survived.

I think McDowell has a lot to be proud of in his tenure as Minister for Justice, particularly the brave stance he took against Sinn Fein/IRA. Many in our leftie-dominated media never forgave him for this, and several commentators seemed to have personal campaigns to vilify him at every opportunity. Mick Clifford of the Sunday Tribune might even be out of a job now because he seemed to write about nothing else apart from McDowell's faults in the past 12 months or so.
 
ubiquitous said:
I think McDowell has a lot to be proud of in his tenure as Minister for Justice, particularly the brave stance he took against Sinn Fein/IRA.
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I'm not knocking what is after all his main achievement, but you'll have to explain why his stance on this is in any way brave. Why is something that gets support from the vast majority of people (in the republic) in general, and his own constituency of PD voters in particular, considered brave?

Brave politicians (and there aren't many) are those that stand up for their beliefs that run counter to the current popular opinion.
 
I couldn't agree more.
 

Maybe in private, but very few people have the guts to stand up and be counted in making public anti-IRA/Sin Fein statements out of fear of reprisals.

Totally agree with Ubi in relation to McDowell. I for one will miss him in politics.

In relation to Jackie Healy Rae- he DID have a bit of a battle to retain his seat but he managed it in the end. Healy Rae likes to play the buffoon but underneath the act there's a very shrewd character. He is ceaseless when it comes to acting for the ordinary joe on the street in south kerry.
 
Vanilla said:
Maybe in private, but very few people have the guts to stand up and be counted in making public anti-IRA/Sin Fein statements out of fear of reprisals.
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I agree.

Vanilla said:
In relation to Jackie Healy Rae- ... He is ceaseless when it comes to acting for the ordinary joe on the street in south kerry.
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That's the problem; he's meant to be a national politician and legislator, instead he's like a local councillor on steroids.
 
McDowell was being anti IRA/Siinn Fein very much for his own political benefit as the PDs were getting thrashed in the polls, not for the good of the country. I also question his misuse of confidential information to make himself look good , he was not befitting of the post of Tanaiste or Justice


he may have been forthright, clever and have the conviction of his views but he's supposed to represent the views of his constituents and not some personal vendetta against those who stand in his way, he became increasingly alienated from those who voted for him in the first place and was rightly kicked out of office
 
woodseb said:
McDowell was being anti IRA/Siinn Fein very much for his own political benefit as the PDs were getting thrashed in the polls, not for the good of the country.
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Really? I'm not sure there were ever many votes in this country in actively opposing and facing down SFIRA. It certainly did no good in the 1970s for Conor Cruise O'Brien who (just like McDowell) lost his seat while while a sitting minister. Likewise John Bruton's brave anti-SFIRA stance arguably cost him the Taoiseach's job in 1997.

I think you unwittingly admit as much when you say

woodseb said:
he became increasingly alienated from those who voted for him in the first place and was rightly kicked out of office
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woodseb said:
I also question his misuse of confidential information to make himself look good , he was not befitting of the post of Tanaiste or Justice.
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I presume you mean the release of Frank Connolly's falsified passport application before he travelled to Colombia. Well, McDowell did release this information in a reply to a Dail question from Finian McGrath TD, one of Connolly's supporters. Had McDowell concealed this information in answering the question, McGrath and the SFIRA TDs would have been telling him to "put up or shut up"
 
I think it is plain to see, both in Ireland and abroad, that democracy has been a fine experiment but a failure. It is all about perception - more like a beauty contest really. We should send them all out in their swimsuits for the next election.
 
shnaek said:
I think it is plain to see, both in Ireland and abroad, that democracy has been a fine experiment but a failure. It is all about perception - more like a beauty contest really. We should send them all out in their swimsuits for the next election.
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So whats the alternative?
 

This is not true. Here's how the Irish Examiner described the leaking of the information on Frank Connolly:

"The Justice Minister gave documents to Sam Smyth of the Irish Independent alleging that Connolly had applied for a false passport and went to Colombia, where his brother was jailed as one of the notorious Colombia Three.

The Justice Minister had a right to declassify and release material. He claimed he was putting the information into the public domain and justified this in the national interest. This may well have been true, but the manner he used was judicially cavalier and smacked of political self-interest."

[broken link removed]

He also disclosed the same information to a foreign national, Chuck Feeney, at a private meeting with Mr Feeney.

If McDowell had, as you assert, placed the information in question before the Dáil in the first instance, he might - just - have been able to plausibly argue it was done in the public interest.

In fact, Connolly was beginning, through the Centre for Public Inquiry for which he worked, an investigation into the circumstances of Minster McDowell's department paying millions of Euros over the odds for Thornton Hall. Mr Feeney was funding the Centre and McDowell gave him the information to (successfully) discourage him from doing so. It is fair to infer that McDowell's actions were taken primarily to prevent this investigation going ahead. As a result of his intervention, Mr Feeney withdrew his funding, the Centre closed down, and Frank Connolly lost his livelihood.

Here is how Judge Fergal Flood, retired High Court judge and Chairman of the Centre for public inquiry described McDowell's actions:

  1. Despite the DPP’s decision in March 2003 not to prosecute Mr Connolly, a private and public blackening of his character has been unleashed by the Minister.
  2. This shows a signal departure from principles of fair dealing and respect for justice to the individual citizen by the State which are absolute, save in the most exceptional cases and where legislated upon by the Oireachtas.
  3. The methods adopted by the Minister may well have undermined the status, authority and the statutory independence of the DPP.

Minster McDowell's actions in leaking this information were an absolute disgrace to his office and should have resulted in his immediate dismissal. It is to Bertie Ahern's shame that he did nothing at all in repsonse.
 
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