"No one wants an election!"

Hear, hear Odyssey06..........................or should that be read, read?!
 
Lawyers fight dirty, that’s the way our system works. At the Bloody Sunday Tribunal lawyers for the BA tried to portray the victims as IRA men. Should the British Government have intervened to stop that line of legal argument? Nobody argued that they should and if they had the Tribunal would have been tainted as having been under political influence.

As it happened the lawyers in the MM case didn’t bother going through with that legal strategy. This was not a jury trial, FF was correct in assuming that the learned judge would see through any ruse and truth would out. Interfering politically could have tainted the whole process.

She dun nuffin’ wrong. The jury is out on NOS. Was she part of a smear conspiracy against MM or was she duped by said conspiracy? I think the latter.
 

Why was the Minister even alerted then???
These were the most senior civil servants in the Attorney General's office, and the Department of Justice, alerting their ministers that something major was going on.

Either the ministers should have immediately reprimanded the civil servants for divulging privileged information to them; or they should have acted on that information to prevent the perpetuation of a smear campaign by members of a body to which she is ultimately responsible for, given that the commission itself was set up to investigate the smear campaign!!!

From the RTE article summarising this:
This is not the actions of any individual I want to see hold cabinet office.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
She dun nuffin’ wrong.
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The reason why she has to go is that "She dun nuffin". And she seems to think this is an accurate job description of the Minister for Justice. The vast majority of her time in office you could have replaced her with a signature signing robot and nobody would notice the difference.
 
odyssey06 said:
At least half a dozen senior people in the Department of Justice knew that An Taoiseach was imparting incorrect information to the Dail. They should no longer be senior members of any Department, let alone justice.
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I think that's a crucial point here as well but Civil Servants cannot be sanctioned and never resign.
 
I think it's fair to say at this stage that it is not about "the email" any more. The RTE article certainly puts forward quite a damning view of the Dept of Justice and the minister and it's hard to argue with the points made by odyssey above. It's looking like Leo and Micheal will come to some compromise to allow both to move on from the standoff but really, election or no election, as Purple said, the people really responsible for this mess will avoid any sanctions here.
 
I disagree with the habitual refrain coming from the FG echelons that the Tánaiste has done NOTHING WRONG. However, I can kinda understand why they are saying this - the political die had been cast.....iacta alea est......so it was time to batten down the hatches, to circle the wagons or (as I prefer to put it) to proclaim as loudly as is necessary "FOUR LEGS GOOD". In simple terms, my expectation of both "the four legs good" and "the two legs bad" brigades is......."well they would say that, wouldn't they"

Where I genuinely struggle is understanding how someone outside the political fold can believe that Francie did NOTHING WRONG and is also prepared to cry "FOUR LEGS GOOD". Remember "nothing wrong" differs significantly from a "resigning matter" (which in Ireland means a hell of a lot wrong and you've been caught). Anyway, the mind-set of the FOUR LEGS GOODers amongst us really is a complete riddle to me.

I do agree with all those who have rightly pointed out the outrageous behaviour of the departmental officials - their actions and inactions are also completely unacceptable. We need at least some level of accountability from our politicians and public servants.
 
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Purple said:
Our politicians are accountable to the people at every election. Our Public Servants, well...
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Of course, political accountability can rightly arrive between elections as Francie has been finding out!

Delboy said:
Rumours breaking that Frances has gone. Leo has blinked
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Good to see her do the right thing - not, of course, the honourable thing - she was dragged kicking and screaming until eventually the story couldn't be changed any more - you can fool all of the people some of the time....TWO LEGS BAD, TWO LEGS BAD

Bad week for Leo the straight-talking Lion and Charlie M(in)ister Indignant² Flanagan....

Overall, good that there is no election - I don't think anyone in his right mind wanted that.
 
This leaves Leo as extremely weak facing the Brexit showdown. He has stood back from the MM brink but if he stands back from the Brexit brink, which he has helped create, he will surely be toast with the Irish electorate who to a man and a woman seem to be up for giving Albion a right bloody nose. Not sure Ireland's best interests are being served here. Animal Farm how are you
 
Are you still sticking to your line that Francie done nothing wrong??
 
We'll have an election in April anyways, this Govt is on its last legs.Lord Ross better push through Stepaside Garda station asap
 
Hey Delboy,

Is that its last four legs or just the two?!
 
As ever its not the crime its the cover up. The "crime" I still think was not a crime. Some people seem to think the enquiry was a sort of a beatification process for MM - there was always going to be a few 'hard hits' - it does not amount to a smear campaign.

All the botched memory/briefing/correcting record etc does look bad. So I'm not really sorry she's gone, but it was all a bit needless.

I don't see any Brexit related fallout, that would have been the issue if into a GE and limbo-land with no government. Our Brexit stance is on a much more solid footing, and I can't see any rationale in Ireland funking it. Veto all the way until we get our guarantees. DUP wants to exit on the same terms as Britain (though NI voted to stay in) - leave it out....
 
Betsy Og said:
Some people seem to think the enquiry was a sort of a beatification process for MM
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Why on earth were AGS, through their Commissioner, taking an adversarial position against MM?
The enquiry was not a tribunal of guilt v innocence, it was to establish what occurred.
They placed the protection of the reputation of AGS above the process to establish the truth. This is not some random private company engaged in the pursuit of profit, this is an organisation whose job should be to establish the truth in the pursuit of justice.

By taking an adversarial position against MM, to me, the Commissioner chose sides in the enquiry and joined the ranks engaged in smearing MM. They manifested again all the same behaviour that had led to the enquiry being set up.

A cover-up is not conclusive evidence of a crime, but it's a yellow alert that something not above board is going on.
 
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odyssey06,

I'm not sure if there is any point in debating this further - whatever doubts Betsy Og may have had yesterday - it's very, very, very hard to see how any doubts can remain after last night's revelations. My zealous Fine Girl pal even concedes this now (and he is LIVID with The Lion King.) This is getting old.

For the avoidance of doubt, it was the crime and the cover up of the crime - indeed, the cover-up was necessitated by the crime!

Mick Wallace's made a speech during the Taoiseach's question time today. I empathised fully with his sense of desperation with the Irish political system en masse.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
I am not going to fall for that gambit, pitching Mick Wallace as a paragon
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And rightly so!

You should focus your attention on explaining how you got this one so badly wrong!

When the next election does come around, would you think of running? I think you could be very successful!!!!
 
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