Micheál Martin – Page 3 – Slugger O'Toole

Micheál Martin: Legacy of 1916 is to build rather than to divide the Irish nation…

Mick Fealty on April 21, 2013, 1:01 pm

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Just out of embargo, here’s today’s speech from the Fianna Fail leader made just now at Arbour Hill church, where the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising were buried. The added emphases are mine: Every state should take time to commemorate and celebrate the people and events of their founding. This commemoration is organised by Fianna Fáil the Republican Party, but we come here as Irish men and women to fulfil our responsibilities to the great generation of 1916. After …

Micheal Martin: NI’s ‘establishment parties’ are failing the Belfast Agreement

Mick Fealty on February 28, 2013, 12:16 pm

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So Micheal Martin’s speech last night, revisited with my own analysis appended. First the word cloud (kindly generated by John) of Micheal Martin’s speech has one word which stands far out above any other. And it’s Agreement. Not surprising perhaps since the speech was themed around the coming 15th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement. And, it seems, he came to Belfast not to bury, or even just to praise it, but remind his audience of young students at Queens last …

Micheál Martin in Belfast: “There is nothing inevitable about peace and progress”

Mick Fealty on February 27, 2013, 7:58 pm

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This evening, Micheál Martin gave the following speech to Queens University Politics Society and Ógra Fianna Fáil in the Canada Room that was by all accounts was pretty packed to the gills. It’s long and detailed, and picks out some policy areas (not least north south development) where Martin argues there has been a shortfall by what passes in Northern Ireland for the ‘political establishment’. More detailed comment will follow tomorrow, but in the meantime, I’d appreciate your own thoughts: As we …

Micheál Martin – opportunism and cynicism of the very worst kind

Eoin O Broin on January 20, 2013, 10:48 am

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The award for opportunist of the week must surely go to Micheál Martin. His hastily written opinion piece in Wednesdays Irish News was a timely reminder of Fianna Fáil’s cynical approach to both the peace process and to politics. For weeks Belfast city centre has been brought to a standstill by illegal loyalist blockades. Night after night the same protestors have returned to their own neighborhoods and engaged in running battles with the PSNI causing real disruption to their own …

Micheál Martin: “If the Executive is not making progress on child poverty, or economic inactivity, or sectarianism”

Mick Fealty on January 16, 2013, 11:59 am

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Okay, so one of the good things about a political crisis in Northern Ireland that it draws a multiplicity views on our general situation (riots will always divide opinion). Not all of that has been bad by any means. Allan Massie in the Scotsman is generally sanguine about Northern Ireland’s future, if not David Cameron’s. But it’s brought the leader of Fianna Fail back on the local news pages too. In an op ed in today’s Irish News Micheál Martin …

Martin: “flags and emblems tacitly encouraged as a distraction from fact politicians are not delivering”?

Mick Fealty on December 11, 2012, 12:16 pm

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If you have not read it yet, check out Brian Walker’s analysis last night on how Stormont’s incumbents are failing the populations of Northern Ireland by leaving the real and contentious business of politics to a small band of hyperactive terror merchants. The leader of Fianna Fail, Micheal Martin has a few similarly hard truths to deliver this morning’s Belfast Telegraph: The problem as I see it is this – if politics is not demonstrably and tangibly about making people’s …

Micheál Martin: “As a Republican I feel an obligation to make my contribution to the debate…”

Mick Fealty on November 9, 2012, 6:29 pm

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Micheál Martin’s interview with Mark Carruthers on The View last night is interesting viewing. Not least at the point (about here) where Carruthers mentions Gerry Adams’ dismissal of the Fianna Fail’s interventions as being driven by a concern for politics in the south. I’ve no doubt that the general thrust of Adams statement is correct. As argued here before, that’s what competitors do do. But the idea that FF and SF are neck and neck in the Republic only really …

“The peace process was always intended to be about more than an absence of violence…”

Pete Baker on October 22, 2012, 2:16 pm

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Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin’s criticism of the Irish Government’s ‘complacency’ over Northern Ireland echoes that of the Labour Party’s Vernon Coaker in regard to the UK Government. And that was more a disagreement on strategy, rather than a difference of opinion on the problems with the NI administration – as outlined in July by former NI Secretary of State, Owen Paterson. All of which somewhat undermines Louth TD Gerry Adams’ attempted defence of the northern wing of his party. ANYhoo… the Irish …

“…this DUP attempt to shift responsibility to Dublin, is a fiction too far.”

Mick Fealty on September 25, 2012, 8:31 am

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Fascinating OpEd in yesterday’s Irish News from Fianna Fail leader Micheál Martin. It’s the first time since I remember that a senior political leader in the Republic has taken the gloves off with anyone in Northern Ireland, let alone the First and deputy First Minister. So what is it that’s got his goat? Nothing less than the DUP’s motion in the Assembly (hot on the heels of the SDLP using the same mechanism to embarrass both ‘ruling parties’) criticising the …

Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein battle it out for title of leader of the Irish opposition

Mick Fealty on September 19, 2012, 3:53 pm

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So did anyone see the great Micheal V Gerry fight on PrimeTime last night? RTE billed it as the ‘who truly is the leader of the Opposition?‘ gig. But at the end of the day it turned out to be a bit of a damp squib. As Mary Murphy notes in the pre roll from Katie Hannon, Irish politics is generally geared to winning elections rather than making proposals for better government. The lack of support for the re-introduction of …

Martin asks who on the No side will fill Ireland’s €18 billion shortfall?

Mick Fealty on May 11, 2012, 4:17 pm

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A broadside from Micheal Martin the Irish Times today… He warns the Yes campaign not to get bogged down in a rebuttal game, but instead make its own case for a yes vote: namely that “for Ireland to recover we need Europe’s support”… And he explains why he thinks that: Any alternative funding would lead to billions in extra interest payments, meaning more taxes and less spending. To be fair, some No parties are being honest in admitting that they …

“But throughout, his government and party turned a blind eye…”

Pete Baker on March 23, 2012, 12:06 pm

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In the Irish Times the peerless Miriam Lord tackles Micheál Martin’s “swift and decisive” response to the Mahon Tribunal report. From the Irish Times article SPARE US your indignation, Micheál Martin. Button your disgust, Fianna Fáil. We don’t want to hear it. You had your chance and you chose to do nothing. So don’t pretend to be shocked now. Just do us that much. We won’t buy it. If the tribunal were to take another 15 years to deliver its …

“One step forward. Two steps back. Very awkward.”

Pete Baker on March 5, 2012, 2:05 pm

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In the Irish Times, the peerless Miriam Lord with a useful corrective to more enthusiastic witnesses of the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis at the weekend. From the Irish Times article. IT WAS all terribly awkward. An excruciating comedy of manners where the anxious principals were petrified they might say the wrong thing and upset the whole country, again, while simultaneously fretting about bumping into embarrassing old acquaintances who would make a show of them. The tense undercurrent made for an odd …

Fianna Fail will vote Yes in a referendum on Fiscal Compact…

Mick Fealty on February 10, 2012, 11:01 am

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Having made the point that calling a referendum on matters that don’t sort out the underlying problem is less than meaningful, Micheal Martin announced yesterday that he would be backing the Fiscal Compact in any forthcoming referendum… Hmmmm… not exactly shadowing Sinn Fein then Eoghan? Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK …

Yes Taoiseach, but if we’re going to have a Referendum why not have a meaningful one?

Mick Fealty on January 30, 2012, 9:41 pm

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So, it’s official. The Irish people want a referendum, whether the Constitution says they need one or not? Micheal Martin thinks it’s overblown, and that the real problem is that the current treaty does not actually address any of the real problems facing the Irish (nay, the European) economy: For all of the fighting in December about the place of existing European Union treaties and institutions, existing treaty law will remain fully in force. The draft treaty explicitly states that …

No official Fianna Fáil candidate for Irish Presidential election

Pete Baker on August 31, 2011, 8:02 pm

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As recommended by the party’s six member sub-committee on the issue, and with Gay Byrne not accepting the invite [and Micháel Ó Muircheartaigh? – Ed], Fianna Fáil have confirmed they will not be putting forward a candidate in this year’s Irish Presidential election. But they reserve the option to back someone else. [If anyone will accept that endorsement? – Ed] You might very well think that… In the Irish Times Harry McGee adds Speaking at a press conference after the …

Judge Smithwick: “I think this was singularly ill-advised.”

Pete Baker on June 30, 2011, 8:34 pm

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I had mentioned the apparent disagreement between the chair of the Smithwick Tribunal, Judge Smithwick, and the Irish Justice Minister, Alan Shatter, over the latter’s proposed ‘deadline’, of 30 November, for the Tribunal’s final report. And in correspondence from the time, just released to the Oireachtas along with the Tribunal’s interim report [pdf file], Judge Smithwick made clear the extent of his disagreement. Judge Smithwick wrote to the Minister accusing him of a “wholly inappropriate” attempt to “interfere with the independence” of the inquiry. He …

“Gerry Adams has given his answer and that’s the end of it as far as I’m concerned.”

Pete Baker on February 16, 2011, 10:41 pm

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The Northern Ireland deputy First Minister, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, has been in Dublin, wearing one of his other hats ahead of the Irish general election. And he’s been getting outraged on behalf of the still Crown Steward and Bailiff of Northstead, his party’s president, Gerard Adams, at questions over his credibility. Oh, and on behalf of “people in the North”. From the iol report. Mr McGuinness said: “Gerry Adams has given his answer and that’s the end of it as far as …

Micheál Martin: “I think there is a huge problem for Gerry Adams in a credibility sense”

Pete Baker on February 15, 2011, 6:23 pm

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The Sinn Féin president, and still Crown Steward and Bailiff of Northstead, Gerard Adams has taken exception to Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin raising the credibility question in relation to the SF leader’s murky past. [added final link] From the Belfast Telegraph report “There is a fundamental problem for Gerry when he continues to deny his membership of the IRA,” said Mr Martin. “Because every time he talks in this debate during the election about honesty, about being up front and transparent, it jars …

Micheál Martin: I’m ready when you are boys?

Brian Spencer on January 28, 2011, 10:42 am

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Your captions please? Brian SpencerBrian is a writer, artist, political cartoonist and legal blogger. Actively tweeting from @brianjohnspencr. More information here: http://www.brianjohnspencer.com/ www.brianjohnspencer.com/