Republic – Page 71 – Slugger O'Toole

Betfair odds balanced between Greens and no Greens…

Mick Fealty on June 8, 2007, 1:47 am

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The main negotiations should have been finished today, and it looks like the former hot favourite for a new coalition is not so hot, nor exactly the favourite with Betfair punters. Fianna Fail and PDs is the new favourite at 7/5. With the Greens 6/4. That’s tight. The current total value of the covered bets stands at £40,056! The negotiations between the Greens and Fianna Fail are supposed to end tonight in time to call ratification of whatever deal may …

Tara Hill added to World’s most endangered sites list

Pete Baker on June 6, 2007, 8:17 pm

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As predicted in the Irish Times[subs req], today the World Monuments Fund has added the Hill of Tara to their 2008 World Monuments Watch list of 100 most endangered heritage sites[pdf file]. Paul Muldoon’s recent New York Times article is worth highlighting again. The WMF press release also adds Often historic sites suffer in the interest of short-term gains that result in long-term losses. New construction often means destruction of historic places. The 2008 Watch List includes a broad range …

Not enough Independents left for technical group?

Pete Baker on June 6, 2007, 5:51 pm

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With talks between Fianna Fáil and the Green Party continuing, and a Green Party conference on Sunday acting as a deadline, the Irish Times raises the possibility that smaller parties and independents left outside the tent would fail to reach the required number to form a technical group in the Dáil.[subs req] And that would leave Sinn Féin with an unfortunate legacy from that poor election performance..It’s a scenario that’s dependent on who’s in and who’s out of any coalition …

Betfair says it will be a FF/Green/PD government…

Mick Fealty on June 5, 2007, 2:05 am

| Readers 4

For those of you still following the horse trading in the Republic, the market on the next government combo over at Betfair seems to be coming down fairly decisively for the multi-party heaven of Fianna Fail, the Greens and the Progressive Democrats, where it is about 1/2 on (8/15 to be accurate). The next favoured option sitting at 7/2 is for the Greens without the PDs. Or if you want to bank on things going belly up by the end …

On Ireland’s own human rights failings?

Mick Fealty on June 4, 2007, 1:56 pm

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Interesting response from El Nuevo Pantano to Newton Emerson’s satire on the unconscious way people in the Republic lecture other countries on human rights, apparently blissfully unaware of how the state came to be 97% (nominally) Catholic. 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 and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty

DUP and the end of the pan nationalist front?

Mick Fealty on June 3, 2007, 1:52 pm

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One of the fascinating aspects of this election has been the relish with which has been consumed in detail by Northern Ireland’s Unionists. Calton Media’s analysis was congratulatory of Bertie Ahern. And even today in the Sunday Tribune, Ian Paisley has defended Ahern against the allegations of financial impropriety. Which begs the question: is this the end of the so called ‘pan nationalist front’? Many nationalists would argue that this ‘front’ was only ever a malicious figment of the collective …

Adams: expectations were too high…

Mick Fealty on June 3, 2007, 1:29 pm

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Gerry Adams in interview with An Phoblacht, acknowledges that expectations, even at leadership level within the party were ignoring the party’s performance in 2002, and suggests that in reality there was probably only ever one gain (in all likelihood he’s referring to Padraig MacLochlainn, who, the tallies suggest, only missed out because Cecilia Keavney was eliminated before Niall Blaney). Jim Gibney scopes out the problem of cultural and political departure that eighty years of partition has created for the party. …

Greens to talk to “the devil” tomorrow

Pete Baker on June 2, 2007, 9:18 pm

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The Green Party has confirmed that it will enter talks with Fianna Fáil tomorrow on the possibility of forming a coalition government.. which Fintan O’Toole predicted as a likely outcome at an early stage in the results from the Irish General Election. Mick looked briefly at the difficulties of forming a coalition yesterday.. and, earlier still, on his blog the Green Party TD Ciarán Cuffe was contemplating what a “deal with the devil” would mean. Pete Baker

Greens present government conditions…

Mick Fealty on June 2, 2007, 1:27 am

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In case you are concerned at the length of time that the horse trading has gone on so far in the Republic, just note that Wales still doesn’t have a settled Executive yet… smart money is on a Plaid/Tory administration. The Dail maths still suggest it could go either way. Intriguingly, the Greens have set out their core issues in a document formally presented to Fianna Fail today. In all likelihood it was prepared long before the result of the …

It was lack of southern Protestants ‘wot lost it’…

Mick Fealty on May 31, 2007, 5:55 pm

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Tongue firmly in cheek, Newton Emerson reckons that Sinn Fein ‘bombed’ simply because there weren’t enough Protestants in the Republic to wind up their supporters… (subs needed) Newton’s Optic: Sinn Féin has blamed “a serious shortage of Protestants in the 26 counties” for its poor showing in last week’s election. “Sinn Féin draws its core support from people who can’t be relied on to vote,” explained Dr Pat Answer, Professor of Advanced Shinnerology at Dublin Sunday Business College. “They might …

Labour’s difficulty, SF’s lost opportunity?

Mick Fealty on May 31, 2007, 4:09 pm

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In yesterday’s Irish News Brian Feeney reckoned that the party which came out worst in the Republic’s election (after the PDs) was Labour. Though they stayed steady on 20 seats, they failed to move forward, and renew their team inside the Dail chamber. Today Pat Rabbitte confesses that he probably should have done more and hit harder on the economy. Though, I suspect, that if they were going to rise above the din of detail, one or two ‘big ideas’ …

Harney being wooed by both sides…

Mick Fealty on May 31, 2007, 3:52 pm

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Just two out of eight seats left in the Dail, but the PDs are being courted by both major parties. Even so, aryHarney is not giving anything away. And Paddy Power, Betfair, et al don’t get to pay out on the sharpest punters for another while, whilst the internal horsetrading continues. Update: Interesting aside from Trevor Sargent, who clearly thinks Harney’s response will be critical to his own party’s advance. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written …

Sinn Fein’s delay tactics in north cost it bounce in south…

Mick Fealty on May 31, 2007, 1:58 pm

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So much of what occured after the Belfast Agreement is so hidden from open scrutiny that it is often a case of paying your money and take your choice of who was responsible for who ultimately collapsed the outworking of that deal. Republicans blame unionists, and vice versa. However, much as it looked as though David Trimble paid the political price at the Assembly election of November 2003, Ed Moloney speculates that last Thursday Sinn Fein may just have antied …

Fine Gael ‘definately’ not talking to Sinn Fein…

Mick Fealty on May 30, 2007, 7:57 pm

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Here’s a thing. Enda Kenny is still trying to make a fight of getting the keys to the Taoiseach’s office. Getting the numbers might be a lot easier if they had Sinn Fein on board. Finian McGrath has alleged they have made an approach to that quarter and now the party is in full official denial mode. Though it hasn’t stopped some of their internet ‘irregulars’ from doing a little speculation of their own. Chris Gaskin does some more plausible …

About that Charter..

Pete Baker on May 29, 2007, 8:20 pm

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The UTV report on the launch of Sinn Féin’s Charter for Unionist Engagement provides some of the detail outlines of their strategy.. although I suspect that it was written in the expectation of a different result from last week’s Irish General Election.. Adds Charter available here [4.17Mb pdf file]ANYhoo.. according to the report Sinn Fein`s new charter for unionist engagement outlined how the party would protect the rights of all sections of society in a united Ireland and sets out …

“no such sterling transactions that day”

Pete Baker on May 28, 2007, 5:37 pm

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The Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments, aka the Mahon Tribunal, has resumed after they had deferred opening a second module on Quarryville when Taoiseach Bertie Ahern called the general election.. and, as RTÉ reports, they’ve begun by hearing about discrepancies in Mr Ahern’s latest account of events surrounding his finances.This is what Bertie Ahern had to say on 13th May about dollar transactions (vi) The lodgment on 5th December 1994 was not a dollar lodgment There …

How Bertiegate boosted FF and nearly killed the PDs…

Mick Fealty on May 27, 2007, 9:23 pm

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In yesterday’s Irish Times Deaglán de Bréadún comes up with as good a reason for Michael McDowell’s demise, as TD, leader of his party, and Tanaiste as any offered elsewhere. He argues, in particular, that his responses to a media onslaught on Ahern over ‘Bertiegate’ allegations leaked from the Mahon Tribunal were highly erratic: Having successfully convinced a significant proportion of the electorate in 2002 that the PDs were needed to ride shotgun in ethical terms on Fianna Fáil, the …

Sinn Fein: the Alliance party of the Republic?

Mick Fealty on May 27, 2007, 6:00 pm

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Gerry Adams concedes that his party faces a lot of work in the next two years before the council elections in 2009. The sheer size of the gap between current political reality and the party’s own ambition is see when you consider that its performance compares unfavourably with the Alliance party in Northern Ireland. In the recent Assembly elections the Alliance Party garnered 5.2% of the vote and took seven seats in an Assembly of 109 members. Sinn Fein took …

Options for Bertie

Pete Baker on May 26, 2007, 7:47 pm

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With the exception of Dublin South-Central, where according to the current report, Labour’s Eric Byrne could still beat Sinn Féin’s sitting TD Aengus O’Snodaigh, RTÉ are firmly predicting the final seat totals as FF 78, FG 51, Labour 21/20, Greens 6, SF 3/4, PDs 2 and Independents 5. Update According to the folks at IrishElection O’Snodaigh will shade it by 67 votes, leaving Labour with 20 seats, SF with 4. Pending a possible recount.. And No recount, the margin was …

Ouch.

Pete Baker on May 26, 2007, 2:57 pm

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Garret FitzGerald in the Irish Times [subs req] Finally, the emphatic rejection of Sinn Féin by the electorate of this State is a welcome outcome of this election. Gerry Adams’s performance in the four-way debate on Wednesday week may well have contributed powerfully to this result. As a somewhat partitionist observer maliciously remarked to me, even with the recent remarkable improvement in Irish-British relations, the people of this State are not yet ready to welcome the intervention of a member …