The DOBlog

Political Animal sighted in Dublin City Centre

The Bert is back. He was spotted this afternoon glad-handing his way around the shopping districts near O’Connell Street. The spin was back.

His choice of words, as ever, may have let him down slightly….

“I’m delighted with the excellent reaction I’m getting on the streets,” he told the media scrum, “despite the fact that we’re standing on the people.”

Stamping on them might be more accurate. And things aren’t all rosy…

Pre-Christian equivalent of ‘Bertie Bowl’ to be bulldozed? Surely not?

BreakingNews.ie has the story that the significant Henge structure that may or may not have been uncovered by Minister Martin Cullen earlier this week (the timeline is so hard to figure out) but is apparently the size of 3 football fields (soccer, gaelic, or American we are not told) is at risk of being bulldozed out of existence on the orders of Minister Zapp Brannigan Dick Roche.

The Minister’s spokesperson, (who we’ll call Kif Kroker because we can), has stated that the Minister is in consultation with the National Museum’s director on the matter. Breaking News helpfully points out for us that

The Irish National Monuments Act allows for the partial or complete destruction of national monuments, or finds of significant importance, by the Government if it is deemed to be in the public interest.

The National Museum director is consulted but has no veto over any Government decision

Which effectively means that Kif has told us that Captain Brannigan is having a chat with someone whose opinion he doesn’t have to listen to in order to potentially just put a tick in the box on a process to destroy a find of significant importance. Sweet. That’ all good then right.

The issue has been put in an ethical context by Conor Newman, Professor of Archaeology in NUI Galway.

“The campaign to preserve this site has become a legal battle when in fact it should be an ethical one, whether we value our heritage or not,” he said.

So that’s OK then. The party lead by the man who won’t explain why his partner was paid stamp duty relating to the house he was renting will have no problem grasping the ethical implications here.

RTE also mention this while repeating last night’s news that Zapp Dick Roche had ordered work stopped.

I’m relieved. I thought it would be case of our heritage going from being covered in woad to being coverd by a road.

Nurses - you gotta love ‘em

And the nurses have announced a series of work stoppages next week.

At this rate the only thing that will be cluttering up corridors in hospitals will be patients.

Gardaí

And the Gardaí - specifically the main Representative Association for rank & file gardaí have come out with support for the nurses.

They haven’t actually hinted at or mentioned feeling bunged up in the nose and being a bit scratchy in the throat like they had a flu coming on or something *cough cough*, particularly if the nurses got their way and had their demands met.

But that hasn’t prevented Michael McDowell, Minister for Justice and PD Leader, endorsing their health and fortitude by saying there would be no ‘blue flu’. On the issue of Garda pay, he has said that he will not stand for that kind of thing and he was “not for turning” (unlike sods of earth in Meath that hide massive henge structures). He also said that

An Garda Síochána was one of the best remunerated police forces in the world, and that any pay issues would have to be dealt with through benchmarking.

(source RTE News)

OK, Day 3 was a bit hairy for Government party spin people… Day 4 should be a piece of cake though, with the worst over right?

Lunch time trawl of headlines:

Nurses plan escalation of dispute

After talks breakdown, the nurses plan further disruption to healthservice.

This particular patient’s condition is getting increasingly critical. Get me 10CC of strikebreakers STAT!!

National Competitiveness

Garda Representative Association Conference has been told that if the nurses get a pay rise they’ll look for one too. This isn’t quite what we mean by “National Competitiveness” but it a doozy.
What will happen if we get a ‘blue flu’ but have no nurses working to tend to this virulent and disruptive illness?

BreakingNews.ie has more here.

Martin Cullen admits the possiblity of having made a bit of an arse of electronic voting

The Irish Examiner reports it today, picking up on an interview on NewsTalk radio yesterday.

Cullen admits mistake over e-voting debacle
By Paul O’Brien, Political Reporter

TRANSPORT Minister Martin Cullen has finally conceded he got it wrong on
electronic voting.

“I suppose with hindsight, yes, I might have dealt with it differently,”
he said last night of the manner in which he handled the issue. “I’ll put
my hands up”.

Mr Cullen’s willingness to acknowledge mistakes is in stark contrast to
the Taoiseach, who only last week attempted to blame the opposition
parties for the debacle, saying they had set out to find fault with the
€52 million system.

If anyone has a podcast or audio of that particular interview I’d love to hear it… were the words muffled by the big slice of humble pie he was cramming down?

Of course, of the these the first two are problems that whatever parties win the election will have to deal with. The other is just funny. Why for would a Minister attempt to distance himself from a leader who is having some tricky questions asked about him right now?

Hindsight is great, even if it does mean having to accept you were talking out of your behind.

Cash in the Attic Scandal continues

Ok, it wasn’t in the attic but where the hell did it come from and what was it for?

FF party line is that this isn’t an election issue (and if you are seeking droids, these are not the ones you are looking for and you should move along [wave of jedi hand]).

However, the fact that we’re in Day 4 of the Campaign and there has been nothing to counter the impression that their leader is a man running from a shady past who cannot be trusted as far as you could throw a thing that is inherently unthrowable does make it an election issue. The ‘corporate culture’ of denying a problem until it either goes away or becomes a large enough crisis for Minister Zapp Brannigan to wade in to resolve it seems to be kicking in.

Well they are consistent.

Here’s a REAL journalist’s take on the events of day 3… (what would I know)

Day 4 of the elections and spin is being spun.

Trevor Sargent has laid into el Berto for calling the election on a Thursday and disenfranchising young voters. Trevor encourages young voters (students etc.) to register to get on the supplemental register where they are currently living.

What about us poor commuters though? I have a home, mortgage, cats and family in the far flung county of Commuterania. I don’t want to vote in Dublin North East where I rest my head mid week. I would have used the postal vote system but there was not enough time for me to

• find form on line
• Get boss to sign form
• Get form back to the County Council of Commuterania

. That is another less emphasised impact of the Dail being dissolved on a Sunday morning.

I want to feel that I have had a say in electing the people who represent my local interests on the national stage. So I’ll have to juggle my schedule the last week in May to make sure that I am in the Far Flung County and can use my low tech, high trust paper and pencil to vote.