The DOBlog

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.

Of course things might get a bit busier for the spin doctors by the end of the week.

Some updates over at McGarr Solicitors. While it won’t affect the validity of the on-going election it has the potential to cause some mild discomfort to the relevant Minister.

I would love to be a fly on the wall in Fianna Fail or PD central this evening. Things haven’t gone exactly well on the PR front today.

Tricky issues in the High Court.

A 17 year old girl who is pregnant with a child who has been diagnosed with an ailment that means they will not survive outside the womb has had to go to the High Court to try and get the State Agency whose care she is in to let her make her own decisions about how to proceed with the pregnancy. Tricky legal and moral issues… very hard for a politician to give answers about their view on the situation without alienating either extreme in Irish political life.

Little spin to be spun on that one.

Prisoner phones prominent talk show using a mobile phone smuggled into their cell

Please note I’ve avoided using the phrase “cell-phone” (American readers will just need to put up with my quaint Oirish ways).

A prisoner banged up for armed robbery in one of Ireland’s main prisons managed to phone in to one of Irelands most popular afternoon radio shows today using a mobile phone that had been smuggled into his cell. The segment of the show in question featured Paul McWilliams, a well known criminal reporter. The lads in the cell knew his work well but apparently didn’t think too highly of it. (Of course, by criminal reporter I mean a reporter on criminal activities).

Apparently the Prisoner is not a number, he’s a human being.

The Minister for Justice is a bit peeved - apparently “somebody has to take accountability for all of this”.

Wrap the spin-doctor in copper wire and stick a magnet by his head…. we’re makin’ electricity now!

UPDATE: The Podcast for this liveline show is available HERE about 52 minutes in. Paul McWilliams reaction when he realises that the guy he is talking to is in a maximum security prison is priceless.

After years insisting there were no unfound significant archaelogical finds on the route of the M3 Motor way…

..and not 3 weeks after our Heritage body An Taisce was denied a Judicial review of aspects of the proposed motorway through one of the former seat of the High Kings of Ireland and (it gets better) only ONE DAY after the flashbulbs popped and soundbites bit at the turning of the first sod on the road by Martin Cullen TD, our Minister for Road Building Transport, an archaelogical site the size of THREE football fields is found. It could only be funnier if Cullen’s spadework had uncovered the danged thing on camera.

To cap it all off, Minister Cullen was quoted yesterday as saying that the project was not gamble. I wonder if this new and significant archaelogical find will strengthen or weaken An Taisce’s case in their upcoming Supreme Court challenge to the route of the Motorway?

Nurses Talks collapse (may be stuck on a trolley in a corridor for a while)

Our nurses are revolting. And they’ve been going on strike. Talks that have been kicked off to try and stop hospitals being shut during the election campaign have collapsed again. Unfortunately the hospitals have run out of beds so the talks have been left on a trolley in the hallway until they are feeling well enough to be sent either home or to a respite care home.

Things to do after the election - get sick.
Things to do before the election - not get sick.

Commuter heaven

Actually no. Can’t find a link to a source for this one, but it appears that due to roadworks in Co.Dublin a tailback occured this morning that stretched from a roundabout on the outskirts of Dublin city all the way back to Naas in Co. Kildare. That’s a fair stretch of road for a tailback.

This one could be hearsay, an urban myth. However just in case it isn’t it is lucky the election will be on a Thursday so commuters can’t vote (well not easily - polls are open to 10:30 it seems. As we only had 2 days notice, postal voting is a red herring for most of us).

An Finally… Bertie pays stamp duty (?) on a house he is renting but the money winds up with his then girlfriend who he wasn’t renting from

This just gets weirder and weirder. A large cash sum (£30k) is paid (in cash) to the girlfriend of the prime-minister. His explanation is that it is a “stamp duty matter” - but stamp duty isn’t payable to the renter of a property (how i wish it was) and related to ‘refurbishments’ to a house that was, at the time only 3 years old.

Brain hurting trying to figure it out… the bods over at irishelection.com seem to share my confusion.

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So all in all a busy day for the outgoing Government’s spin teams.