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 ReporterTRANSPORT 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)