83 thoughts on “Katherine Zappone’s Time Travel Adventures”
30/30
That’s horrible.
The Dude
Yeah, but at least she should be able to collect some splendid mileage expenses – what would the Dáil pay for time travel?
bisted
…nailed it Mick…
Medium Sized C
I think he is being really unfair to a person who has shown in the very recent past that she is more than willing to push a human rights agenda.
Yep
And now a government agenda. Past is the past.
Nigel
She’s got to work within the duct-taped dysfunctional incompetent propped-up government the electorate decided were fit to run the country if she’s to have any hope of getting anything done.
MoyestWithExcitement
What damage would she have done by voting for that bill?
Nigel
I don’t know – I expect there was some sort of political calculation going on whereby she weighed up the cost and benefit of joining in with the political threat and nailing her colours firmly to the mast but adding to the sense of government disunity and disarray versus a show of steadfast loyalty that might pay off in leeway for a pro-choice voice to count more in the cabinet and on committees further down the line. Tough line to walk, if you ask me, with no guarantee of success, but surely not beyond comprehension.
Nigel
‘political theater’
MoyestWithExcitement
At the risk of sounding facetious, other independent TDs voted against it and the government hasn’t collapsed yet. As pointed out in the cartoon, her voting for it would have had symbollic value and moved the conversation along. She evidently didn’t think that was a good idea for some reason. The fact she cites the AG in her decision, suggests to me that she’s just towing the party line and behaving like a career politician rather than someone who is motivated by a sense of injustice and righteous indignation and concern for others; the person many people thought she was during the marriage referendum. Now she’s a TD and it’s about caution and incremental change all of a sudden.
Nigel
I don’t think the government was in danger of collapsing over it, or the Independents wouldn’t have gone along with it. They might bring the govt down, but not over this. Toeing the line and acting like a career politician has symbolic value too – you can be assured her colleagues will treat her as a more credible politician and a reliable colleague than any of the indies. What that’s worth remains to be seen. I don’t think people are as cut-and-dried in their support of repealing the 8th as they were about the marriage referendum. I think incremental change is a valid approach – she’s heavily pushing the idea that everyone can reasonably and humanely get behind allowing terminations in the case of FFAs, and I would not be surprised if that’s what finally gets the 8th repealed.
Medium Sized C
The people voted for that government a short few months ago. In that election where two parties who were opposed to a repeal shared the majority of the vote.
Medium Sized C
That’s probably in the past too though, right?
Yep
I am not trying to downplay how difficult it would be for her to push on with it. It is the rhetoric she is spouting is very much in line with the parties you mention and that seems to be a position of not wanting to touch it.
If she is determined there will come a time she will have to stop with this “wait and see” approach. More than likely she will lose her seat before any real progress has been made.
Medium Sized C
A No vote in a referendum is the opposite of progress.
It would be a massive setback.
The problem is most people on here live in a silly little internet bubble where the Internet thinks for them and manages who’s opinions they listen to.
Any deviation from that is disregarded.
So people get this utterly stupid and reprehensible opinion that Kathrine Zappone is somehow pro-life or at least towing a pro-life agenda. Instead of an intelligent experienced feminist campaigner and advocate who knows the ground she is standing on.
She is making a fair point and one that I agree with.
“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war” – Sun Tzu
The abortion is not marriage equality and it is nowhere close to a won fight.
Which leads me to the other problem I have with this cartoon. Rosa Parks not moving was a catalyst for the desegregation movement. It wasn’t a conscious planned act as part of a campaign to end the Jim Crow laws, she was just sick of being pushed around.
Kathrine Zappone is participating in a now decades old campaign to secure womens rights, including the right to access abortion.
rotide
+100000
This comment needs to be pinned to the top.
Yep
@ medium
I think we are in agreement. Kinda. Well put anyway. I don’t think it is worth getting worked up about rhe cartoon.
If the internet bubble thing is a dig…no need…:(
Meliana
Except Rosa Parks WAS chosen to do that. It was planned. They needed someone who would be impeachable in public opinion. What, do you think she was the first black person who didn’t want to move? You think all blacks in the south just sat there and took it? Come on now.
Take homelessness here in Ireland. Seems weekly there’s a story about someone else living in a car, living rough. It should move us, but for the majority it doesn’t. They’re lazy, shouldn’t have kids, scroungers, etc. That attitude was exactly why they had to pick someone like Rosa Parks. Couldn’t risk it bring ignored, like the countless others who refused to move before her.
Its how people ignore the trips to the UK. And people like Katherine Zappone can continue to sit in government with a clear conscience, you know she’d love to help, but just not right now. But sure, she’s on your side. Totally. Someday, she’ll make sure your concerns are addressed. Just not right now.
That’s not an ally, that’s a coward.
MoyestWithExcitement
“And people like Katherine Zappone can continue to sit in government with a clear conscience, you know she’d love to help, but just not right now. But sure, she’s on your side. Totally. Someday, she’ll make sure your concerns are addressed. Just not right now.
That’s not an ally, that’s a coward.”
QFT
rotide
So anyone without a magic wand that can just make abortion legal tommorow is a coward?
Gotcha.
MoyestWithExcitement
That’s not even close to what she’s saying. Reading comprehension lessons needed.
Kieran NYC
Well said, Medium.
Seems like people like Moyest would rather lose a repeal referendum than make any sort of compromise on anything ever in order to get it passed. Total fundamentalist fanatic.
bisted
…before she went native …like the labour ministers before her?
Daniel
Rosa Parks was an activist before Montgomery and had been to meetings and workshops in Myles Hortons Highlander only a few months before the bus boycott. Highlander during the early fifties had already turned it’s attention to desecration through consciousness raising in conjunction with the emerging civil rights movement. (We make the road by walking 1990) Rosa may have acted spontaneously but it was a spontaneity based on activist knowledge.
Daniel
*desegregation
Harry Molloy
+1
An example of why good people become jaded with politics
topsy
Medium. She has certainly no problem pushing her travel expenses agenda.
Medium Sized C
A public servant claiming travel expenses is totally irrelevant to female reproductive rights and marriage equality.
But whatever like, wink-nudge, “what-about-herself? wahoo!”.
Kieran NYC
+1
Liz Butler
Medium Sized C: She’s shown very recently that she’s prepared to exaggerate ridiculously her feelings when the people of Jobstown protested at Joan Burton’s visit on her invitation. Consequently a child has been imprisoned, and several adults, apart from the one who recently died, have serious charges hanging over them for the past year and a half and mo sign of getting the charges dropped or disprooved yet.
John Power
Pro-lifers are the equivalent of the Jim Crow-loving racists of yore. Well of course! Is this the “respectful” debate people on the pro-choice side were talking about?
Medium Sized C
Yeah, that is absolutely not the point being made here. Epic strawman there.
John Power
I understand the point: inaction on the alleged injustice of the abortion law is being compared to inaction on Jim Crow. It’s drawing an obvious equivalence between hardcore racists and pro-lifers. Not a straw man in the slightest.
Nigel
No, Catherine Zappone’s softly-softly middle-ground of wait and compromise and work the politics is being satirised by putting it in a completely different context. I happen to think she’s more right than not about this but I can still appreciate the jab since there are people who are suffering from the status quo right now. It’s not about the pro-life crowd at all. It’s not drawing an equivalence with anyone other than Zappone and the people urging civil rights activist of the Jim Crow era to show more restraint and patience.
John Power
I get the jibe, but I’ve no doubt this would cause fits of rage in the expected quarters were the roles reversed. Twitter would be ablaze with cries of outrage about demonisation and fanaticism.
Nigel
No doubt, but if you think that outrage would be wrong why indulge in it yourself?
John Power
I’m not outraged, but I don’t think it’s fair either. An it puts paid to this notion — often peddled on social media and in the opinion pages of the Irish Times — that the smears and demonisation come from one side alone.
Nigel
You’re not outraged, but you’re pushing this as a smear against the pro-life side even though it is explicitly directed at Zappone. This just makes you cynical.
John Power
It’s comparing her opponents to the opponents of desegregation — pretty explicitly. I consider that a smear. Nothing cynical about it.
Nigel
No it is not. It’s comparing her cautious centrism to cautious centrism in the civil rights era. It’s not about opponents. It’s about lukewarm supporters in any era.
Bob
No it’s not comparing any side to anything. It’s showing the weakness of Zappone’s argument in a different context. It’s you who are struggling to make this an insult to a political viewpoint.
John Power
I just don’t think you can separate the actors from the argument so neatly. You could make all sorts of political points based on Nazis, but we tend to frown on using the spectre of the Third Reich for people who aren’t completely evil and vile and for good reason: it’s inevitably associating them with a certain level of malevolence. Nobody is going to buy, “Well, we didn’t *really* mean Nazis, just, you know, the principle is similar…”
MoyestWithExcitement
“Nobody is going to buy, “Well, we didn’t *really* mean Nazis, just, you know, the principle is similar…”
Everybody on this thread bought it. You misinterpreted a cartoon. Get over it and move on. The world is the same as it was before you saw it.
Nigel
I don’t think Katherine Zappone really has a time travel machine, either.
John Power
With all due respect, the fact this thread “bought it” isn’t exactly authoritative when this website is about as ideologically broad and representative as Twitter, i.e. not very.
MoyestWithExcitement
“the fact this thread “bought it” isn’t exactly authoritative”
But your biased opinion is? Why?
John Power
Of it’s not (and all opinions are biased). All I was saying is Broadsheet isn’t exactly the general public.
MoyestWithExcitement
Ok, so we have your *opinion* that most won’t buy it and we have the *fact* that most here *did*. Pretty simple.
bisted
…I think ‘Uncle Tom’ may be a more appropriate epithet…
Medium Sized C
You don’t and you have just explained how you don’t.
John Power
Sorry, I do. You just don’t like my reaction.
Medium Sized C
I don’t, that much is true.
I mean I suppose it is possible that you do understand the point, but you are just being disingenuous and intentionally misrepresenting it.
Owen C
The point being made is that the civil rights battle re racism didnt do a softly softly approach. And therefore neither should the pro choice battle. The difference is, of course, that pro choice debate is not on a par with racism. It is slightly hyperbolic to suggest it is.
Owen C
“I believe that we may need some restrictions on abortion”
“RACIST!!!!!!!!!!”
John Power
It must be great to be so, so morally certain of your views that everyone who disagrees, even with the best of intentions, is a monster. Wish I had that clarity! Almost… religious, isn’t it?
Medium Sized C
You missed the point entirely but went full bore with what you had. Your commitment is commendable but you look an awful eejit.
John Power
Nope.
Robert
Yep.
LW
yep
MoyestWithExcitement
Yep
edalicious
Yop
rotide
yep
Daisy Chainsaw
Ms Zappone’s time machine will doubtless be claimed on expenses. How much mileage will she get travelling back 61 years?
Rugbyfan
like most politicians….the gravy is too good to pass up….
Rich Uncle Skeleton
The likes of Zappone cause so much damage. It seems so difficult for so many of the electorate to crawl away from FG/FF and when they do what happens? People like her get elected and show there really is no alternative.
brownbull
Wallace’s bill was unconstitutional and if passed would have been turned over by the Council of State, if this happened it would have resulted in a referendum to repeal the 8th being kicked further down the road – this is why true progressive liberals did not support Wallace’s bill. Wallace is using this issue to try to fracture the government when he has no intention of forming an alternative, he is no different from Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson in this regard
DubLoony
Thank you!
Nigel
Wallace is do9ng the work of keeping the issue on the agenda, which is what you do if you are otherwise powerless to change things. Zappone is doing the work of tying to achieve what’s possible within the government which is what you do when you’re in power and trying to change something the majority of your colleagues don’t want to see changed. Between them we may get something out of all this yet.
Nigel
Or not. There’s a lot of inertia and the government’s an early election waiting to happen.
brownbull
Wallace is not powerless, he has a vote in the Dail and he could have formed a government through compromise on various issues but he chose not to, he is a fraud
MoyestWithExcitement
Definitely a partisan agenda. Who could have he formed a government with? Fine Gael??
Nigel
As far as I can tell he’s using what power he has as effectively as he can. I think Zappone’s approach is valid, but I don’t know how I rate her chances. They’d definitely be a lot less without someone like Wallace speaking out boldly.
MoyestWithExcitement
“Wallace’s bill was unconstitutional”
You don’t know that. Several legal experts said it was NOT unconstitutional.
“true progressive liberals did not support Wallace’s bill.”
True? I smell a partisan agenda.
brownbull
One can always find an expert to back your cause these days, but I fail to see how any rational person can think it constitutional if they have read the 8th amendment. There is likely no threat to the life of the mother where there is a fatal foetal abnormality, if there is it would be covered under the existing legislation. Ending the life of a foetus because it is incompatible with life outside the womb is patently counter to the intent and spirit of the 8th amendment.
Saying I have a partisan agenda does not undermine my arguments, I assume most people are partisan and have an agenda in one way or another, my agenda is for repeal of the 8th and a woman’s right to choose, how I differ from you and clowns like Wallace is I understand how it can come about. I believe any distraction from this route for other political purposes to be deeply cynical.
MoyestWithExcitement
“One can always find an expert to back your cause these days”
Yeah, like Fine Gael.
“I fail to see how any rational person can think it constitutional if they have read the 8th amendment.”
I can but neither of us are legal experts. Anyway, it is not the job of the AG and it CERTAINLY is NOT the job of TDs to rule a bill unconstitutional. That is the job of the *judicial* wing of government. The whole point of splitting powers between parliament and courts is to avoid goverments getting ideas above their station just like this. I don’t think it is a coincidence that FG also wanted rid of the upper house.
“Saying I have a partisan agenda does not undermine my arguments,”
People who know ehat they’re talking about have said it’s not unconstitutional. This government have already passed unconstitutional bills. You have ignored that to have a go at a politician you don’t like, so it does undermine your argument a fair bit.
Kieran NYC
+1
nellyb
If civil servants run the country like they did 50 years ago and political class constantly admit there is nothing they can do to change either system or laws – why do we need all them senators, political class and whatnot? What is their purpose? Sit there and indulge in Dail archaic casuistry for the bloody sake of it?
At least Wallace, Daly or Murphy have a position and support alternative views that represent a sizable section of society. We need iconoclasts like them to see the true state of affairs.
The aging parties just shove everything to legal experts to quote from medieval scriptures of our laws. And then pick the least labor intensive opinion. Lazy way out with guaranteed wages, free lunches and free commute to work.
DubLoony
This is the ultimate do-nothing government. 70 days to form, no significant legislation passed, Taoiseach under pressure from his own side, indos disregarding constitution on cabinet collective responsibility and FF just waiting for their poll numbers to rise to trigger an election.
The 8th is the last thing they want to actually deal with.
Cata
Zappone was always going to do a U turn. Any one who’s watched her career knows that she puts herself and her finances above all other considerations. She’s the Liberal’s Liberal par excellence.
Pip
Sad, and she sounds so sincere – wait, what am I saying?
(gets coat)
bisted
…anyway Mick…one of your best cartoons…is that Gerry Adams at the back of the bus?
realPolithicks
Brilliant.
Bonkers
Well that gave me a right giggle, great headline too Katherine Zappones Time Travel Adventures lol!
That’s horrible.
Yeah, but at least she should be able to collect some splendid mileage expenses – what would the Dáil pay for time travel?
…nailed it Mick…
I think he is being really unfair to a person who has shown in the very recent past that she is more than willing to push a human rights agenda.
And now a government agenda. Past is the past.
She’s got to work within the duct-taped dysfunctional incompetent propped-up government the electorate decided were fit to run the country if she’s to have any hope of getting anything done.
What damage would she have done by voting for that bill?
I don’t know – I expect there was some sort of political calculation going on whereby she weighed up the cost and benefit of joining in with the political threat and nailing her colours firmly to the mast but adding to the sense of government disunity and disarray versus a show of steadfast loyalty that might pay off in leeway for a pro-choice voice to count more in the cabinet and on committees further down the line. Tough line to walk, if you ask me, with no guarantee of success, but surely not beyond comprehension.
‘political theater’
At the risk of sounding facetious, other independent TDs voted against it and the government hasn’t collapsed yet. As pointed out in the cartoon, her voting for it would have had symbollic value and moved the conversation along. She evidently didn’t think that was a good idea for some reason. The fact she cites the AG in her decision, suggests to me that she’s just towing the party line and behaving like a career politician rather than someone who is motivated by a sense of injustice and righteous indignation and concern for others; the person many people thought she was during the marriage referendum. Now she’s a TD and it’s about caution and incremental change all of a sudden.
I don’t think the government was in danger of collapsing over it, or the Independents wouldn’t have gone along with it. They might bring the govt down, but not over this. Toeing the line and acting like a career politician has symbolic value too – you can be assured her colleagues will treat her as a more credible politician and a reliable colleague than any of the indies. What that’s worth remains to be seen. I don’t think people are as cut-and-dried in their support of repealing the 8th as they were about the marriage referendum. I think incremental change is a valid approach – she’s heavily pushing the idea that everyone can reasonably and humanely get behind allowing terminations in the case of FFAs, and I would not be surprised if that’s what finally gets the 8th repealed.
The people voted for that government a short few months ago. In that election where two parties who were opposed to a repeal shared the majority of the vote.
That’s probably in the past too though, right?
I am not trying to downplay how difficult it would be for her to push on with it. It is the rhetoric she is spouting is very much in line with the parties you mention and that seems to be a position of not wanting to touch it.
If she is determined there will come a time she will have to stop with this “wait and see” approach. More than likely she will lose her seat before any real progress has been made.
A No vote in a referendum is the opposite of progress.
It would be a massive setback.
The problem is most people on here live in a silly little internet bubble where the Internet thinks for them and manages who’s opinions they listen to.
Any deviation from that is disregarded.
So people get this utterly stupid and reprehensible opinion that Kathrine Zappone is somehow pro-life or at least towing a pro-life agenda. Instead of an intelligent experienced feminist campaigner and advocate who knows the ground she is standing on.
She is making a fair point and one that I agree with.
“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war” – Sun Tzu
The abortion is not marriage equality and it is nowhere close to a won fight.
Which leads me to the other problem I have with this cartoon. Rosa Parks not moving was a catalyst for the desegregation movement. It wasn’t a conscious planned act as part of a campaign to end the Jim Crow laws, she was just sick of being pushed around.
Kathrine Zappone is participating in a now decades old campaign to secure womens rights, including the right to access abortion.
+100000
This comment needs to be pinned to the top.
@ medium
I think we are in agreement. Kinda. Well put anyway. I don’t think it is worth getting worked up about rhe cartoon.
If the internet bubble thing is a dig…no need…:(
Except Rosa Parks WAS chosen to do that. It was planned. They needed someone who would be impeachable in public opinion. What, do you think she was the first black person who didn’t want to move? You think all blacks in the south just sat there and took it? Come on now.
Take homelessness here in Ireland. Seems weekly there’s a story about someone else living in a car, living rough. It should move us, but for the majority it doesn’t. They’re lazy, shouldn’t have kids, scroungers, etc. That attitude was exactly why they had to pick someone like Rosa Parks. Couldn’t risk it bring ignored, like the countless others who refused to move before her.
Its how people ignore the trips to the UK. And people like Katherine Zappone can continue to sit in government with a clear conscience, you know she’d love to help, but just not right now. But sure, she’s on your side. Totally. Someday, she’ll make sure your concerns are addressed. Just not right now.
That’s not an ally, that’s a coward.
“And people like Katherine Zappone can continue to sit in government with a clear conscience, you know she’d love to help, but just not right now. But sure, she’s on your side. Totally. Someday, she’ll make sure your concerns are addressed. Just not right now.
That’s not an ally, that’s a coward.”
QFT
So anyone without a magic wand that can just make abortion legal tommorow is a coward?
Gotcha.
That’s not even close to what she’s saying. Reading comprehension lessons needed.
Well said, Medium.
Seems like people like Moyest would rather lose a repeal referendum than make any sort of compromise on anything ever in order to get it passed. Total fundamentalist fanatic.
…before she went native …like the labour ministers before her?
Rosa Parks was an activist before Montgomery and had been to meetings and workshops in Myles Hortons Highlander only a few months before the bus boycott. Highlander during the early fifties had already turned it’s attention to desecration through consciousness raising in conjunction with the emerging civil rights movement. (We make the road by walking 1990) Rosa may have acted spontaneously but it was a spontaneity based on activist knowledge.
*desegregation
+1
An example of why good people become jaded with politics
Medium. She has certainly no problem pushing her travel expenses agenda.
A public servant claiming travel expenses is totally irrelevant to female reproductive rights and marriage equality.
But whatever like, wink-nudge, “what-about-herself? wahoo!”.
+1
Medium Sized C: She’s shown very recently that she’s prepared to exaggerate ridiculously her feelings when the people of Jobstown protested at Joan Burton’s visit on her invitation. Consequently a child has been imprisoned, and several adults, apart from the one who recently died, have serious charges hanging over them for the past year and a half and mo sign of getting the charges dropped or disprooved yet.
Pro-lifers are the equivalent of the Jim Crow-loving racists of yore. Well of course! Is this the “respectful” debate people on the pro-choice side were talking about?
Yeah, that is absolutely not the point being made here. Epic strawman there.
I understand the point: inaction on the alleged injustice of the abortion law is being compared to inaction on Jim Crow. It’s drawing an obvious equivalence between hardcore racists and pro-lifers. Not a straw man in the slightest.
No, Catherine Zappone’s softly-softly middle-ground of wait and compromise and work the politics is being satirised by putting it in a completely different context. I happen to think she’s more right than not about this but I can still appreciate the jab since there are people who are suffering from the status quo right now. It’s not about the pro-life crowd at all. It’s not drawing an equivalence with anyone other than Zappone and the people urging civil rights activist of the Jim Crow era to show more restraint and patience.
I get the jibe, but I’ve no doubt this would cause fits of rage in the expected quarters were the roles reversed. Twitter would be ablaze with cries of outrage about demonisation and fanaticism.
No doubt, but if you think that outrage would be wrong why indulge in it yourself?
I’m not outraged, but I don’t think it’s fair either. An it puts paid to this notion — often peddled on social media and in the opinion pages of the Irish Times — that the smears and demonisation come from one side alone.
You’re not outraged, but you’re pushing this as a smear against the pro-life side even though it is explicitly directed at Zappone. This just makes you cynical.
It’s comparing her opponents to the opponents of desegregation — pretty explicitly. I consider that a smear. Nothing cynical about it.
No it is not. It’s comparing her cautious centrism to cautious centrism in the civil rights era. It’s not about opponents. It’s about lukewarm supporters in any era.
No it’s not comparing any side to anything. It’s showing the weakness of Zappone’s argument in a different context. It’s you who are struggling to make this an insult to a political viewpoint.
I just don’t think you can separate the actors from the argument so neatly. You could make all sorts of political points based on Nazis, but we tend to frown on using the spectre of the Third Reich for people who aren’t completely evil and vile and for good reason: it’s inevitably associating them with a certain level of malevolence. Nobody is going to buy, “Well, we didn’t *really* mean Nazis, just, you know, the principle is similar…”
“Nobody is going to buy, “Well, we didn’t *really* mean Nazis, just, you know, the principle is similar…”
Everybody on this thread bought it. You misinterpreted a cartoon. Get over it and move on. The world is the same as it was before you saw it.
I don’t think Katherine Zappone really has a time travel machine, either.
With all due respect, the fact this thread “bought it” isn’t exactly authoritative when this website is about as ideologically broad and representative as Twitter, i.e. not very.
“the fact this thread “bought it” isn’t exactly authoritative”
But your biased opinion is? Why?
Of it’s not (and all opinions are biased). All I was saying is Broadsheet isn’t exactly the general public.
Ok, so we have your *opinion* that most won’t buy it and we have the *fact* that most here *did*. Pretty simple.
…I think ‘Uncle Tom’ may be a more appropriate epithet…
You don’t and you have just explained how you don’t.
Sorry, I do. You just don’t like my reaction.
I don’t, that much is true.
I mean I suppose it is possible that you do understand the point, but you are just being disingenuous and intentionally misrepresenting it.
The point being made is that the civil rights battle re racism didnt do a softly softly approach. And therefore neither should the pro choice battle. The difference is, of course, that pro choice debate is not on a par with racism. It is slightly hyperbolic to suggest it is.
“I believe that we may need some restrictions on abortion”
“RACIST!!!!!!!!!!”
It must be great to be so, so morally certain of your views that everyone who disagrees, even with the best of intentions, is a monster. Wish I had that clarity! Almost… religious, isn’t it?
You missed the point entirely but went full bore with what you had. Your commitment is commendable but you look an awful eejit.
Nope.
Yep.
yep
Yep
Yop
yep
Ms Zappone’s time machine will doubtless be claimed on expenses. How much mileage will she get travelling back 61 years?
like most politicians….the gravy is too good to pass up….
The likes of Zappone cause so much damage. It seems so difficult for so many of the electorate to crawl away from FG/FF and when they do what happens? People like her get elected and show there really is no alternative.
Wallace’s bill was unconstitutional and if passed would have been turned over by the Council of State, if this happened it would have resulted in a referendum to repeal the 8th being kicked further down the road – this is why true progressive liberals did not support Wallace’s bill. Wallace is using this issue to try to fracture the government when he has no intention of forming an alternative, he is no different from Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson in this regard
Thank you!
Wallace is do9ng the work of keeping the issue on the agenda, which is what you do if you are otherwise powerless to change things. Zappone is doing the work of tying to achieve what’s possible within the government which is what you do when you’re in power and trying to change something the majority of your colleagues don’t want to see changed. Between them we may get something out of all this yet.
Or not. There’s a lot of inertia and the government’s an early election waiting to happen.
Wallace is not powerless, he has a vote in the Dail and he could have formed a government through compromise on various issues but he chose not to, he is a fraud
Definitely a partisan agenda. Who could have he formed a government with? Fine Gael??
As far as I can tell he’s using what power he has as effectively as he can. I think Zappone’s approach is valid, but I don’t know how I rate her chances. They’d definitely be a lot less without someone like Wallace speaking out boldly.
“Wallace’s bill was unconstitutional”
You don’t know that. Several legal experts said it was NOT unconstitutional.
“true progressive liberals did not support Wallace’s bill.”
True? I smell a partisan agenda.
One can always find an expert to back your cause these days, but I fail to see how any rational person can think it constitutional if they have read the 8th amendment. There is likely no threat to the life of the mother where there is a fatal foetal abnormality, if there is it would be covered under the existing legislation. Ending the life of a foetus because it is incompatible with life outside the womb is patently counter to the intent and spirit of the 8th amendment.
Saying I have a partisan agenda does not undermine my arguments, I assume most people are partisan and have an agenda in one way or another, my agenda is for repeal of the 8th and a woman’s right to choose, how I differ from you and clowns like Wallace is I understand how it can come about. I believe any distraction from this route for other political purposes to be deeply cynical.
“One can always find an expert to back your cause these days”
Yeah, like Fine Gael.
“I fail to see how any rational person can think it constitutional if they have read the 8th amendment.”
I can but neither of us are legal experts. Anyway, it is not the job of the AG and it CERTAINLY is NOT the job of TDs to rule a bill unconstitutional. That is the job of the *judicial* wing of government. The whole point of splitting powers between parliament and courts is to avoid goverments getting ideas above their station just like this. I don’t think it is a coincidence that FG also wanted rid of the upper house.
“Saying I have a partisan agenda does not undermine my arguments,”
People who know ehat they’re talking about have said it’s not unconstitutional. This government have already passed unconstitutional bills. You have ignored that to have a go at a politician you don’t like, so it does undermine your argument a fair bit.
+1
If civil servants run the country like they did 50 years ago and political class constantly admit there is nothing they can do to change either system or laws – why do we need all them senators, political class and whatnot? What is their purpose? Sit there and indulge in Dail archaic casuistry for the bloody sake of it?
At least Wallace, Daly or Murphy have a position and support alternative views that represent a sizable section of society. We need iconoclasts like them to see the true state of affairs.
The aging parties just shove everything to legal experts to quote from medieval scriptures of our laws. And then pick the least labor intensive opinion. Lazy way out with guaranteed wages, free lunches and free commute to work.
This is the ultimate do-nothing government. 70 days to form, no significant legislation passed, Taoiseach under pressure from his own side, indos disregarding constitution on cabinet collective responsibility and FF just waiting for their poll numbers to rise to trigger an election.
The 8th is the last thing they want to actually deal with.
Zappone was always going to do a U turn. Any one who’s watched her career knows that she puts herself and her finances above all other considerations. She’s the Liberal’s Liberal par excellence.
Sad, and she sounds so sincere – wait, what am I saying?
(gets coat)
…anyway Mick…one of your best cartoons…is that Gerry Adams at the back of the bus?
Brilliant.
Well that gave me a right giggle, great headline too Katherine Zappones Time Travel Adventures lol!