Annie West’s timeline to the GE16 speculation…
Meanwhile…
Fianna Fail Micheal Martin has phoned acting Taoiseach Enda Kenny about government formation talks pic.twitter.com/sUXIGVhUSz
— Independent.ie (@Independent_ie) March 31, 2016
Related: Enda Kenny set to defer taoiseach vote amid TDs’ fury (Irish Examiner)
Via Annie West
From top: Ciaran Cuffe, Dan Boyle and Eamon Ryan during the break of a conference of members of the Green Party on whether or not to enter a coalition Government with Fianna Fail, June 2007; Dan Boyle
It is inexcusable that five weeks after a general election the two largest parties, ideologically indistinct, have yet to seriously broach the subject of being in government together.
Dan Boyle writes:
This time around, to the relief of many, I have had absolutely nothing to do with talks on forming a new government.
From what I have been able to gleam it seems that Fine Gael has learned absolutely nothing either from the recent election.
Like the other centre right party (with whom it has ‘nothing’ in common) it believes itself to be natural party of government.
When circumstances have deprived them of that they reach out to others, whom they believe will be happy with a seat at the big table, to allow Fine Gael to continue to do what it has always done in government.
It was the party’s approach in the last government that contributed to its loss of mandate. The last thing the party should expect is to be able to carry on as it has before.
I sat across a table when [Fianna Fáil grandee] Seamus Brennan made his “You’re playing senior hurling now lads.” remark. It was funny and was said without malice. However it had an implied intent of letting us know what our supposed place was.
Fine Gael seem to be approaching these discussions on government without humour, expecting a respect that frankly it isn’t due. Without being willing to shed any of its acquired baggage Fine Gael is making it impossible to acquire new partners to form a new government.
Perhaps that’s its intention.
Whatever the strategy, or lack of it, it is inexcusable that five weeks after a general election the two largest parties, ideologically indistinct, have yet to seriously broach the subject of being in government together.
In Spain or Portugal clear ideological differences exist among their political parties, making coherent government there difficult.
In Ireland it is only nuances of tone magnified by ego, pride and imagined slights, that prevent Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil from looking in the mirror and seeing each other’s reflection.
We’ve done single party majority and minority governments. We’ve done two party and multi party coalitions. Now it’s time for the Grand Coalition. It’s the last dance of the evening where the band is playing the last song in its repertoire.
It isn’t the government I want. I’m fairly sure the policies it will put in place will rub badly with me and many others. It is though the government that most of the voters in Ireland want and have chosen. It reflects the Ireland of 2016.
If it happens I don’t see it heralding any great left right divide in Irish politics. The salami slicing of the left will ensure that doesn’t happen.
We also need to be aware that over the last decade of electoral change the left vote hasn’t really changed at all. Sinn Féin’s vote has increased by about 7%. PABAPA secured less votes in this election than The Greens did in 2007.
The left vote may have gotten harder but it hasn’t gotten any larger.
So to my friends in Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil I say give it a bash lads. It’s not as if you have any principles to lose.
Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD (and senator). Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle
From top: The homeless volunteer group in Dublin, You’re Not Alone, distributing items on Tuesday night – the group looked after 263 people before running out of food; acting Environment Minister Alan Kelly at the Custom House this morning
Further to the forum on housing and homelessness in the Custom House this morning…
Acting Environment Minister Alan Kelly spoke to Conor Brophy on RTÉ’s News At One.
Niamh Randall, national spokesperson for the Simon Community, was also interviewed by RTÉ’s Conor Brophy.
Grab a tay.
Alan Kelly: “What’s happening here is actually very useful today. We’ve had a number of presentations from the Housing Agency, from NAMA, from the CIF, from the Homeless Executive and from the people who are in charge of local authority funding and various other areas. You see in order to sort this issue you’ve got a whole load of levers across a whole load of various departments and organisations. And, also, on top of that you’ve got an intricate web of solutions that are required, you know, there’s a spectrum of issues across a whole range of areas here – whether it’s in finance, whether it’s in social services, whether it is in the timeline it takes to actually go and build housing, whether it’s in a whole load of areas, of planning and other areas. They are all inter-connected, there’s one thing I will leave this department, pushing out there. There is no silver bullet. All of these are interconnected and you need to get people into the room to ensure that they get into solution mode, get talking to one another in order to actually sort this out.”
Conor Brophy: “But these sound like learnings from your time as minister and learnings somebody else will have to take on when a new Government is formed. It doesn’t sound like there’s anything there that could be implemented right now or a solution that’s presenting itself in the interregnum.”
Kelly: “Well, I don’t accept that at all. In fact, you know, I was here for 20 months in this department and we got through a huge amount of legislation, a huge amount of changes whether it was in the area of rent, whether it’s in the fact there was €4billion for social housing, whether it’s in dealing with a whole range of other areas when it came to housing. We got through a whole range of 26 very significant actions which I’m not going to recount for you here, we don’t have time, but really what we’re positioning people here is that, I mean, I’m not going to be grandstanding while I’m in opposition,or whoever is going to be in this department later on. What I want to see is solutions. And if people aren’t talking at the level at which they’re talking at inside here, you will not find solutions because whoever is replacing me in this department, and Minister Paudie Coffey in the department will need these people to be talking at the level in which they’re talking. So I believe that, today, is about solutions…”
Later
Niamh Randall: “I think there was probably a bit of a missed opportunity with the forum. It was very presentation heavy. So, at 12.15pm, we were still hearing presentations from a number of different stakeholders and that wasn’t an opportunity for the people who were present, attending the open forum, to take place. So I think that possibly was a bit of a missed opportunity. I think maybe and maybe there is an opportunity to pull people together, to have a facilitated discussion, getting the ideas from the floor and suggestions and ideas from the floor. And secondly, there wasn’t a concrete plan there – certainly while I was present anyway, in terms of what would happen next, so where this will go, particularly when we’re in this vacuum of having a government and in this vacuum of having, we’ve an acting minister. How does all this happen? How do we ensure there’s activity in the meantime? There didn’t seem to be a concrete plan there and I did ask that question from the floor and there wasn’t a clear answer in relation to that. So there was a little sense, I felt, of a lack of urgency around all of this. And I suppose the thing that we really see on the ground, in the Simon Community, is the impact that this is having on people every single day and this is absolutely urgent…”
Later
Randall: “”Critically, one of the voices missing from the panel, I felt, was the Department of Social Protection. They did ask, some representative to speak from the audience, in relation to the issues on rent supplement but that is a key issue in terms of pushing people into homelessness and preventing people from leaving homelessness behind and the fact that that wasn’t represented on the panel really leads me to believe that the analysis may be flawed at some level.”
Listen back in full here
Earlier: ‘I Was Blocked By The Constitution’
A glass walled bedroom suite submerged 10m inside a shark tank at L’Aquarium de Paris, made available by airbnb, in collaboration with French design agency Ubi Bene.
Three lucky winners, chosen at random, will win a one-night sleepover.
Entries accepted here until April 3rd.
A statement released by Sinn Féin Cork city councillor Stephen Cunningham this afternoon.
Previously: Have You Seen Stephen?
Via Eoin English
Behold: artist Bruce Gardner – a master of the meditative Japanese art of hikaru dorodango (lit. ‘mud dumpling’) wherein ordinary dirt is meticulously crafted layer by layer over hours into perfect, but fragile, polished spheres.
Behold the deep neat of Washington’s National Museum Of Natural History: 126 million plant, animal, fossil, mineral and miscellaneous specimens, meticulously organised, labelled and catalogued.
Photos by Chip Clark.
The noble art of fencing excellently shenaniganised with motion capture by Fencing Visualised Project.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN7gpZXrTXk
A Nationwide-esque promotional video for Mossy Nolan’s new EP, The Exile – out on April 5.
Fair play, in fairness.
Thanks Ruairi
