So here is the excruciating 29 second pause when Micheál Martin was asked to describe Leo Varadkar in one word on @IvanYatesNT earlier 🙈 #GE2020 pic.twitter.com/NEIxRkVJMC
— Seán Defoe (@SeanDefoe) February 6, 2020
Yesterday.
Ivan Yates on Newstalk.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin struggles to sum up Leo Varadkar in one word.
Top pic: iStock
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Was the Mary Lou answer ”faux-outrage?” or… ”footbridge”???
I’m no fan of Michael Martin, but Jeez, that Ivan Yates is a “gom”
To be fair its a horrible question to ask, he can’t say anything nice because he is trying to win votes for FF not FG at same time he can’t be too mean or it comes across as petty.
Describing anyone in one word is hard.
Silly question if you ask me.
he was thinking “poofter” but was unsure if that was ok- could happen to any of us really
Tall
One word to describe Yates?
Coward?
Superfluous
I would have gone with “bankrupt”, or perhaps “insufferable” but on reflection I think “hypocrite” will do.
He should have said “unemployed”.
Politics should never be personal.
Michael Martin is some muppet.
Like, for real.
The kind of fella you’d be trying not to sit next to in the canteen at lunchtime.
The new leader of the country.
Sigh.
““We are led by the least among us – the least intelligent, the least noble, the least visionary.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw_lS6IuLeQ
Terence McKenna (1946-2000)
2007.
“Mr Gilmartin had testified that Mr O’Callaghan told him he paid Mr. Martin a five-figure sum in the early 1990s when he ‘was being groomed’ to be Taoiseach”.
Martin was shocked by O’Callaghan sum claims.
By Jim Morahan
Friday, November 16, 2007
ENTERPRISE Minister Micheál Martin yesterday described being ‘shocked, annoyed and outraged’ on hearing it alleged on the radio news he had received a six-figure sum from Cork-based property developer Owen O’Callaghan.
This was completely untrue, he told the Mahon Planning Tribunal. He said he had to deal with the political and personal fallout from this public disclosure. He declared himself ‘absolutely furious’ about what had happened.
Mr Martin strongly criticised the way the tribunal investigated ‘BIZARRE’ allegations of payments made by former developer Tom Gilmartin, now a bitter rival of Mr O’Callaghan, who was his former partner in the Quarryvale project in west Dublin.
Mr. Gilmartin had testified that Mr O’Callaghan told him he paid Mr Martin a five-figure sum in the early 1990s when he ‘was being groomed’ to be Taoiseach.
Commenting on Mr O’Callaghan’s alleged remarks about him being groomed for ‘stardom’, Mr Martin said he was somewhat flattered and amused, considering at the time he was hardly ‘a wet week in Dáil Éireann and I am being groomed for Taoiseach’.
Originally, Mr. Gilmartin had told the tribunal that Mr O’Callaghan told him about paying the then Minister for Industry and Commerce £15,000 or £20,000 in 1991 or 1992.
When asked to clarify this, Mr. Gilmartin later stated he was told it was a five-figure sum paid to Mr Martin.
Mr Martin, who never served as Minister for Industry and Commerce, said this letter was crying out for clarification and should have been pursued more vigorously by the tribunal.
First elected to the Dáil in 1989, Mr. Martin was Lord Mayor of Cork in 1992. Appointed Minister for Education and Science in 1997, he served as Minister for Health and Children before his present appointment in 2004.
Between 1989 and 1993, he explained, he received a total of £6,200 from Mr O’Callaghan in political donations. He got £5,000 in connection with the 1991 local elections and £1,000 as a political donation relating to the 1989 general election.
Mr Martin said he had ‘no recollection’ of bringing Mr O’Callaghan to meet Bertie Ahern when he was Minister for Finance in 1994.
An entry in Mr Ahern’s ministerial diary showed a 3.30pm meeting listed for Wednesday, April 13, 1994 with ‘Eoin O’Callaghan’. On the next line, was written “M. Martin (B)”.
© Irish Examiner Ltd. All rights reserved.
—–
2012
Mahon Report p. 2480
“The Tribunal was nevertheless satisfied the Mr. Gilmartin was provided with information by Mr.
O’Callaghan which led him to understand that Mr O’Callaghan had indeed advised him that he had paid IR£50,000 to Mr. Ahern.”
https://planningtribunal.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/sitecontent_1257.pdf
—–
2013
Mahon tribunal witness Tom Gilmartin dies.
Allegations about payments was damaging to senior politicians
Fri, Nov 22, 2013 – Colm Keena.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/mahon-tribunal-witness-tom-gilmartin-dies-1.1604379
Last year, in an article in The Irish Times, Thomas Gilmartin Jnr said that without his father, “Ireland would never have found out about the corrupt activities of people like Frank Dunlop, nor the existence of a corruption ring at the heart of planning in Ireland.”
He said when his father came back to Ireland to give evidence, he was not only disbelieved, he was put through a sustained and systematic process of vilification and ridicule by politicians UP TO AND INCLUDING the then Taoiseach and his cabinet, and also by prominent journalists and commentators.
“Ireland owes my father a debt of gratitude for doing what he has done. He is owed an apology by the State and by certain parts of the political and media establishment for what was done to him.”