Those of us who opposed this bill made a good and effective argument based on rationality, logic, and an ability to persuade the public that we were correct.
We got a Government and a society that is both institutionally incompetent on the big problems, and institutionally tyrannical on the small stuff.
The stunning thing here, really, is that the polling consistently now has Sinn Fein on course to lose seats, rather than gain them, at the next election.
Before the debate, all of the fundamentals pointed to a very tight election decided by a handful of votes in a few states. After the debate, that remains the case.
The budget surplus for this one year alone in Ireland was projected by the Minister for Finance in April to be in the order of €8billion.
Only a fool meddles with a system that is producing good outcomes
In modern democracies, political offices are just one of a whole series of interlocking institutions that wield political power. Capturing one of them is not enough. There are no shortcuts.
We have a bizarre situation where the next Government will be bound – at least to some degree – by major spending decisions taken in the dying days of this one.
Politicians have both a political and economic incentive to tell you that everything is fine, until it isn’t. It’s not lying, necessarily – but it might just be unwarranted optimism.
You might argue – might – that €350,000 is an amount of money that should be below the notice of Ministers, but you’d be making an argument that only an idiot should believe.
Our céad míle fáilte is not some uniquely Irish thing that foreigners wouldn’t understand: It’s just the Irish word for Wilkommenskultur. That didn’t help the Germans, and it won’t help us, either.
The Mayor was happily photographed with a whole series of free willies, while – perhaps subconsciously – keeping his own paws strategically placed to protect his own: