Defending her hate speech bill, Justice Minister Helen McEntee repeatedly claimed that Ireland currently has no laws prohibiting incitement to violence. Ben Scallan asks if this means it’s currently legal in Ireland to call for violence against individuals and groups.
So, the bells toll as Fine Gael’s hearse, towed by a pair of tawdry jades, creaks towards Glasnevin cemetery wherein already repose the mortal remains of the Irish Parliamentary Party, the PDs, Clann na Phoblact and Clann na Talmhan
“I often find it surprising that Deputy Nolan and McGrath veer so far from the message of Pope Francis.”
“Being the Finance Minister allows him to plausibly claim credit for all Government successes, since he funded them, while distancing himself from failures, because all he did was fund them.”
If the Leo Varadkar of 2004 could look at the Leo Varadkar of 2024, I think it perfectly fair – even if perhaps slightly harsh – to ask whether he would even recognise himself.
Any other workplace that was suddenly losing a third of its workforce, many of them in the prime of their careers, would be considered to be in trouble. Serious questions would be asked of the senior management.
The bottom line is that some of these TDs have spent just about enough time in bed with the NGO sector, and the progressives. The frenetic action is over now, and all they’re left with is the mess, and the shame, and the sense that they’ve betrayed the people they were actually married to.
The truth is that it was the politicians who didn’t understand – why they were having these votes, what the point of them was, or why people had the concerns that they did.
The average Irish household is not draped in LGBT iconography, and the automatic assumptions of progressivism are not immediately perceived as virtuous in the way that they are inside the bubble.
What do you do when the evidence suggests your own message is actively turning off voters, and you’ve just got one week left, when they’re scheduled to hear more of your message than ever before?
As of now, the “Yes” side is in a very strong position, and it’s incumbent on the “No” side to think carefully about how to reverse that in the time remaining.
Wild birds taking flight.