Auditor #9 wrote:

Cactus johnny has put a link to the blog site above in one of his posts - do you mean put a link to it on our portal? I think that should be done. What do we call it? Fingal PD Blog? Hiker's Blog?

It looks good Johnny - it's communicative - the phone numbers are important for transparency accountability and standards - and progressive i.e. you have a lot of links to lively net spots there on the right. Is our Síbín Reoite here too gonzo for a link there?

Thanks Auditor. I'm very new to it but learning fast.
If it is to be named I think it should do what it says on the tin; Fingal PD Blog.
I'm leading a campaign to move away from the PD (PeeDee) tag but there is lots of resistance.
Could you call it Fingal ProDem Blog? its just to see what the reaction might be like.
Appreciated.
Johnny.

It's been my belief for years that the PDs took the turn towards
oblivion when Mary Harney became leader instead of Pat Cox. From memory, the jist of their two campaigns was that Cox wanted the PDs to be a broad based Liberal party comparable to the Liberal Democrats in Britain and Harney was happy for the PDs to be a niche party influencing policies in government.

Just as a sweeper on a political ticket is wasting their time running
for election, so does a niche party. The larger organisations
will always co-opt your opinions and ultimately your activists into
theirs.

Personally speaking I wish Ciaran Cannon well, as I am in favour of a wide range of choice being made available to the electorate but I am skeptical about the PDs lasting beyond the local elections.

I am changing the title of this thread from 'The PDs - A Post Mortem' (that I authored) as on reflection I think it may be both a little troll-ey and also premature.

So is that it - are they wrapping up the party?

Quote :

The shambolic unravelling of Des O’Malley’s once-pivotal party is unedifying for all, writes Niamh Connolly, Political Correspondent.

Everyone expected it to happen, but nobody forecast it would unravel in such an ‘‘undignified’’ manner. The outlook for the Progressive Democrats this weekend could not be more shambolic, according to party insiders. Even those with little confidence in the future had hoped that the party founded by Des O’Malley could somehow make a distinguished exit from the national stage.

But this is unlikely while the party leader, Senator Ciaran Cannon, and his former mentor, Noel Grealish, TD for Galway West, are locked in a feud over the deputy’s expected defection to Fianna Fáil.

Locked in a feud ?? Did Grealish renege on a signed contract ?

Quote :

‘‘If it’s going to happen, it should be in a dignified way, rather than people running for cover,” said one former senior party source. ‘‘Perhaps people should be brave and admit the party is over, but has there ever been a party that announced its own demise?”

How will it end now? Grealish is going going and Fiona O'Malley looked like she had a knowing smile on her face on television this week - will they continue to gradually fade away one by one or will they go their seperate ways into various parties and which parties would they all end up in and which would become independents etc.?

Quote :

With the PDs rapidly sinking, O’Malley is now believed to be targeting a place on the Fianna Fáil party ticket in the expected Dublin South by-election, created by the death of former minister Seamus Brennan.

Meanwhile, Harney may need to fortify her exit strategy. She could serve as an independent TD until the European elections next summer, at which time she is widely expected to be appointed European Commissioner, replacing Charlie McCreevy.

They're like the Elves leaving for the Undying Lands ...

Quote :

Five PD councillors have defected to the ranks of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the independents over the past year, leaving the party with 24 town and county councillors. Cannon’s perceived failure to make ‘‘a decent stab’’ at reinvigorating the party or even raising his profile in the public eye has hastened the party’s demise.

... or not.

Sunday Business Post

Johnny Keogh wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Thanks for that Johnny. Would it be pushing it to get a hint of what CC said in his speech?

No, not at all. He spoke of the need produce a small number of really good policies rather than spreading ourselves thin over a plathora of issue.

He spoke about having a Conferance. Probebly in October/November. A one day affair. He reckons we wont get an RTE leaders speech programme because we are now too small but is hoping to get them there in some format.

He spoke about the need to move away from being seen as the party that bashes the Public Service. We could change the way we speak about the Public Service. Rather than attack them all the time, we use constructive criticism.

He spoke about the way in which we choose candidates. No more celebrity candidates. Stricter vetting of potential candidates. He acknowledges the position we are in will make that difficult but it'll need to be done. Quality over quantity.

Mary Harney gave some pretty good advice to him in her speech. In particular about the way we elected our party leader. She spoke about the loneliness of being leader. Of needing to listen to all sides but still make that final decision alone. Tough stuff but really interesting to hear especially from her.

A good night. About 120 people attended. Only seat for about 70. they were not expecting so many to turn up.
The hunger is still there.

Oh I might just *heart* Ciaran Cannon yet. Makes infinate sense that.

I do think they need a bit of good media attention because it's been NOTHING but bad since the GE.

If I were him I would tell Grealish to go f**k himself and kick him out of the party.

some of the problems that caused that happened IMO...

1. McDowell and the nonsense with Bertie's finances. It was a mess, they should have walked out, walked first ans stayed out.

2. Liberal party? Liberal in name only really. Got the economics right but were very weak on the social side. The failure to keep people like Colm O'Gorman close to the party busom being an example of this. Again there were reasons for this too, however.

3. Leadership. McDowell is a smart, capable and colourful person, but he lacked any personality to be a good leader. As soon as he got the boot there should have been a NEW leader straight away insead of the shilly shallying with Harney.

4. Candidates - dear god who picked then?! Piano man? enough said there really.

5. Policy. Was great at the beginning but it seems once they got into bed with FF it all went pare shaped. It's nice to see Cannon has identified this.

6. Galway.

"This is the part of the job I hate"

Right. It seems the game is up and the lads are "going back in" to Fianna Fail (did they ever leave?). I'm going to change the thread title back to what it was in the first place.

The PDs never got over the dire leadership provided by Harney. She failed totally to ground the party in local politics, preferring to see the wishes of those at the top table of the party hold sway. She was really not a party leader but a figurehead at the top who was not interested in the nuts and bolts work of actually running a political party.

Economically, they flirted with neo-liberalist nonsense (continuing to do so in Health) and because they believed in this nonsense, found themselves in a position to influence economic policy from 1997 to 2004, when the "more PD than any PD" Finance Minister was Charlie McCreevy. Since he was booted out of government, their influence has been waning and the last election was the effective death-knell for the party. Since then, Harney has behaved like an Independent and he inactivity as acting-leader since May 2007 until Cannon took over was testament to her believing the game was up.

They had potential but blew it. Some may miss them. I won't

Slim Buddha wrote:

The PDs never got over the dire leadership provided by Harney. She failed totally to ground the party in local politics, preferring to see the wishes of those at the top table of the party hold sway. She was really not a party leader but a figurehead at the top who was not interested in the nuts and bolts work of actually running a political party.

Economically, they flirted with neo-liberalist nonsense (continuing to do so in Health) and because they believed in this nonsense, found themselves in a position to influence economic policy from 1997 to 2004, when the "more PD than any PD" Finance Minister was Charlie McCreevy. Since he was booted out of government, their influence has been waning and the last election was the effective death-knell for the party. Since then, Harney has behaved like an Independent and he inactivity as acting-leader since May 2007 until Cannon took over was testament to her believing the game was up.

They had potential but blew it. Some may miss them. I won't

I would differ in that she was used by FF to push through a privatisation agenda in health that is going to hurt us for many years to come.

cactus flower wrote:

Slim Buddha wrote:

The PDs never got over the dire leadership provided by Harney. She failed totally to ground the party in local politics, preferring to see the wishes of those at the top table of the party hold sway. She was really not a party leader but a figurehead at the top who was not interested in the nuts and bolts work of actually running a political party.

Economically, they flirted with neo-liberalist nonsense (continuing to do so in Health) and because they believed in this nonsense, found themselves in a position to influence economic policy from 1997 to 2004, when the "more PD than any PD" Finance Minister was Charlie McCreevy. Since he was booted out of government, their influence has been waning and the last election was the effective death-knell for the party. Since then, Harney has behaved like an Independent and he inactivity as acting-leader since May 2007 until Cannon took over was testament to her believing the game was up.

They had potential but blew it. Some may miss them. I won't

I would differ in that she was used by FF to push through a privatisation agenda in health that is going to hurt us for many years to come.

I wouldn't agree with that. Privatisation of health was Harney and the PD's baby. If anything they used FF to push it though for lack of any alternative approach on FF's side of things. FF, as usual, where happy that something was being done, or at least it appeared that something was being done with health and they were more than delighted to let the PDs at it. There is no other reason that Harney could choose to pick health, she would have been a minister anyway and I don't believe it was anything to do with taking Angola being the price she paid to be at the table.

What ever my economic ideology may be (and I'm free market to the core) I don't agree with the PD approach to health in regard to co-location.
I'm all for private clinics (as my medical bill last year will show) but you can have one and/or the other and pay for them separately but not some weird hybrid of both.

cookiemonster wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Slim Buddha wrote:

The PDs never got over the dire leadership provided by Harney. She failed totally to ground the party in local politics, preferring to see the wishes of those at the top table of the party hold sway. She was really not a party leader but a figurehead at the top who was not interested in the nuts and bolts work of actually running a political party.

Economically, they flirted with neo-liberalist nonsense (continuing to do so in Health) and because they believed in this nonsense, found themselves in a position to influence economic policy from 1997 to 2004, when the "more PD than any PD" Finance Minister was Charlie McCreevy. Since he was booted out of government, their influence has been waning and the last election was the effective death-knell for the party. Since then, Harney has behaved like an Independent and he inactivity as acting-leader since May 2007 until Cannon took over was testament to her believing the game was up.

They had potential but blew it. Some may miss them. I won't

I would differ in that she was used by FF to push through a privatisation agenda in health that is going to hurt us for many years to come.

I wouldn't agree with that. Privatisation of health was Harney and the PD's baby. If anything they used FF to push it though for lack of any alternative approach on FF's side of things. FF, as usual, where happy that something was being done, or at least it appeared that something was being done with health and they were more than delighted to let the PDs at it. There is no other reason that Harney could choose to pick health, she would have been a minister anyway and I don't believe it was anything to do with taking Angola being the price she paid to be at the table.

What ever my economic ideology may be (and I'm free market to the core) I don't agree with the PD approach to health in regard to co-location.
I'm all for private clinics (as my medical bill last year will show) but you can have one and/or the other and pay for them separately but not some weird hybrid of both.

I would tend to agree. FF are bereft of anything approaching a "vision" or an "ideological core" or indeed an fixed orientation of any kind economically. They go with the flow. It was no difficult task for Harney and her fifth columnist colleague McCreevy to persuade Ahern to go along with 7 Thatcherist budgets in a row until McCreevy was persuaded to continue his career in Europe.

That said, the sooner Harney leaves politics, the better.

cookiemonster wrote:

1. McDowell and the nonsense with Bertie's finances. It was a mess, they should have walked out, walked first ans stayed out.

Can anybody tell me why McDowell didn't walk? They had nothing to lose.
I've heard before that some vote amoungst the PP was taken and that Parlon voted against walking, the rest for. McDowell decided that the decision had to be unaminous so they stayed. But I'm not sure this is true.

eoinmn wrote:

cookiemonster wrote:

1. McDowell and the nonsense with Bertie's finances. It was a mess, they should have walked out, walked first ans stayed out.

Can anybody tell me why McDowell didn't walk? They had nothing to lose.
I've heard before that some vote amoungst the PP was taken and that Parlon voted against walking, the rest for. McDowell decided that the decision had to be unaminous so they stayed. But I'm not sure this is true.

Because while they would probalby have made gains in support they wouldn't be in power, I don't think they could be in government with FG and whatever about that there wasn't a hope of them going in with Labour. How effective would they be (given the party manamemant top-down style) in opposition? I think it was a case that being an opposition party would have seemed like too much hard work for McDowell and thus the (bad) decision was made to cling to power, it turned out it was the third rail they were clinging to (bertie) and everybody died.

cookiemonster wrote:

Because while they would probalby have made gains in support they wouldn't be in power,

Oh yeah.. forgot all that.
I guess it tells us a lot that McDowell and Parlon both resigned after the count. Neither could stomach the idea of being in politics without being in power. In fairness to McDowell, he had done his time before, but Parlon!!

cookiemonster wrote:

I don't think they could be in government with FG

I would say more Labour than FG.
Also, hadn't Labour promised to not go into government with the PDs?

Personally, I don't like this "We won't go into government with that other party" nonsense.

I don't think the PDs ever established themselves as a separate political entity to Fianna Fail. They went from rebelious teenage son still living at home, to grumpy mammy's grown up son never going to move out. At no stage did they exist other than as a critique of FF.

eoinmn wrote:

cookiemonster wrote:

Because while they would probalby have made gains in support they wouldn't be in power,

Oh yeah.. forgot all that.
I guess it tells us a lot that McDowell and Parlon both resigned after the count. Neither could stomach the idea of being in politics without being in power. In fairness to McDowell, he had done his time before, but Parlon!!

I wasn't suprised by Parlon at all. He had it too good for too long and didn't want to go back to the hard work. That said I hope the CIF falls down around his feet like a badly built 3 bed semi.

Quote :

cookiemonster wrote:

I don't think they could be in government with FG

I would say more Labour than FG.
Also, hadn't Labour promised to not go into government with the PDs?

Personally, I don't like this "We won't go into government with that other party" nonsense.

They did, but that was more posturing that anything else, the PDs and Labour would never have gone in together after a millions suns. What with Labour saying that and the PD's "Leftwing government - no thanks".

Gone.

But not forgotten.

cookiemonster wrote:

But not forgotten.

Er..hem. Do you wan't to say a few words then, cookiemonster ?

I'm just after reading on pin that Dell may be laying off its staff in Limerick with a possible 3,000 redundancies. (Hope it's a rogue story but apparently it's been reported in the WSJ.) I find it somehow á propos that the PDs seem to finally be bowing out as the economic climate seems to be deteriorating by the day.

Given that Bertie had to step down this year, many depositors have become genuinely worried about Irish banks rolling over bad debts in order to avoid the inevitable write downs, and many hospitals operating at third world standards have the PD's finally decided to throw in the towel realising that many voters are going to lay the blame for the current economic/politcal climate directly on their doorstep in the years to come?

Well, I suppose the most positive things I have to say about them is that they will no longer be an economic mud-gaurd for FF. I suppose Mary will stay in her position in order to hammer the last nails in the NHS coffin and then swan off. I'll be glad to see the back of them tbh.

This has been in the pipeline a long time. Going to Poland I presume?

Madness that the appropriate ministers have done nothing to attempt to keep the jobs given the advance warning of several years which they have had of this.

johnfás wrote:

This has been in the pipeline a long time. Going to Poland I presume?

Madness that the appropriate ministers have done nothing to attempt to keep the jobs given the advance warning of several years which they have had of this.

Yeah, apparently the factory located in Lodz Poland is 40% bigger than it needs to be and could easily handle the Irish business.

I should emphasize that there is absolutely no indepdent confirmation of a Dell decision yet. However, reading the WSJ article and by what seems to be some knowledgeable commentary on pin, the jobs in Limerick don't look too safe in the long run. The WSJ also highlighted the fact that Ireland had become an expensive place to do business and that home prices had skyrocketed.

Under PD/FF government we have gone in the last 8 years from the EU's most to least (but one) competitive economy. Job done, so they fold up their tents. Pity they're not going to Poland.

The Carrion Birds are circling ..

RTE wrote:

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has accused the Government of deliberate and wilful neglect of the economy.

Mr Kenny was speaking at the opening of his parliamentary party strategy session in Limerick.

He also said his party would be very interested in talking to members of the Progressive Democrats looking for a new political home - especially those elected with Fine Gael votes.
Advertisement

Mr Kenny said the economy would be central to Fine Gael's thoughts and actions in the coming Dáil session.

RTE

There are 24 PD councillors around the country - isn't that right? Any prominent ones at a council office near you? Which of them will end up with what parties too ....