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The silly season is definitely over
Read more about: Bertiegate, Fianna Fail, Government, Health, Media, Referenda, Scandal, Sinn Féin, Youth
It was difficult to expect much news over the traditional Christmas Break and Bertie is probably hoping for an extra week’s grace with his trip to the Gulf, but an election year both sides of the border is starting to concentrate minds, so below the fold a roundup of recent developments —
The children’s rights referendum will include an “an absolute zone of protection” for underage children from sexual relations, but kicks into touch on what age that would be
A firm owned by Bertie collection plate contributor Joe Burke is going bust
Sinn Fein could well be on the right side of policing, both sides of the border, by the time an election in the Republic takes place
Bertie is backing away (subs. req’d; alt. RTE link) from what looked like his fix to get the National Children’s Hospital at the Mater (and wouldn’t it be an awful pickle if the constitutional amendment on children’s rights ended up being a factor in litigation surrounding the location of this hospital?)
We’ve also heard through the blog grapevine of at least one blogger getting a solicitor’s letter upon writing about a long rumbling controversy at the Department of Arts concerning the National Library and a very well-timed transaction in a Joycean manuscript. Apparently something in one of the Sunday tabloids was a little too hot to handle but will be on the boil at exactly the wrong time for FF’s image.
UPDATE: Ingredients for the first FF-PD row of the new year with the Mater controversy? Mary and Bertie are not on the same page.
Re: FF-PD row. These will simmer until Bertie is ready to announce the election date and then he will take her on and there will be a blow up and Mary and Michael et al will head off into oblivion and Bertie will promise that he will undo all the problems caused by the PDs - a promise he will forget when the votes are counted. By the way - what is wrong with Mary? She certainly has no bite left if the Q & A programme is anything to go by. She has lost all enthusiasm for the job. Is she a defeated woman?
Al, I don’t know why she sought out the health job. Whenever I think about that job, I think about what John Reid allegedly said when Blair gave him that job in one of his reshuffles — “Oh F*CK, not health!”