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Café Bars and the Privacy Bill
Read more about: Dublin South East, Irish Election, Irish Election 2007, Irish Politics, Manifesto, Policy, Progressive Democrats
Q: What do these two things have in common?
A: They’re both in the news today for the same reason.
Two short quotes. The first one is from the list of motions for the Progressive Democrats‘ national conference today:
Motion 19
Conference calls for a review of the proposed privacy legislation in the Party’s General Election Manifesto in particular to avoid the dangers of muzzling the press through court injunction.
Dublin South EastMotion 20
Conference calls on Government to reactivate the proposal for café bars.
Dublin South East
The second is from a story on the RTE news website:
The PD conference in Wexford has voted overwhelmingly for the reactivation of party leader Michael McDowell’s café bar proposals. … The conference also voted in favour of a review of proposed Privacy legislation.
I’d say that the delegates from Dublin South East (the constituency of Michael McDowell, PD Party Leader, and Tánaiste and Minister for Justice) have set several cats among several pigeons with these motions. We’ll have to wait and see whether these policies make it into the forthcoming election manifesto (and any subsequent programme for government).
(Thanks to Daithí for tipping me off about this (offblog). Cian’s already posted on this, below. Cross-posted from Cearta).
I reckon it would have to be in a manifesto since it is now party policy again. Also it helps in a way to allow for some clear space between FF and the PDs which is precisely what FF worry about. They no longer have a scapegoat if the PDs get enough individuality before an election.
Perhaps HQ will be less annoyed than we think?
Also a mandate from his party is a strong position for McDowell to bring to bear on both debates.