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Right here we go for round two, don’t forget the Green Party are tonight’s warm-up act with their PPB. Anyway RTE will be streaming it live at http://www.rte.ie/live/index.html drop your comments below.
Post a comment below:
Here’s the Dept of Finance statement issued late last evening about the Minister’s discussion with the banks. I think we know why some banks didn’t want to be in the guarantee scheme: those in the scheme can be made an offer they can’t refuse: to merge.
Mary Harney’s expensive trip to Houston and Phoenix.
The FAS/Florida row is not the only time the issue of her travel costs has arisen.
techPresident – The Future of Campaign Technology: The Ground Game
Irish Parties looking at learning online and database lessons from Obama could do worse than bear this post in mind. Almost as soon as the election is over, improvements and evolution are making some parts redundant and others essential. Get your campaign an i-phone for everyone? Might be better than printing flyers, it goes to show how parties, if they take it seriously, need to keep ahead of the wave - not just follow.
Colman at the EuroTrib give his reasoning on why Lisbon is dead. The Government's incapable handling of the budget cuts are the nail in the coffin.
Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar offers his view on how the SBP Opinion Poll would translate in an election.
So people can this live up to last nights battle royale?
I wouldn’t have thought so Simon but I’m hoping to be pleasantly surprised.
HOpeful but have to agree with tuathal. Last night was a good left-right battle with good personality/policy mix. We shall wait and see
bertie wins round one i think
Enda is channeling John Wayne with the walk to the podium. Bloody contracts. “Good for the immigrants”. They’re people not lepers Enda.
Bertie’s statement: He looks like he has too much make-up. He seems to be a little defensive. Mentions rural during the first few minutes. That’s more than any other leader last night. Good, but he looks stress.
Kenny’s statement: He sounds like a headmaster. That’s bad. The focus is on the contract, responsibility and the like. His words are good, but he isn’t anywhere near as likeable as Kenny. Focus on the hospitals and all things health. Good move. Hard on crime. Nice talk on immigration. Pretty good.
Answer the question Enda, stop attacking Bertie. Are you experienced?
they’re people not lepers
Enda looks very wooden so far. It had to be a big FG worry he would but that speech was not great.
ya not getting the right vibe across.
It’s not very heated, is it? It’d be boring if not for the tension. Both men know they can’t afford to look like a hothead. There’s no point winning the debate if they come out of it looking like McDowell-light.
Kenny mentioned Haughey. That’s a road Bertie can’t go down.
Really I want the two men to address each other not just Miriam.
might call it madness might call it bravery. how about not worth the paper it is written on
Good patch for Enda, got onto comfortable (i.e. well rehearsed) ground. Almost built momentum.
Miriam is much less likely to take that guff niall. It will hardly make the sort of rumpus we had last night.
Your right tho a bit of head to head, with only the two of them it is likely to happen in time.
Go Miriam. Bertiegate is up for debate. This could make or break Kenny.
Bertie has the answers well prepared. Too well. They sound scripted. Great poker-face when the questions are asked. Watch the Taoiseach’s blink count though. He’s VERY nervous.
dodging the issue on the suitcase bertie
Enda is dodging it even more!
dodging the question enda.
What a fucking chump. A plate she gave you, a fucking plate! You could have defended a family and still torn him to bits. Imagine Rabbitte given this opportunity.
dodging policy more like
about halfway threw. who is ahead.
if Enda doesnt nail health he should be sacked.
You’re right Cian. Miriam is good. But I’d like if she tried to stir things up a little.
Enda is doing well on Bertiegate. He knows he’s winning the election and cannot afford to come off as a hot head. Besides, the floaters haven’t been turned off by Bertiegate already, which means he can’t afford to tackle Bertie’s personality.
Bertie talks about his personal friends. Yet he couldn’t remember their names at times!
And Miriam’s moves to health. It’s a well set up debate.
Enda is loving it. He’s on to his own territory.
Bertie wants Enda to talk to dead people.
Bertie boxed him into a corner on cancer spends. Woo.
bertie getting in there a few digs
bertie winning on health.
He’s still avoiding the budgeting. Idiot.
Trying to defend the health service!
Finally the pair are starting to address each-other.
Bertie is coming across well in a debate for once. Kenny is holding back. No point winning the battle at the expense of the war, but he’s not saying what we need him to.
He could have nailed Bertie, but that might not be a good thing.
It’s chess, not Quake.
“Pd social experiment” You hear simon!!! he told you!
Yeah Bertie is winning on health. Enda knew he walked into it once he admitted to the 2.4 figure
Miriam is better on private hospitals than Enda
don’t know niall health is enda’s best card. if he can’t hammer bertie on that. not much hope
A Taoiseach lecturing a lost inexperienced politician. Who’s the bitch now Enda?
My god, this is embarassing for Fine Gael. Miriam is not accepting sound bites.
enda looks defeated
“You’re always honest Taoiseach” love it.
Nice to know Enda is goinig to fix health by magic. Essentially his argument is “Look, its in my contract. It will be done after 5 years”
Caught on the facts by Miriam and then Bertie moves in for the kill.
Have to say that the choice offered isn’t exactly compelling, now is it?
Bertie is doing well. Kenny is holding back. He’s really holding back. Eveytime it seems like he could move up a gear, he stops. He’s quiet. The anti-McDowell. Bertie is interupting him, and Kenny is just taking it.
Kenny needs to get a little more aggressive. He’s clearly been told to hold back. We’ve seen him acting much more aggressive.
And he is. He’s bringing up the broken promises, but Bertie is badgering him into oblivion.
Bertie dodges the nothern questions. Miriam is hitting Bertie harder than Enda.
I swear to god, Enda Kenny and his “I’ll tell you why” makes him come across as a snakeoil salesman being condescending to the peasants at his sideshow. Does he know any facts on the health system. Waiting for him to mention e-voting next now.
McDowell is right, the junior party runs a coalition. Last night’s debate could well be the more decisive
Enda is trying to play bertie at his own game on numbers. Its not one he is likely to win.
enda lost health. does everyone agree?
Yes. Badly. The only person in Irish Politics that could lose a debate on a sure thing?
Yip, I give health to Bertie although Enda rallied at the end.
Does he really have to call Bertie taoiseach?
I was finding it hard to pay attention there for a while. Enda is charisma free.
What do you reckon the amusing question at the end will be?
Ten years experience as Taoiseach certainly begins to count… But…is his heart in it?
miriam would do far better then enda. FG should give her the leadership.
When are they going to address the Kunle issue?
is he being challenged enough to decide on that WBS? I agree he doesnt seem at his 100% but he isn’t being challenged to raise his game.
It will be after whooping Boreda’s ass
Dead right Wildstorm.
Douche 0 Turd Sandwich 0
We’re moving on to the economy. Enda Kenny’s spin that it is the workers who brought the wealth is the best tactic in the situation.
Bertie talks crap on “what if it the economy doesn’t grow at rate x”. Corrective action! For God’s sake, that’s no different that saying “We’ll do something”.
Miriam is a star. She should be Taoiseach.
Bertie is doing ok on the economy. Kenny doesn’t come across as incompetent, but he didn’t shine either.
Over on Politics.ie they seem to think Enda shaded health.
Broadband, yay! Pity your manifesto is shite.
Enda is suffering from sheer lack of critique. Bertie’s fluency with figures is just blinding him. Good, high quality jobs, bio tech industry, FDI, Enda: silence. His counterattack is not really an attack. Oh, broadband! But he’s not pushing the knife home… should been briefing him Damien!!
Politics.ie, bless them. Up so late on a school night.
Damien Mulley “Politics.ie, bless them. Up so late on a school night.”
That’s cruel…
Oh dear, Bertie is starting to enjoy himself… Enda is on the defensive…
How boring compared to last night.
That’s an interesting question Cian. It’s all low wattage stuff. To be honest as Mick Fealty notes, Ahern is tending to bat him aside, seems fairly assured.
Let me finesse that, not just assured, actually conversational…
Kenny needs to stop Cuntie speaking over him.
bertie is kicking his ass. enda out of his depth. nailing him on the 5.8 billion
Oh dear, Bertie is starting to enjoy himself… Enda is on the defensive…
And that’s the thing - you just can’t imagine Enda enjoying himself. He’s so square.
fiscal fecking envelopes and bloody bond floatations…this is the electorate Enda not a Phd economics class…
And look what setting universities free with their bond flotations has done for Old Irish in UCD…
`
Oh dear, Bertie is starting to enjoy himself… Enda is on the defensive…
And that’s the thing - you just can’t imagine Enda enjoying himself. He’s so square.
lol how is enda losing this so bad.
Wow, “making up policy on the hoof” re Stamp Duty, but it was from Miriam… Bertie goads him with his (ie FF’s) ’socialist’ redistributive tax policy…
if Bertie has managed to get coversational that is a devastating indictment of Enda. Mick spot on Bertie’s grasp of figures is drowning Enda he cannot build a platform to attack Bertie at all. Bertie is running away with this.
Bertie lined himself up to a “We know very well about your special relationships with developers” and Boreda missed it
bertie brings up builders. enda does not bring up galway races tent
loser
bertie managed to land a hit on larger earners being better off. this is mad.
It is mad. How can Ahern be running towards the left in this way. Sort of similar in a way to Rabbittes put down to Adams last night on tax.
who won that section.
Ahern
OKAY this is where the party is
Bertie: “You have decided that the top three percent should benefit from your tax proposal. I accept that that is what you have decided, and it’s against Labour policy but it’s your decision”.
Enda didn’t even hear it, never mind see it coming… It’s playground stuff, but Bertie’s got the whip hand long periods of silence, he’s not prepared to grant Enda. Shouldn’t Miriam just slap him down?
How can Ahern be running towards the left in this way.
Cos enda is unable to stop him. He can do what he wishes it seems.
Bertie won.
I’ve me glass of organic cider… but when that’s gone, that’s it…
go miriam
Yeah and those in jail don’t have broadband - disgraceful
mick will you give it to enda for the sake of giving life to this debate?
speak over him for fecks sake enda
I have to say, Kenny is really not coming out of this terribly well. Defensive, I’d say.
For looking stately and dignified? Certainly!
he did talk over you enda, get stuck in…
haha, Bertie tells Kenny not to talk over. Fucking hell.
At least we don’t have as much crime as Glasgow. I’m reassured.
Bertie:
“If you keep talking over me, I’ll have to keep talking over you”.
Bye bye enda. Fianna Fail Labour/Green/SF here we come
Did you hear Neil Delamare on the panel as to how they calculate how many gardai they need? Count the single nurses
can see green ink at work now … sniffer dog…
Bertie now speaking to enda as if he is a little child.
Yeah twenty and Jim o keefe will be on the case to reduce it further. Inspired with confidence? me neither.
What is with the sniffer dogs? I get it but really, sniffer dogs?
Was it just me or did enda admit they are only paying for the 1,000-odd extra gardai?
please just win one Enda. just won please. For entertainment. Miriam is beating him at this stage
CAN WE MOVE ON FROM THE 2 FUCKING thousand GARDAI, IT’S BEEN THREE DAYS NOW.
Jeez Simon, Miriam is wiping the floor with both of them
eh what infrastructure
“You have presided over this country for ten years”… Miriam again… Trouble for Enda is that a lot of that is actually good news…
biggest problem RM, these are points that we, part-timers, are calling him up on while Kenny misses them.
Twenty: “…we don’t have as much crime as Glasgow.” Or Wales!
It’s like a metro wreck
I wish Enda would stop saying ‘I agree’. Stop please.
Dieticians! Who tha hell cares. Concentrate on education!
I could do bbetter then this and I am crap at debating. Enda making a bit of traction on this. Bertie not challanging him on it thought. Giving him a bit of rope perphaps
when he said obesity I groaned, sure its important but there are so many other really big things that he could have said.
I keep having to put in a code to verify comments cos of bad behaviour? Is it from posting so often?
he should have hammered that point on aba. the mother does know best in that case.
Fat children might take up two hospital beds, Red Mum.
The cheek!! SPeaking in Irish!! I’m raging!
Was Enda speaking in tongues?
LOL at twenty
hahaha, Bertie’s little ‘thank you very much in Irish’ was hilarious.
Poll added who won the debate.
Nothing like a bit of the native tongue to get the votes, eh?
Great to hear a fluent bit of the ould tongue I can actually understand… but not really a reason to get out vote for him…
Twenty it seemed like bertie reckoned he needed to show he can speak irish too. sums up the debate really.
Now they have that new ‘The Faster the Speed, the bigger the mess’ Ad on the RTE1. Its like a recap of the debate.
LOL@ the poll. Miriam winning.
Bertie won the debate. But it won’t win the elction for him. Kenny didn’t blow it, and relaly, that’s all he had to do.
There’s lots of us who wanted to see Kenny stamp all over Bertie. But we’re not the ones who might vote for Fianna Fail. He was playing to his target audience.
Bertie did well in the debate. But now, he will most likely return to the shadows. Which will minimise the political dividend FF might have received.
And I’ll tell you why….
Twenty it seemed like bertie reckoned he needed to show he can speak irish too. sums up the debate really.
Exactly. Lucky I’m not running. The only thing I can do is ask to go the toilet.
No doubt that Bertie won this one - Enda didn’t land a single punch.
He nailed Enda on the tax thing (the top 3% benefiting most, his silence spoke volumes), he nailed him on Gardaí numbers (2000 people including the 800 on the way anyway) and he nailed him on the free GP care for under 5s (no child born today will benefit from it).
Solid work from Bertie, not terrible but very sloppy work from Enda - I doubt he managed to pick up any undecided voters from this one…
And I’ll tell you why….
Lack of joined up thinking?
Might I chip in with a pertinent excerpt from Mongrel’s C**ts List 2007:
12. Bertie Ahern and Enda Kenny
It’s the Ambassador’s reception and we, the Irish electorate, are the guests of honour. We’re dolled up to the nines, munching on canapés and sipping glasses of red wine. Suddenly a great door is thrown open and the two prospective candidates for Taoiseach are wheeled in. We gasp in amazement. “Monsieur,” we gush. “With these two stuttering imbeciles, you are really spoiling us!”
Enda and Bertie. Howsoever shall we choose between them? Should we plump for the gormless nonentity who appears unqualified to lead a blackberry-picking expedition, let alone a modern European democracy? Or should we re-elect the squirming, foxy little troll whose incompetence and endless equivocations we’ve already suffered through ten long years? Should we vote for a government led by a dull, centreright political party so fucking joyless they probably still have their communion money safely stowed away in their piggy banks? Or should we plump for a government led by a dull, centre-right political party so corrupt they stole our communion money and blew it on fancy restaurants and Charvet shirts?
I know, I know, Ireland is a small country and (as the saying goes) you can only piss with the cock you’ve got. But it would be nice, all the same, to have leaders who were, oh I don’t know, dynamic, idealistic, charismatic, visionary or just, I dunno, anything other than completely shit.
http://www.mongrel.ie/may07pp28.php
@ twenty, lack of feckin clue.
I’m not sure Niall. It looks to me that Bertie had to try and get a good message of the prosperity of the last ten years out, and own it. And to blow Enda’s pretender credentials. I’m going with Adam’s verdict and would add that he also got through the dig out stuff unscathed (with Enda’s help). In the background, I suspect, this has been weighing him down for most of this campaign so far.
Lastly, oppositions don’t win elections, governments throw them away. A passable performance is not as important as boxing Bertie in. It’s not terminal for Enda (by rights he has to do much better than Noonan), but it ain’t good for him either.
Twenty… I agree…
(so who’s going to count the number of times Enda agreed with the bert and told him why?)
Jesus Christ. I could smell that debate through the television and it smelt like a weeks worth of unflushed shite in an Aitkens Diet retreat centre. Um, Enda, you were allowed to jump in when Bertie said something you didn’t agree with, you know? Were you aware that those big things pointing at you were TV cameras? They’re whacky inventions altogether, they make your picture appear on TVs in voters homes throughout the country. Mad what? Did you actually use any English, Irish or other language or were those flapping sounds the onomatopoeic approximation of “I give up before I’ve even started, I’m shitting a brick, these bright lights I’m not used to and I think that big blonde woman is using me as a toothpick”?
Where can I get a refund?
Don’t think it’ll make much difference in the end though.
woo hoo the real deabte. PJ versus Flannery on Prime time
Surprised ENDA never pushed the accountability theme. This is really important theme for many people I know. Accountability will drive better service.
Crime: Bertie says “it’s a disgrace” that a criminal in a high security prison is able to phone liveline show. I agree Bertie, but last I heard the Governor of Portlaoise is still in a job! SACK HIM, he needs to know that if he doesn’t sack his prison wardens for giving room service to gangland crime bosses that he will loose his job.
Anyone every walked into a garda station and notice how slow they are to come to the counter? They are lazy bas tards. Make the ones we have - work!
Local Government: County Engineer allows city water supply to become contaminated by incompetence and inaction. SACK HIM NOW! (After 5 years working in private industry I am now working in local authority for past six months. It’s a joke how little work im given. There is no hurry on anyone)
Health: 40% of employees are administrators. Will some get the f… in there and start handing out p45’s…. Pay for the redundancies. You will be in profit in year 3
I could go on and on. For me it’s not about spending billions on more this and more that. It’s about proper management of resources and accountability in Government.
Bertie doesn’t do it for me, and after tonight Enda didn’t convince me that he will be any better.
Winner: Miriam. I thought she looked pretty hot tonight!
Certainly, that debate wasn’t good for Enda. But he has the lead, a very real lead. If FG don’t screw up, they win. If Fianna Fail don’t pull something out of the bag they lose. Bertie did well, but it wasn’t pulling something out of the bag. Enda didn’t do well, but it wasn’t a total screw up.
If I were betting man, my money would still be on Enda to be the next Taoiseach.
i read flannery as saying on prime time that they put feck all work into this. it showed tonight
Prime time calling it a draw. did they watch the same debate?
examiner call it a draw
Enda was thrashed.
Leaves us with the horrible dilema now…everyone says we need change, but I dont want that useless fecker taking over!
Same as every past leaders debate. Each side will think their man won and in a week no floating voter will actually remember tonight. You’re not going to get agreement here (but it’s entertaining) and you won’t get it outside in the real world. Basically a draw over 15 rounds but if someone wants to convince me one man won it on points fair enough as it won’t make a difference. It’s still going to be Fianna Fail & Labour in 6 weeks time “for the good of the nation”
I’m getting some American drama on One online… bugger… their server crashed just before the last phase of the debate…