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Here’s the transcript of today’s showdown in the Dail between Enda Kenny (and a chorus) and Brian Cowen. The record doesn’t capture an apparent swear word that was used by Cowen in the course of the proceedings. But it does make clear that Cowen never answered Kenny’s question about what had happened to funds allocated to palliative care over the last three years — and whether HSE managers had collected income for managing a program that was never implemented.
More generally, it looks like Cowen’s style will not be like Bertie’s, who was much better at parrying the jabs from the opposition and relying on the briefing book to give what sounded like an answer. The early evidence that Cowen prefers old style shouting and roaring (”For Deputy Reilly’s attention, I can organise it so that every time his man completes a sentence, I can have people roaring and shouting on this side if he wants.”/”If you keep that tactic up, I will make sure he will not be heard in this House.”)
UPDATE: Listening to the audio of the exchange, Cowen appears to refer to “all those fu*kers”. ADDED: Cowen’s spin to RTE is that it was a reference to health officials, not FG.
No need to censor the word P, it’s not that offensive
Joe higgins eloquently said dealing with the bert was like playing handball against a haystack. well looks like cowen’s throwing the ball back and putting some oomph behind it. of all the issues to dick around on health is the one where he will do damage to himself with antics like this. from a Fianna failers perspective parrying the answer would do so much better than playing to the yahoos behind him. still early days so far and sure people might like the fdact he is blunt speaking and to the point but he needs to show a few results as well to get away with this childishness.
Gavin, I was concerned more for readers on systems that do snooping for those kinds of words rather then any delicate sensibilities. Perhaps Cowen will claim he said the more benign “feckers”.
Great post on Moriarty btw. The revelations haven’t stopped.