Neilformer – Commie in disguise (he of the Che loving, Coke hating Labour Kids) takes a few shots at Roderic O’Gorman and his nonsense post about the Green Party and their backturning on equality. Neil makes very salient points and also points to Ciarán Cuffe and another blog post on his view of the past week. I don’t for a second believe what he said last week in the press but once again a blog post from Ciarán gives me some hope that the Greens have some morals. What good are morals though if you never take a stand? Anyway, contrast Ciarán’s blog post with Roderic‘s. I know which one is more transparent. As Neil also points out, I think it very poor form to use the names of Katherine Zappone and Anne-Louise Gilligan to try and copperfasten what the Green Party did last week. It’s pretty low in my books.
Speaking of low, while cheap to laugh at a typo, I find it funny that Roderic talks about getting passed the spin, (I think he meant getting past the spin) as if he was the next baton holder in the Green Party FUDathon. It seems indeed that Roderic picked up the baton and performed well enough, if spin and buck passing is the game. Screencap of the blog post title before it is changed on Rodder’s blog.
I wonder will I get dressed down privately now because of what I said about the Greens? I hear that’s the new fashion these days.
Bonus link to Una’s piece last Sunday on Ciarán.
Neilformer – I like it 🙂
“I wonder will I get dressed down privately now because of what I said about the Greens?”
Fnar.
While we’re talking about typos did Ciaran Cuffe really mean “March 2009 date for the Heads of the Bill”
http://cuffestreet.blogspot.com/2007/11/civil-partnership.html
It was 2008 in his press release – and also as maman poulet pointed out somewhere – why do civil partnerships need a new “agency”
http://www.greenparty.ie/en/news/latest_news/greens_praise_govt_pledge_on_same_sex_unions
Oops, 2008
🙂
no one is answering my question about this new agency though
Ian – we need to get our deck chairs ready and all don’t you know! To wait in line for our inequality. A naming competition for the new agency for third class citizenship was underway online last week…Maybe we should go national and get a prize fund going! Damien – bring home an iphone or something from Paddy’s Valley – that should get them motivated!
I can understand the angry reaction to the Greens, but I wonder if we assume the battle is lost. Is it possible that behind the scenes, the two and a half ministers will say to their larger partner that this waffle about presumptive relationships and special agencies is off limits or they walk?
Is there reason to hopel they will realise when the dust settles that abandoning so much principle for pragmatism upends the main reason many of their voters support them?
(BTW, see Stephen King’s column in today’s Irish Examiner.)
Damien
In response to your comments on my blog, it’s not a question of whether I believe what Brian Lenihan says or not. It’s a question of whether what he says stands up to legal scrutiny.
Having looked into his (and the Attorney General’s) opinion that S. 7 of the Labour bill was possibly an unconstitutional delegation of power to a minister, I believe that he was almost certainly correct. This provision was key to the Labour bill as it was intended to do in one section what it took over 200 sections to do in the British Civil Partnership Act – amend all existing legislation to provide for civil unions without having any of these amendments discussed in the Dail.
As such, I believe he was right to say the Labour bill was at risk of being struck down by the Supreme Court for unconstitutionality.
Therefore, in my view it is better to put forward a Government bill that will not have the same risk of being struck down.
Roderic