So now we know – both Simon Harris and Micheál Martin are willing to have Michael Lowry help them form a government.
Simon Harris:“That’s the way our democracy, our parliamentary democracy, works. And the deputy [MichaelLowry] has been elected.”
Micheál Martin: “Michael Lowry has been elected by the people of Tipperary three times since 2016, and he has supported governments in every Dáil since then.”
Are there any reasons why they shouldn’t have agreed to forming a coalition with Michael Lowry? Well, yes. Lowry was Minister for Communications from 1994-96. The Moriarty Tribunal declared Lowry was a tax evader and had assisted businessman Denis O’Brien in acquiring a lucrative mobile phone licence while he was Minister for Communications.
This is in marked contrast to Fine Gael and Fianna Fail’s refusal to form a government with Sinn Féin as it was “not a normal party”, according to Leo Varadkar. As for Micheál Martin: “I could never be sure with Sinn Féin in terms of who you are dealing with. Is it unelected officials in Belfast who rule the roost, who control the levers of power within that party?”
So there you are. In contrast to blank refusal to consider coalition with Sinn Féin, both FG and FF welcome the possibility of Michael Lowry sitting in government with them.
The lyrics of a musical hall song from the 1930s come to mind:
‘It was early last December,
As near as I remember,
I was walking down the street in tipsy pride;
No one was I disturbing
As I lay down by the curbing,
And a pig came up and lay down by my side.
As I lay there in the gutter
Thinking thoughts I shall not utter,
A lady passing by was heard to say:
” You can tell a man who boozes
By the company he chooses ” ;
And the pig got up and slowly walked away.’
The last line is very weak. It might just as easily said – “the pig got up and LAMELY walked away.”
My father, who never used the “F” word heard it about 1920 and the line had more clout:-
“And the FUCKING PIG got up and walked away.”
He heard it from a fellow student in UCC who was a prominent Republican in the Civil War.
I’ve forgotten the name.
We try not to use bad language on this blogsite, Donal.
Touche! Jude Maith Thu ✊
We try not to use bad language on this blogsite, Donal.
Grma, Paul…
Cast your mind back,Jude,to the early 20s. That old knife in the back, when the pro Treaty free staters sold us down the river. Same old, same old. They had to be pushed into a fight with the colonial masters and they extracted themselves as soon as they could.
Facile nonsense , not all volunteers who joined the Free State army were followers of the progenitor of FG .Many like my father believed that the treaty which was ratified in two separate Dáil votes was the democratic will of the people .Those who opposed the treaty were traitors and in the minority .
Were those who opposed the treaty not being faithful to the spirit of the Proclamation and the men and women of 1916? Therefore were those who accepted it, and the abandonment of northern nationalists that was part and partial of it, not the actual traitors?