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NOBODY is in charge of Fianna Fáil’s messages and the party will be “massacred” in the next elections as a result, it was said tonight at the party’s parliamentary meeting.
After Health Minister Stephen Donnelly briefed TDs and senators on efforts to help nursing students financially, he was told by several people that his points were being made “a week too late.”
Many TDs suffered public criticism after the government rejected a Solidarity / People before profit motion to pay nursing students, who risked their lives in the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
FF TDs John Lahart, Padraig O’Sullivan and Marc MacSharry said the issue had been mishandled in the past week.
One said: “It doesn’t make sense for us to get a detailed briefing and documents late. We should have been competing with Instagram posts last week. “
The criticisms followed an extensive contribution by Mr. Donnelly describing how improvements in student nursing assignments are underway.
One of the meeting attendees said, “He told us how he’s doing and everything for the nurses with this review and that report, and so on.”
Sources said MacSharry said the presentation came a week too late when it came to nursing, as the damage to the public had already been done.
He said the party needed to have a courier chief, ideally a TD or at least someone with a political nose on the ground.
This person would test the problems and anticipate how they are likely to develop and be received.
MacSharry said he had asked several previous ministers last week: “Who is in charge of messaging at FF?
He added forcefully, “None of them knew, and neither did I, and it shows.”
Cork East’s James O’Connor, a new TD and the youngest in the game at 22, is said to have “gotten hard” on the same topic, saying there was a lack of factual information and talking points to counter. to the Opposition. the emotional theme of nursing students.
He was one of those who told Mr. Donnelly: “Your briefing is a week too late.
“Fianna Fáil will be massacred in the next elections if we cannot act together on the motions of private members like this one,” he warned.
MacSharry said he had raised the need to award a scholarship to nursing students a month ago in anticipation of the coming troubles for the government.
Returning to the subject tonight, the Sligo TD said there was no need for “countless reports” or investigations and negotiations with INMO.
“We needed to provide a scholarship of about 150 euros per week to cover his expenses and move on,” he said.
If TDs had been told everything that was happening before the “disastrous” motion by private members last week, they might have done it as good news, he said.
“This could and should have been a positive story rather than the pitiful disaster that it is.”
Several DTs praised the vaccine rollout and managing priority cohorts, but said the government was being disappointed in other areas.
There were calls for “some common sense” around Covid’s current restrictions with discrimination in sport, so the GAA of minors can continue, but soccer, rugby and other sports cannot. organize youth games.
Calls were again made that wet pubs be allowed to open, under strict rules, during the Christmas period, and that while dancing was understandably not allowed, musical performances with distant patrons should be allowed in venues.
Cavan-Monaghan TD Niamh Smyth raised the lack of maternity leave and TD pay in light of Justice Minister Helen McEntee’s announcement that she is expecting a baby in May.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that maternity leave in the Oireachtas, childcare and other issues for women in politics should be considered very seriously.
They were a disincentive for women to enter politics and there was a need to modernize the way the Oireachtas does its business.
“Reforms to support women in politics will be prioritized,” she said.
She pledged to work with the Oireachtas women’s group on all related issues, and said it was important to achieve progressive change in how parliament works.
It may also be necessary to seriously consider constitutional change to achieve permanent and sustainable progress, he said.
Meanwhile, Martin also told TDs and senators that there is a “continuing risk” of a no-deal Brexit.
He said there are still “significant differences” on the issue of the so-called “level playing field.”
He said that there is a route for the resolution of the negotiations on fisheries and said that it is positive that the protocols for the North are already agreed.
But he warned that there is a “continuing risk” of a no-deal Brexit that, coupled with the ongoing pandemic, would have a very serious impact.
Online editors
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