[ad_1]
Horse trade.
Horse trade, you say?
Oh merciful hour.
You’ve gone too far now, Mary Lou McDonald. Far away.
Did the Sinn Féin leader really claim that a “horse swap” may have occurred during the painfully protracted negotiations between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to form a hitherto inconceivable and therefore enormously historic Coalition Government?
Well, honest with God.
Easy, Taoiseach. Aromatic salts and a great brandy for Micheál Martin – stat!
In all of his 31 years at the Dáil Micheál he has never heard anything as scandalous as the words spoken by Mary Lou on the floor of the Dáil’s temporary chamber at the Dublin Convention Center on Wednesday. He felt very insulted, offended and outraged on his own behalf and on behalf of the current Attorney General that she should even hint that the elevation of former FG AG Séamus Woulfe to the Supreme Court, and the decision to replace him with two AG that rotate in sync with rotary taoisigh, had something to do with the Coalition negotiations.
Or “horse swap” as it is commonly known.
Something so terrible to allege and the Taoiseach was rightly scandalized. What’s Next on the Equine Pump Front? It would not be overlooked to suggest below that Micheal D is adopting a Connemara pony from the Kylemore nuns.
Have you ever heard something similar?
But there it was. Micheál Martin, fighting in the Leinster House bear pit for 31 years, man and boy, suddenly accused of participating in some kind of politicking.
Micheál Martin vehemently argues that Justice Minister McAbsEntee should not have to appear before the Dáil to answer questions
The outrage occurred at noon when Mary Lou resumed the chase of the Taoiseach and Helen McAbsEntee (the Minister of Justice has definitely not yet come to the Dáil to explain why the exchange of horses for government jobs, including legal ones, never, never happened ). The dispute began the day before over a selection process in which Séamus Woulfe ascended to the Supreme Court despite never having been a judge, amid confusion over how Fine Gael Minister and Leo Varadkar loyalist McEntee They recommended the outgoing FG AG as the Coalition’s new candidate for Supreme Court.
As if McDonald doesn’t know.
Stubborn
In particular, she was eager to continue Tuesday’s line of questions, in concert with a very opinionated Alan Kelly from Labor, about how three sitting justices who filed applications didn’t seem to have an eye on the process. Or maybe they did: Kelly and McDonald just wanted to know how the minister handled the selection system.
Because for the life of it, they can’t figure it out.
And this is why Mary Lou and Alan, as a couple of well-seasoned political thugs that you likely have, are breaking into the obvious with big innocent heads in an effort to embarrass the government, and the Taoiseach in particular. , on judicial appointments.
It is not proving to be a difficult task, especially as Micheál Martin argues vehemently that Justice Minister McAbsEntee should not have to appear before the Dáil to answer questions. Unfortunately for Micheál, he broke very publicly on the Dáil in 2017 when an outgoing attorney general was appointed to the Court of Appeal, demanding that the then Minister of Justice appear before the Dáil with answers.
Words that the Sinn Féin leader was delighted to return to him three years later.
She seemed very pleased with herself when her efforts in the Leaders’ Questions resulted in a Martin technician blatantly sidestepping the main thrust of her inquiries by concentrating on having a major fume attack on the use of the word “horse swap.”
“At the end of the government formation talks between you and Fine Gael, you announced that the attorney general position would be rotated in line with that of taoiseach. So the attorney general position was critical to their negotiation. Séamus Woulfe, outgoing attorney general, long-time member of Fine Gael, was appointed to the Supreme Court. “
Cynical Hacks
That’s usually the way these things happen, pretty good. Although that does not mean that it happened earlier this year when Micheál and Leo were locked in negotiations to form a government. It would be deeply unfair for cynical pirates to assume that the two men running the coalition talks reached an agreement on certain important jobs before shaking hands on the deal.
The Taoiseach (31 year old TD, male and boy) was livid at the mere thought.
“I want to say one thing at the beginning,” he began in his cold reply to Mary Lou. “Your claim that there was a horse deal in the context of Paul Gallagher’s appointment as Attorney General and some connection to the appointment of Justice Woulfe to the Supreme Court, is a lie and a false claim.
“And he must withdraw it because it calls into question the integrity and capacity of the current Attorney General, who has had nothing to do with it.”
No one ever said the current Attorney General was making the deal. When you go to Tattersalls, you don’t see Dobbin sitting on the sales ring with his hooves on the deck.
Congressman McDonald dismissed the Taoiseach’s response as “incoherent gibberish,” a charge that Micheál could have verifiably dismissed as “a lie and a false claim.” It just wasn’t a very good answer.
Her anger did not convince her and she called McEntee to explain how four names were reduced to one, the selection criteria used, and why she did not inform the party leader Taoiseach and Verde (the Tánaiste has not indicated if she was told) that three sitting judges also ran.
The Taoiseach explained that when he was told that the independent Judicial Appointments Advisory Board (JAAB) considered Séamus Woulfe a suitable candidate, “that was enough for me.”
It is not verifiably true that there was a horse deal involving the attorney general position. It is NOT verifiably true!
But Mary Lou noted that she was well aware that all three judges had to run through a different channel.
“The fact that there was a horse deal surrounding the attorney general position is not only true, it is verifiable. It was played in the media, Taoiseach, between you, Fine Gael and, let’s say, the Green Party. “
The verifiable truth?
Micheal presented his version.
“It is not verifiably true that there was a horse deal involving the position of attorney general. It is NOT verifiably true! “
True. How to verify what happened in the high-level government formation talks between two party leaders?
Pissed off
The Taoiseach was very irritated by these mentions of the pre-coalition horse exchange.
“Stop misleading the House in that regard and deliberately, in my opinion, creating a story that has no foundation in fact,” he shouted dramatically, conveniently ignoring the call from his Minister of Justice to address the Dáil.
“I think you should withdraw it because I know, okay? I know that there was absolutely no relationship between the appointment of the Attorney General, Paul Gallagher, and the appointment of Mr. Justice Woulfe. None.”
And he sat down.
As for the media that reported on what may or may not have been a horse game during the government negotiations, we took a quick look around and found quite a bit. In April, Business Post political editor Michael Brennan featured an article titled “The Attorney General’s Plum Role Is At Stake Between FF and FG.”
He wrote: “The decision on the appointment is likely to be one of the final issues to be resolved before a new coalition between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael is agreed. One possibility mentioned is that the party that elects the attorney general will accept a smaller number of junior ministries. Another is that the position is rotated, so that Martin and Varadkar each have their preferred attorney general while in the taoiseach office. “
What they decided to do.
Racehorses.
[ad_2]