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ONE OF THE politicians being floated as a potential presidential nominee says she feels it is more likely than not that there will be a contest later this year.
Fine Gael’s Mairead McGuinness stopped short of saying she would run herself but has said it is looking increasingly likely that President Michael D Higgins would face a challenge if he decides to seek a second term.
Upon securing the office in 2011, President Higgins said he would not seek a second term but more recently he has refused to state his intentions, prompting speculation that he is considering a u-turn to stay in Áras an Úachtaráin for another seven years.
Independent Senator Gerard Craughwell has been clear about his interest in the position and this week called on the political parties to state whether they would field candidates.
It is Craughwell’s insistence in keeping the issue live that has led McGuinness into saying that she believes there will be a contest.
“My instinct is there is likely to be a contest, and I say that on the basis that I don’t think Senator Craughwell will pull back from his position,” McGuinness told the Saturday with Claire Byrne programme this afternoon.
McGuinness sought Fine Gael’s nomination for the presidency in 2011 but lost out to Gay Mitchell. Asked about whether she would be interested in running again, the current MEP did not rule it out.
If there is a contest the political parties will have to have a conversation about what they’re going to do. The fact that I put myself forward for the nomination the last time round clearly shows that I have an interest, at that time. At the moment I’m first vice president of the European Parliament, Brexit is big issue that I’m working on so I would have to look at this.
“But I would really be guided by the party and what is the party’s decision and the councillors and TDs and Senators,” she added.
When it was put to her that it sounded like she was steeling for a run , she said she would also like to hear what the other parties were thinking.
“I actually didn’t say that but that’s an interpretation, but I’d be interested to know would Miriam O’Callaghan be interested,” McGuinness said.
It’s long been speculated that RTÉ presenter O’Callaghan would consider a tilt at the highest office in the State and that she may have the support of Fianna Fáil if she were to do so.
Speaking on the same programme, Fianna Fáil TD Timmy Dooley said his party had not taken a decision on whether it would field a candidate. This despite a recent poll showing overwhelming support among party councillors that they run a candidate.
“That’ll be taken into account in due course as will the wider membership of the party. Councillors are being treated with the respect they deserve for the hard work they do across all political parties but there’s been no decision whatsoever. There will be a discussion at a later stage and I suspect that will come as soon as the current president sets out his stall,” Dooley said.
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All we need now is someone to come up with software that blocks them from blocking us from blocking ads.
Exactly Dylan. They’re wasting their time. But if a company wants to pay them for this software, good luck to them.
Go onto RTE Player and you will notice nothing will play while Adblock is Enabled. there is already ways to stop people from blocking ads.
In matters like these, where’s there’s a will, there’s a way and the will is particularly strong on this issue.
And there will always be ways to block the unblocker.
Damn, you robbed my idea.
Seven Minute Abs!
“When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.”
Fake Avast…. of all the websites that you can block Ads on. RTE think it’s okay to block content just because people use Adblock, even if they have already paid the TV License.
The internet advertising industry is slowly killing the enjoyment and the ease of using the internet. Added to annoying ads playing in the background, and all other ads i have these redirects nearly every time i use my phone. Its stops the function im doing and opens google store to some stupid game or app i have zero interest in. Everybody should have a choice whether or not to block ads. There are more than enough numbskulls out there who soak up advertising to leave the rest of us who dont wish to become braindead watching stupid ads which we have no interest in, in peace
@DH
Those ‘numbskulls’ are paying for you to enjoy all the free content that you currently enjoy.
If there was no advertising then it wouldn’t be feasible for sites like The Journal to exist. On a list of things that bother me in life, Internet advertising is way down the list towards the bottom.
Go ahead, let everyone block all the ads on all the sites, then you’d have nothing to read!
The issue isn’t the non intrusive ads. Look at this page most people will see 2 or 3 ads, but there’s no popup or redirect or auto play video that you can’t skip. Ads like the ones here I have no issue with but no one should be forced to watch something or be automatically forwarded to somewhere when they don’t want to be.
miguel i understand the need for it but i dont need it flashing constantly in front of my eyes every time i look something up. Constantly redirecting to other web sites is also a bit invasive. And the journal i have to say is not intrusive or annoying with ads. It happens to be fairly discreet compared to other sites. My complaint is not against advertising as a whole….and as for the numbskulls they are not paying anything more than i am unless of course they get brainwashed into parting with their money by the advertising to which i say thanks
I don’t mind ads that are unobtrusive and for products I might actually buy or be interested in…
What’s annoying is when the ad loads up instantly and I’m sat staring at an ad for some
scam weight loss product, fake antivirus or money making scheme while the actual content takes 120 seconds to load and when it finally does… Another pop up add for the same opens in front that has to be closed.
clicks x
“WAIT! Click ‘continue’ now for even better offers!”
clicks x
“Are you sure you want to leave this page?”
-.-
Just out of interest what is the exact address of this company gonna be?
Unit D, Mount Pleasant Business Park, Dublin 6, Ireland………….
Losing battle. The Adblockers will find another way and this will become redundant. The real way to win this war for content producers is to change how they deliver ads. Make them unobtrusive and people won’t bother to block them.
There’s also https://www.ublock.org/ which is far better than adblock.
As soon as I can block these a**holes I will! Adblock rocks!
I love the fact that this article is basically advising the uninitiated that there is applications you can download to block visual eyesores on a website!
*are!
Safari is terrible, shocking browser, google chrome is the no.1 app on itunes , says it all.
Also people will moan when you end up paying subs for YouTube Facebook and even this site etc. over blocking a few ads
The problem isn’t a “few” ads though, I got rid of Sky TV because it was becoming more ads than content and it’s only because of the ad blockers that we still have a viable internet. The way things are going with the government wanting to block anything they see fit and unwanted ads being forced through it doesn’t bode well.
I work in IT and I have never used an Ad blocker. Sites I commonly use don’t go overboard with the ads.
The biggest offender I have found with ads is the rte player, I just don’t brother anymore with it.
I do watch a lot of user created content on youtube so the ad revenue partly goes to them and I tolerate them a tad because of that but a ton of stuff is free online because of ads.
The mundanity of evil eh
I don’t use Adblock on any of the sites I use regularly although I do use it on the journal as a punishment for their weird habit of deleting innocent comments.
Sometimes thx to the ads that we are able to use free app.. The most annoying things are pop ups for me!!
Not sure where you are getting the Safari 25% from. W3 seems to disagree
http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php
It’s listed Safari at 16.2% market share.
The RTE News Now is the greatest pain in the Ar$e for pop up ads
Screw these guys for making the world a more miserable place.
sçūmbægs
God forbid websites actually make some money to continue providing content for free
There are quite a few articles, calling ad blockers thieves, I use adblock because I would never click on a pop up ad, or an ad or banner… There is a great article on a block.org explaining the opposing side to this article, it also gives links to other articles with different views on it. I shop online so how much money do they want from me, every cent? Two words I’d love to share with them come to mind.
So they are trying to make popups that no one will be able to block. Can’t wait until scam artists use their technique to hack people who will not be able to stop the code execution. Seems like an idea that will ultimately lead to hurting lots of people once whatever technique it is they use goes public.
hosts.zip
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