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LUCINDA CREIGHTON HAS said that former colleagues in Fine Gael have quietly wished she would go away.
Creighton said she had been expected to “sit down and be quiet” after she was expelled from Fine Gael two years ago for voting against the party on abortion legislation.
The Renua Ireland leader was speaking at the opening of the party’s day-long think-in in Dublin this morning. She said the event marked the beginning of the general election campaign.
“This is a young party. The challenge before it is absolutely enormous and the old guard will not go quietly. They will have to be fought, they will have to be challenged, they’ll have to be taken on directly,” Creighton told Renua candidates and supporters.
TheJournal Politics / Twitter. @RENUAIreland with a game-changing spread at their think-in pic.twitter.com/iRDneKzMce
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) September 3, 2015
Though the ex-junior minister did not mention her former party by name, she said this “old guard” had quietly wished she would go away.
Some of them said they are “sick of that woman who didn’t play by the rules”, according to Creighton.
I was supposed to sit down and be quiet, to accept six months on the outside and then be welcomed back into the same old system, to keep my head down and probably be rewarded with a job for being a good girl at some point in the future.
Well to those people I say to you: ‘Play the game if you want, but this woman will not play political games. I am going to tell the truth and so is Renua Ireland.’
Creighton said that Taoiseach Enda Kenny should call an immediate general election and insisted her party would be ready despite still needing to select many of its candidates in the 40 Dáil constituencies.
“We are on an election footing,” the Dublin South-East TD insisted.
“We have most of our selected candidates here today and obviously we’ll continue that process over the next number of weeks right up to the general election.
https://vine.co/v/eTihDPAddlB
So it’s going to be a very, very busy period ahead but we’re looking forward to shaking up the political system, rattling a few cages and hopefully winning a signifiant number of seats at the next election.
She said her party would not “prop up” Fine Gael after the next election.
“We’re very clear about what we want to do in government and if we can’t achieve it we just simply won’t enter government,” Creighton said.
Unlike other political parties, the Renua think-in is open to the media today with discussions on rural Ireland, the ‘virtuous state’, the economy and health taking place.
Speakers include the academic Elaine Byrne, homeless campaigner Fr Peter McVerry, economist Colm McCarthy, and former Libertas leader Declan Ganley.
More waffle
@Declan Edward: how?
@Liam O’Conchubhair: I doubt we’ll get a decent answer to support this edgy statement.
@Paul Furey: true.
@Liam O’Conchubhair: he’s a waffler. Simple as. Spent most of his life in the West of Ireland and speaks with a contrived accent, almost sees himself as a royal and expects that treatment, meanwhile the hoi polloi lap it up. Don’t understand it at all.
@Declan Edward: accent is a total invention..
@Declan Edward:
Just because you don’t understand him I suggest you keep a good dictionary beside you when reading his speeches or read his book, Ideas Matter. Also you say “He spent most of his life in the West of Ireland”! What a despicable crime! We know who the waffler is.
@Mary Cahill: haha where did I indicate that I didn’t know what he says?! If anything I’m over-educated, and most people that know me would agree!
@Mary Cahill: read his book .l!!!have you heard his speeches??
@Declan Edward:
Your opening comment ‘more waffle’ shows that you don’t understand what he is say or you are not even listening. Anyone with the smallest amount of education would know that. Maybe people who are over-educated don’t!
@Mary Cahill: his speeches are only made to look good by his poetry, because they are pure muck.
@Declan Edward: You’re ‘over educated’?
Doubt it. Michael D spent time in college in the States and the UK. Did you? Have you spent time in war torn countries around the world in order to write about them? How in God’s name can you say he spent ‘most of his life in the West of Ireland’?!
My god lad. Stop embarrassing yourself.
@Declan Edward: oh, ok, sorry, we didn’t realise. It’s ok, everyone, he’s over-educated.
Sorry Declan, we should have realised earlier. It’s just, it wasn’t obvious from your posts…
@Declan Edward: over educated maybe, but not very intelligent !
@Darius Guppy:
Another person who can’t understand what Michael D is saying. Obviously over-educated.
This is another complete waste of Government funds this man cries and preaches everyday about the injustices done to people all over the world while he lives in a mansion in the Phoenix Park and buys properties all over the west of Ireland. Another waste of a Million a year.
Yet again is Mickey D gone over to eat the Queen out
of house and home????.
@BAAB: that just sounds so wrong on so many levels.
The gov are sending mickey d over to england because leos dogged stance and damaging public profile with the EU is putting a strain on Ireland’s relationship with the UK, and leos after forgetting that we still need to do a lot of business with the UK after brexit.
@Adrian:
It’s not Leo’s stance, the British are trying to break the terms of their legal agreement with the EU.
It’s not our fault they can’t run their own country.
@Adrian: How are we damaging anything with the UK? Do you think it’s because we haven’t set up a border for them on this island? While a third of all exports go to the UK it’s not as high a percentage as it always was. And it already dropped in 2018 due to Brexit. And if all things continue as they are with the UK led Brexit, there will be no or else heavily tarrifed trade anyway between us and them.
So hard luck with this Leo whinge.
@T Beckett is back: there is no legal agreement with the EU, none. The WA was not agreed by the British Parliament and therefore there was no agreement. The EU and the Idrissa government were all too aware that there was no agreement until parliament voted it through.
If there are legally binding agreements, why do the EU not force the British to honour them?
@Darius Guppy: *Irish government (not Idrissa).
Really, does he need to travel so much? And I doubt he brings in any dosh by visiting England…
@John Flood: you have a very limited understanding of how commerce works I would suggest
@John Flood: Do you only ever put a monetary value on something?
This “President of the People” voted in a tax amnesty forgiving tax evaders all monies due, at a time when PAYE workers were paying 65% tax on their earnings.
He can waffle all he likes but it’s deeds that count, not words.
@Josh Hanners: shush now, if you stop talking people may forget how limited your comments are, shushhhhh
@Whingy McWhingy: What a totally inane comment.
He will go to England to meet with members of the royal family but couldn’t be bothered to attend the commemoration at Soloheadbeg.
@thejamer:
You obviously don’t understand why he refused to go to Soloheadbeg.
Jasus Don’t let Phillip take him on a ‘little spot of driving’
Waffle waffle and more waffle, would rather see some action from Mickey D than waffle.
@Gowon Geter:
You obviously don’t know the constitutional powers of an Irish president.
Tell them to stay away from the border counties Mickey, or we bring back the Columns.
Yvonne Mosquito????? Brilliant name!
@Marcus Massey: Biting personality?
There’s some more money could go to nurses, teachers, soldiers and Gards.
Good for him! How much is the hotel costing?
Little Hobbit
@Jimmy Journalnose: did that take you long to think up?
@Jimmy Journalnose: A really erudite comment.
I don’t like the man much but I admire his decision to show empathy with the poor people who were savagely butchered in our name in one of the I.R.A’s many shameful atrocities..
@John Mc Donagh: Has he ever attended the commemorations for the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. They too were savagely butchered by members of the crown forces. It was the worst atrocity of the Troubles.
But hey ho, they were only Irish people.
@Teresa Ryan:——And so that atrocity by the Glenane gang of Loyalist murderers justifies all the similar butchery by the I.R.A???
Winner did he go by boat
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