@alphasully: Churchill prolly copied someone else.

@Optimus Prime: more than likely, politicians are good at that.

@Optimus Prime: and that people is how creativity works.
The secret to originality is concealing your source ;-)

@john doe: there’s always a source. Dig deep enough, you’ll find it.

@Mike Daly: A black pudding found mainly south west Kerry

@Pád: Agreed ! His ego has been inflated (it must be at bursting point) by the script he read on telly during the week. If a man cannot let go of a resentment in the interests of the nation he’s not worth believing in

@Pád: well done Leo, we all (with the exception of a few) want you to keep out the Sinners.

@john gavin: with exception of over 500,000 ya clown! That’s not a few.

@Pád: you’re a tad blinkered eh?

@Paul Furey: If he is blinkered you’re blind.

@Paul Furey: Oh do elaborate on your comment please!

@Pád: Correct. FG spent the month after the election telling us how they lost. Now they’re pushing for Leo to be top of the queue in a rotating Taoiseach role. Now we can see why that unneccesary prepared speech was rammed down the nations throat on Paddys night.

@The Risen: The speech was terrible. The man inspires no one. There’s no charisma about him at all.
He’s an absolute disgrace every party should be involved during this crisis.

@The Risen: rammed down the nations throats? A message to promote calm (however effective we think it may have been is irrelevant) when people were going mad, announced in advance, on two channels most people avoid anyway. PS most political speeches are prepared in advance. Personally I didn’t vote for fg anywhere on the ballot but there is a part of me that glad this didn’t happen with an entirely new cabinet still settling in.

@The Risen: as a matter of intrest, who doesn’t prepare a speech? It’s hardly a damning criticism of someone yet you’ve used this at least 3 times now as something to insult Varadkar with. You think your Political Heroes just speak off the cuff?

@Pád: TBF most commenters on here thought it was a decent speech.

@Pád: having people who basically disagree on almost every thing all in government together will basically get nothing done. At least FF and FG are basically the same

@The Risen: I took nothing from his speech to be honest. It was well presented but had no substance. It smelled of a man pushing FG into people’s faces during a crisis. Trying to sell the nonsense that they are steering the country through that same crisis won’t work in time though. FG like all other political parties are only bystanders like us while the medical people manage the current disaster. It’s as simple as that.

@Cian Nolan: Trust Me Cian, this is not me insulting Varadkar.

@Chris Mc: Thats probably true. But with the this crisis ongoing it’s time to talk to everyone.
He’s talking about a unity government. Which would be formed until the crisis is over.
Completely childish in not talking to SF. Reminds me of a kid that would take is football and go home!

@Mike Daly: An attempt at a smart remark just makes you look silly.

@Pád: great idea. Look at the mess of school closures in the north. They changed position totally within 24 hours. Indecisive left wing parasites

@Pád: Pearse Doherty is working his ass off & doing a great job. He would make a brilliant minister for finance!

@Dave O’Keeffe: i would much rather he was closing everything except pharmacies and shops and putting a curfew in place and had army and police out patrolling to protect t people from their own stupidity. This is action not some bullshit words on the TV.

@Pád: A Unity Government that excludes the joint largest political party in the country is NOT a Unity Government, putting politics first!His speech which I praised now sounds hollow!

@DeWitt: How narrow mind and naive are you?
Don’t forget DUP are in power up the north too!
Think that’s why they call it “Power Sharing” that might be a little difficult for someone like yourself who is intellectually challenged to understand.

@john gavin: ah no john, in the eyes of god they are all sinners

@Pád: In fairness the idea of a Unity Government is ridiculous. Too many cooks will spoil the broth. Just look at the mess in Stormont recently where we had DUP, Ulster Unionists and the bloody Alliance Party siding with the Herd Immunity idea while Sinn Fein and SDLP wanted to take the route we took in the Republic.

FG is not my party of choice but I think Varadkar has been consistent from the start that he wants nothing to do with Sinn Fein for whatever reason. While he has a tendency to showboat, he has gone up in my estimation for sticking to his principles. It would be ridiculous for him to have said so adamantly that he won’t ever go into government with Sinn Fein and then turn around a few weeks later and go in with a Unity Government.

@George Sheils: The Unity Government that’s he’s talking about is only until the this pandemic has been beaten.

FG is most certainly not my party of choice either but if he had talked with SF I think his popularity would of shot up.

Putting the people first. Something FG/FF know nothing about.

@Gerard Smith: here’s the problem, we need a certain number of people to get it before we can go to a lockdown scenario otherwise it’ll just get us all again next time around

@George Sheils: he also rejected flat out the notion of a coalition with FF when Micheal Martin first suggested it. Also insisted for some weeks after the election that FG were preparing to go into opposition.
The forked-tongue principles of LV and FG generally.
Micheal Martin is no better; has made a show of himself with his desperation..

@Pád: where are the shinners now,
gone very quite.

Actually that’s a fair point and the last sentence of my comment was uncalled for. I heard some of her interview on Dermot and Dave on today fm and yes it has to be said that now is not the time for party politics. However I still believe that Leo’s speech was appropriate for what we are facing.

@Tom Leddy: absolutely disagree with you. Other than a cringey speech (high on emotion and low on details), what has Leo done?

@john doe: Could you do his job.

@Tom Leddy: There were many exceptional leaders in the past but FG decided on Churchill. Leo’s leadership in a time of crises has been nothing short of abysmal. 203 quid Covid unemployment payment and 3 month mortgage holiday the banks wouldn’t even stand over.
He must be having a laugh. An embargo on Nurses prior to outbreak is also bloody scandalous. How people are fooled by this actor is beyond me.

@Tom Leddy: keeping her head down in case she might actually have to do something?

@Tom Leddy: Funny but yo you failed to mention Michael Martin in the same context or Eoin Murphy, now in self isolation like he and Simon Harris were during the election. Vareadka along with ministers who lost their seats are a care taker government. Like any government they are open to criticism and praise. Unlike Martin whose one aim is to be Taoiseacht, Mary Lou has refrained from making the crisis a political football

@Tom Leddy: Mary Lou,SFs health spokesperson, all the other party leaders and their health spokespersons ,Government & their medical expert advisors and other experts have been meeting regularly every week!

@Tom Leddy: Why do we despise Churchill??

@Tom Leddy: like all the Shinners ,in hiding.

@Chris Mc: Actually, no. I judge politicians by their actions not their words, so no amount of well delivered speeches will make up for his partys decimation of our public healthcare system, especially when we’ve never needed it more.

@The Risen: Here here!

@The Risen: Here here! Well said!

@Pád: The phrase is ‘hear, hear’. Shortened from ‘hear him, hear him’ I believe.

@The Risen: what laughable, uninformed nonsense. If you judge politicians by their actions you would not be using words like ‘decimate’ in regards to the funding of our health system. It shows how uninformed you are just to try make a political point. In FACT the health budget has risen by 33% since 2013. From €13.1 BILLION to €17.4 BILLION. Health expenditure per population in Ireland is far above the European average too. Both of those are FACTS, easily established and verified. They obviously dont suit your agenda though so you choose to throw out populist nonsense that Leo has decimated the health service.

@lambda sensor: Bravo! Nailed his uninformed propaganda!

The left will always use % of GDP figures to make it seem as if the government is underfunding across the board, anyone who understands statistics knows this is rubbish. Well done on using the per head figures.

@lambda sensor: If it’s increased by all those billions why is it still in the crapper??
Can you answer that?
Also you can take 2billion away from that for the white elephant they are. Holding in the absolutely wrong location.

@Will: That’s correct! Well done!

@lambda sensor: this risen lad is old news.

@FrontSeatDriver: Agreed. Seems to have nothing better to do than pour forth with his pro-SF agenda on every topic. I normally let him off because I believe most people can see through him but his spoofing on this topic needed a correction (in my view).

@Pád: I see you are engaging in a common argumentative approach when the first case is lost… change the question! Not today. The original case was that Leo has somehow decimated the health service. I debunked that using facts.

@Pád: Wonder why