Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin are losing touch with party grassroots

I would beg to differ..

Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin are losing touch with party grassroots wrote the Irish Independent in October 2023.
The article, to no one’s surprise, seems to have forgotten Martin and his Fianna Fáil proclamation from 2017, ‘Let there be no doubt about where Ireland stands, we want nothing to do with the backward-looking idea of sovereignty’.

What is the meaning of grassroots? It is the foundation, the most basic level of an organization. And what have been at the most basic level of Fianna Fáil since its foundation? Corruption and Nepotism.
The very concept of conflict of interest was first introduced in Irish politics due to Fianna Fáil’s dealings in the Wicklow gold scandal in 1935. Scandals after scandal, tribunal after tribunal has followed them throughout their history. As the author Tim Pat Coogan once said, “It is just a sad story of how idealism and revolutions start in hope and glory and end up fumbling in a greasy till”.

What both parties have lost touch with, is the Irish public.  if indeed they ever had any connection to them in the first place. 
Past and present politicians, as I’ve said a hundred times before, believe they have a divine right to govern and that’s why the likes of Robert Troy, Damien English, Niall Collins, Leo Varadkar abuse their positions at the highest level because they believe they can, the law doesn’t apply to them but when questioned, their arrogance and self-entitlement comes to the fore and they either refuse to answer or apologise unreservedly. And we all know how much that apology is worth.

In response to the protest outside Leinster House in September, Seán Ó Fearghaíl, the man on €227,000 a year, before expenses, said that politicians must also bear some of the responsibility for the protest because they need to be… more civil when debating each other!Nothing to do with the cost of living, the housing or homeless situations or the disaster that is open borders. No, it was due to their lack of civility while debating. I for one don’t believe for a second, he really thinks that,; he, as they all do, know why people are angry. They’re not ignoring the warning signs; they just can’t do anything about them. When a poll overwhelmingly indicates that the vast majority of the public are against Fine Gael’s Hate Speech laws, yet Helen McEntee insists that they approve of it, despite the evidence in front of her- that is an indication of their inability to do anything about it.
Now, of course arrogance, a sense of entitlement and knowing they will face no serious investigations by their media is a factor but they are, at the end of the day, only caretakers for Brussels.  
Speaking of ‘their media’, Varadkar not letting a crisis go to waste, you have hand it to his spin unit they never miss a photo op, paid a visit to Middleton during the floods and the Journal reported that he… donned his wellington boots. That is not reporting, that is advertising.

Fianna Fáil MEPs, Barry Andrews and Billy Kelleher who belong to the Renew parliamentary group, which is one of the eight groups that make up the European parliament, fear that their ride on the gravy train, I mean their time serving the Country, is almost up as a big shift to the right looms large as they see themselves being replaced by right-wing, Eurosceptic parties. Again, they know why.
Kelleher said that Irish voters need to be reminded that the state is a “pro-European country”. Sounds rather ominous.
He went on, “We send out anti-European MEPs and that is an area where I think we have to have that strong debate. If you want to reflect Ireland’s view of the Parliament, the people you choose must reflect Ireland’s view in the Parliament,” he said.
So only pick people who stand by the EU, no dissenting voices, no one to challenge the status quo.
Wouldn’t they just love that.

Many people, for months now, have been rightly asking about the validity of all these refugees flooding the country and we know the media and politicians reacted with Far right this, fringe elements that. Micheál Martin recently questioned a radio presenters’ ‘humanity’ when confronted with the sensible notion of temporarily closing our borders. That clip, being on a local radio station went around the country and many people saw, for the first time, Martin’s gaslighting. Advisors and spin machines went in to overdrive and their tunes are changing. Now they acknowledge Ukrainians are coming from other safe EU countries, just because the pay-outs are better. They tell us 30%, but this is from the same spin that told us 48% of the country signed up to Irish water.

 They’re still insisting that it’s a vicious war all the while knowing that Ukrainians are coming and going for holidays and for hospital appointments. And now people are seeing this. People are now realising they’re being played, and this is a desperate attempt by Leinster house to appease the public. Up to 50,000 refugees are expected to arrive on these shores over the next year but, now, all of a sudden, they are looking at changing the regulations with Varadkar saying our capacity has been reached and that it makes sense to align with other EU counties. It makes sense now to them, but not when many others were shouting it from rooftops.

And why are they doing this? Have they regained autonomy? Have they finally realised that their job is to serve the State?
No, Votes.
Once again, with an election looming, they’re aiming to dupe the public into believing that they’re working for the Irish people.
As hard as they’re trying and will continue to try, I do believe a lot more than usual are not listening to them anymore.