05.03.07
Thomas Byrne FF
I had a look at Byrne’s blog last week and thought about mentioning it here, but couldn’t be bothered. But he has repeated his crime and so I am now sufficiently motivated to complain.
So what bugged me the first time? This post in which he points out that since his wife is a nurse, he’s supporting the nurses and it was pointless of the INO to ask people to vote for Labour – the dashing Dominic – instead of him. Em, Thomas, You are in Fianna Fail. They are the ones denying the nurses the long promised 35 hour week. If you don’t agree with that, then you shouldn’t be in the party.
However, I let it slide. Life’s too short.
But he’s at it again! Today its autism. He has a cryptic post in which he explains that he said something negative about Mary Hanafin’s policy on autism. The remarks, whatever they were, were reported in the Drogheda Independent whose useless site doesn’t seem to have the article.
Em, Thomas, Mary Hanafin is the Fianna Fail Minister for Education who is singehandedly denying funding for ABA, the therapy which parents say is the most effective, and in the long term, most cost effective, educational system for their children.
Do people really buy this bullshit whereby Fianna Fail provide their own opposition on the back benches?
If you live in Meath East and you support the nurses, the fact that Byrne is married to a nurse is not a reason to vote for him.
If you live in Meath East and you support ABA, the fact that Byrne supports it is not a reason to vote for him.
Electing him will only bolster a FF government who will continue to deprive nurses of the 35 hour week and autistic children of ABA.
Gordon Davies said,
May 4, 2007 at 7:59 am
Sarah,
On the same theme of candidates dissenting from party policy – has there been a FG candidate who has expresed the slightest doubt about the project of driving a motorway through Ireland’s most prestigious historical landscape?
The answer to this is important as it will decide who gets my 3rd and 4th transfers (after voting for the future Minister for Health, Liz McManus of course). I will find it difficult to vote for FG unless the modify their aparent support for the wreckers party (aka FF) on this wilful destruction of Irish heritage.
Gordon
Sarah said,
May 4, 2007 at 9:33 am
Hi Gordon, I am not 100% sure but I think FG is in favour of the M3 route..but hold your fire for Sunday’s column. I address the reasons why in that. Summary – they are desperate for the road. If this road is stopped it’ll be 10 years before they get another. They should’ve changed it 5 years ago but didn’t and now its too late.
Tom said,
May 4, 2007 at 12:30 pm
it hasn’t been explained to me why nurses should have a 35 hour week.
of course if there is a shortage of good, qualified nurses then they should improve the pay and conditions, if there isn’t then what’s the problem?
similarly I don’t really understand why a consultant needs to earn over 200K a year. And if they aren’t happy with that amount they can get another job. Can’t they?
Paul said,
May 4, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Sarah — Forget FF, Why should we vote for FG? — Give us 10 reasons
sharon said,
May 4, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Some parents say ABA is the best educational system for their children, but the science these assertions is based on is very poor. (See here for more.)
There is no need for the government to fund 35 hours a week of 1 to 1 ABA therapy, which will do nothing for sure but make a few therapists richer. The money would be better off improving all schools with autistic children, reducing class sizes, instructing teachers on autistic differences and on improving the dire lack of support and facilities for autistic adults.
The ‘cost effectiveness’ argument is worrying too. The implication is that if you catch them early enough, they might be ‘cured’ and not grow up to be ‘terrible burdens on the state’. My child and all autistic children are more than economic units with which to blackmail governments.
Thomas Byrne said,
May 4, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Hi Sarah
You seem so nice on the telly and you are being so mean to me!
I read your blog from time to time and was never motivated to complain, I even enjoyed reading it!
Seriously, I am not a rebel and neither do I aspire to provide opposition. However, none of us is a robot and we do have opinions which occasionally clash. That’s life, that’s all.
Have a nice election.
Thomas
Dan Sullivan said,
May 4, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Thomas and to be fair Noel O’Flynn, Noreen Ryan, Tom Fleming amongst others are your standard issues FFErs telling us to vote for them in order to change the government. If the some of the public are too inattentive to see through it then they deserve what they get.
FF – Always in office, apparently never in power.
Mark Waters said,
May 5, 2007 at 8:29 am
Noreen Ryan even has a poster for it. It reappeared in this weeks papers.
And Timmy Dooley in Clare joined the nurses picket line last week. No wonder he’s riding high in the polls. Apparently all the Fianna Fáil candidates in Clare are anti-Hanly even though Hanly is government policy and Hanly means no future for Ennis hospital.