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TÁNAISTE JOAN BURTON has waded into the row over Mary Lou McDonald’s refusal to withdraw or apologise for naming former politicians in the Dáil chamber who were alleged to have evaded tax.
Those named have denied the allegations and a committee has found that the Sinn Féin deputy leader abused her right to absolute privilege in the Dáil chamber by naming them.
McDonald said yesterday she accepts “people’s right to their good name”, but won’t be apologising as she has done nothing wrong. She also claimed that some “political insiders” have been unfairly critical of her.
Speaking to reporters at an event in Dublin today, Burton said that McDonald should “reflect on the hurt and the damage that she has done to particular individuals”.
The Labour leader continued: ”This is part of stunt politics. The Constitution is slightly above stunt.
“It’s a really critical freedom that we have in Ireland, to march into the Dáil, speak our minds, and name names as appropriate and no one wants to interfere in anyway in that fundamental democratic freedom.
But it’s one thing to do that and it’s another thing to waltz into the Dáil, with a document in your hand, coming from a committee, that she’s a member of. She has plenty of opportunity there to do whatever she wants to do in that committee but at the same time to ensure that she doesn’t undermine it.
In a further stinging attack on Sinn Féin, Burton laimed that if the party was in power tomorrow the “last thing they might want would be to have the kind of freedom that’s embedded in the Constitution about free speech”, citing its treatment of abuse victim Mairia Cahill.
Amid reports that government chief whip Paul Kehoe will write to Ceann Comhairle Seán Barrett, recommending a motion of censure against McDonald, Burton would not be drawn on whether she would support such a motion.
“I think we would have to hear the Ceann Comhairle’s view in relation to that,” she said.
Elsewhere, the Fianna Fáil TD Timmy Dooley said his view was that there should be an automatic sanction for any member of the Dáil or Seanad found to be in breach of parliamentary privilege.
“It should be a month’s forfeiture of their salary. It would be procedure put in place by way of standing orders,” he said.
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Still the worst name for an app that I’ve heard. Hailo was a grand name.
@Mohanid Ragel: I think they got the idea for the name after reading something similar on walls in Derry.
@Mohanid Ragel: I herd that after the drivers didn’t paid the wanted to change it to “Ah Now”
@Mohanid Ragel: Wasn’t it called something else before it was Hailo?
@Mohanid Ragel:
As branding exercises go it was a spectacular screw up.
Hailo – fresh, includes reference to activity, unique, new word
To
MyTaxi – much worse, still says what it does, but you lose so much
To
Free Now – Are. You. Freaking. Kidding. Me. Possibly the worst move you could make. It’s full of ridicule, has no reference to the business, you’ve burned the goodwill you built up. Twice. Absolute disaster.
@Sequoia: When I first saw ‘Free Now’ I thought it was something to do with cable TV subscriptions – took a long time to figure out it was a taxi company (if that’s what it is).
This must be a great case study on ‘marketing disasters’ for students of marketing.
@Earth Traveller: I thought it was a ladies hygiene product.
I was in a taxi yesterday and the driver was nearly crying about the money he was owed
Happy it’s sorted
Maybe it might be a good idea to change the name to wait now!
Taxi game is fecked
‘People get their money paid early due to technical fault’ – a headline you’ll never see!
@Earth Traveller: You’ll never see it as it is unlikely that a technical fault could predict future taxi journeys to pay drivers before said journeys happened .
@Conall: Sure yesterday someone here was calling for a report of hospital figures for the year. People don’t seem to get it that you can’t have the yearly stats before the end of the year happens.
Anyway, glad the drivers had their money sorted out.
Free Now would have been a great name for a Free to air tv operation. Similar to Saorview
Why does a Private Company’s financial hiccup get 2 articles on the Journal? How is this National News…?
@Paul Casey: maybe because a lot of daxi drivers were not going to meet there bills
@Paul Casey: It’s probably not big news in Manchester.
@Paul Casey: Maybe because it was an event that happened across the nation and is interesting due to its controversial nature.
@Paul Casey: 14000 people not getting paid, should be enough of a reason.
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