@Basildon Joe: so what ?
He’s a English feckwit

@Gerry Campbell: He’s a contrarian and unsuited to the role.

@Basildon Joe: As he hasn’t legally changed his name he’d have to run as Stephen Yaxley if he was any other way eligible.

@Gerry Campbell: I’ll second that.

@Gerry Campbell: he’s had his eye on it for a few years. He effectively re-entered politics at the last referendum campaign. He never got the top job in the Dáil so he’ll go for this instead.

@Basildon Joe: He’d have to use his real name ,he doesn’t like that ..

@Basildon Joe: is that Mary’s son?

@Niall Lappin: I reckon leo varadker is going to run …..its the reason he left office…. wants to be the first LBGT + president of Ireland

@Numinous20111: What does it say about us FF back with
48 seats.

@Numinous20111: We, that slieveen Me’Hole is back in government. He was in the cabinet that bankrupted the country, so anything is possible!

@Tony:
Are you talking about the young people who took out a mortgage and bought their own homes and are now old after working hard and paying off the mortgage.

@Brian Hunt: It’s within your own remit to remove that part of your anatomy from government if you want.

@Numinous20111: ahhh he won it at the horses ….Bertie for taioseach again….hero is oul Bertie

@Numinous20111: But how would he get paid…… no bank account remember. Funny that when he was in front of a tribunal nobody asked him that question.

@Brian Hunt: Student of Haughey and Ahern.

@Tony: I have to confess that I resisted the temptation to go on multiple long distance foreigh holidays, expensive coffe shop visits and expensive shots, expensive cars, and many other things that young people take for granted. But that enabled me to afford to buy a house.
We campaigned against high taxes and political corruption.
Today’s young generation can consider if their political priorities have been the most beneficial.
High up there is, women’s, men pretending they are women and marrying each other, unrestricted immigration, unrestricted abortion increasing restrictions on free speech.
Say what you like about Bertie, but we would be in a bigger mess if it wasn’t for the excess homes built in the celtic Tiger era.

@Anthony Curran: . Brilliant.

@Anthony Curran: “Money, Money, Money”

@Brendan O’Brien: All of their sovereignty. It went from a common market to a full blown dictatorship.

@Marvin Dollery: Not true. Sovereignty is exercised at four levels in the EU, of which the transnational is just one. See ‘subsidiarity’.

@Brendan O’Brien: go away, you insufferable clown

@Brendan O’Brien: Behind the legal jargon and cloak the EU has become a toxic dictatorship with communistic tendencies. Only a matter of time before several major Countries pull the plug. Ireland will too. It’s a definite eventuality.

@Marvin Dollery: Maybe you should move to the UK?

@Daratheprofessional 1: No thanks, I don’t want to risk the lives and innocence of my children in a dangerous hellhole.

@Daratheprofessional 1: He is already permanently resident in Fantasy Land.

@Marvin Dollery: how will the ‘eu terrorists’ ‘taint’ their ability to shake GAA players hands and give out gaisce awards?

@Brendan O’Brien: Your number three would be able to include ‘her time at the Aras’ and ‘how to shaft a whistle blower’ in her memoirs.

@Brendan O’Brien: I’d put Gerry Adams far ahead of Bertie any day !!!

@Brendan O’Brien: You’re projecting. We don’t all get paid to sow doubt and tarnish the other side. You’re on this rag night and day spouting lies, being deceitful and signalling your warped virtues. Nobody buys it.

@Brendan O’Brien: And clearer it becomes to ypur political allegiances. Are you attempting to claim Jarlath Burms has a criminal past. As I’ve said many times about you, clueless on the north among many other things. Would a fascist party in McGuinness’s parties histoty not be a problem,not to you apparently, never have I witnessed such gormless commentary on the north, first killing in the conflict was by the UVF and people shot by the British army for protestimg for one man on vote, the more you speak on the issue the less educated you make yourself look and what about Labour’s alignment to the Official IRA? Clueless.

@Marvin Dollery: Get a grip on yourself or you’ll lose the plot entirely.

@Brian D’Arcy: I have said nothing about ‘Jarlath Burms’, whoever he may be.

You really are hypersensitive. You probably wake up in the middle of the night if someone somewhere is saying a negative thing about ‘Republicans’.

@Marvin Dollery: We ARE the EU.

@Brendan O’Brien: Did Frances Fitzgerald ever find those phones ?

@Marvin Dollery: More shyte talk outta you.

@Brendan O’Brien: I cannot agree that Frances Fitzgerald meets the criteria you set. I’ve worked with her.

@Marvin Dollery: We are part of it and we can take or leave parts of it we don’t like and change others. We have done repeatedly.

@Marvin Dollery: So it is turning communist as well, seeing as it is a right of center political grouping, that will come as a shock to the people of the EU!

@Anthony Curran: you really are a disgusting POS

@Anthony Curran: You’d probably prefer an extremist Middle Easterner as President. No doubt.

@AnthonyK: Shatter, as a vocal supporter of a far-right regime with massive amounts of innocent blood on its hands, would not be suitable.

@AnthonyK: No thanks. I don’t believe that the Irish electorate would vote for someone who espouses zionist views and publicly defends Israel’s atrocities and ongoing genocide in Gaza.
No doubt Honey Badger and a load of right wing nut job trolls on here would support him, though.

@Tony Gleeson: so he’s just like Alan

@Dave G Doe: so he’s like the Israeli supporters too

@Meatball Martin: says the man that thinks le Pen was a grand fella

@Marvin Dollery: you can deflect all you want ,shatter is a nasty little man

@Anthony Curran: get over yourself son, nobody takes you seriously, that is why you live in the journal comments section, but that is your problem to address

@Meatball Martin: Does anyone take you seriously? Didn’t ‘Meatball Martin’ appear only yesterday?

@AnthonyK: Yes nothing would surprise me if this genocidal supporter and ,’ My first allegiance is to Isreal ‘ put him self forward like them all – arrogant to the end !

@Marvin Dollery: No, why would I want an extremist middle easterner as president? I’ve repeatedly said I’m anti violence. You know people who are anti genocide are also anti terrorism, don’t you?

@Brendan O’Brien: chuckling at your infatuation with me, it’s cute

@Meatball Martin: But you’re brand new to this site, right?

@Meatball Martin: Bad news meathead, I’m already taken. But I am flattered all the same.

@Brendan O’Brien: Israel is far right? Oh do tell with particular reference to its position on homosexuality and the 1.6 million Palestinian Muslims resident there.

@Darius Guppy: Don’t tell everyone you are an antisemite.

@AnthonyK: Alan shatter? He’s not even irish.

@Adrian Doyle: Ahhh, ha, ha, ha.

@Meatball Martin: would you ever feck of to mass so and let the grown ups talk

@sean weir: is your mother alive?

@Niall Lappin: is FF a cult ?

@Meatball Martin: TROLL ALERT

@Meatball Martin: Bertie Ahern is an utter hypocrite. He openly flaunted his partner Celia Larkin in front of the Pope while he was – and remains – married to his wife Miriam. But that’s ok because he gets ash rubbed in his forehead ever Spy Wednesday.

@Jb Walshe: He basically *is* all the trolling profiles on the site.

@Brendan O’Brien: says the chief comments section troll

@Meatball Martin: And crashed the economy with his Galway Tent developer pals. Lied to the tribunal etc etc . A crook

@Meatball Martin: Did you mean to make that comment as ‘Basildon Joe’?

@Brendan O’Brien: cry for me, then dance

@Sean: people bought houses and stuff that they couldn’t afford, not his fault if people went crazy

@Meatball Martin: Bertie himself is the only person who believes that .

@Meatball Martin: Surely you mean Tony Blair.
The only Prosperity Ahern brought was to himself

@Meatball Martin: are you on fecking drugs ,
The only thing he did during the GFA was make the tea .

@David Murray: no, it is true, and there is no denying the facts, Bertie Ahern singlehandedly brought peace to the North, by making Sinn Fein see the error of their ways, in doing so, Mr Ahern save thousands of lives, it is only natural that he becomes President

@sean weir: a skilled negotiater, nobody else achieved what he achieved

@Meatball Martin: meatball you haven’t a clue. Not a clue. The peace process lasted years. Decades even. Ahearn played a part alright. He came in at the end of a long process and was in the right place at the right time. Bill Clinton, John Hume, Tony Blair and many others played more significant roles than Bertie Ahearn. Bertie just put the ball in the net after the other players fed it to him.
As for bringing prosperity what a laugh. Bertie brought the Troika and years of austerity. Cop on.

@Meatball Martin: and who brought fame to Paddy the Plasterer.

@Tomas: Good grief, no.

@Tomas: Agreed. Frankly, I think Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese have clearly set the bar for where any president should be.These would all be great choices if they followed in their footsteps. Michael D. Higgins is also excellent of course, but not a woman.

Simon Zebo