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Fionnán Sheahan

Stephen Donnelly

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Fionnán Sheahan Opinion Arise and follow Donnelly – but taekwondo knockout on FG posh boys cannot mask Fianna Fáil’s power spiral  

SUDDENLY all the excuses fell away. You couldn’t quarantine lots of Irish people coming home. You couldn’t quarantine EU citizens. You couldn’t quarantine Erasmus students. You couldn’t charge EU and Irish citizens. You couldn’t quarantine businesspeople as the economy would grind to a halt. You couldn’t extend the quarantine system beyond a few obscure countries from where there were no direct flights. You wouldn’t have enough hotel rooms to quarantine large numbers. 
Leo Varadkar: The man who stood by the Garda whistleblowers has morphed into what he was supposed to stand against. Photo: Julien Behal

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Fionnán Sheahan Opinion Leo Varadkar becoming Taoiseach was a breath of fresh air for politics. Now there’s a stench hanging off him

Not too many opponents managed to get under Bertie Ahern’s skin. When they did, they tended to be from his own style of working class brawler politics. Gay Mitchell was branded a “waffler” and Joe Higgins was called a “failed person” and a “nitwit”. The bulk of his critics he treated with bored contempt. A young, newly-elected TD though stung the then Taoiseach during a motion of no confidence in him over the Mahon Tribunal exposure of his personal finances in September 2007. 
Some 13 of Mary Lou McDonald’s 37 TDs are women, second only to the four out of six women TDs in the Social Democrats. Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

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Fionnan Sheahan Opinion ‘The Firm’ of Civil War parties treat women candidates akin to Meghan Markle with the Royals

During last year’s election campaign, a Fine Gael candidate queried why she wasn’t being mentioned in analyses of the constituency. The blunt answer was because she had no hope of winning a seat. An accomplished figure with a long track record of public service, she had been invited to run for the Dáil. The impolite reality is she was a gender quota candidate, a woman added to the ticket to make up the required number of female candidates. Bar a landslide, her chances of winning were slim to none.
Justice Minister Helen McEntee and her husband Paul Hickey are expecting their first child in May. Photo: David Conachy

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Fionnán Sheahan Opinion Forcing Helen McEntee to resign for having a baby would be appalling

Only five days after giving birth to her daughter, Rachida Dati was back to work. The then French Justice Minister’s speedy return caused consternation 12 years ago. It was also viewed as a classic dilemma of a woman in a demanding and male-dominated role fearing she wouldn’t be taken seriously if she took time out. Having an alpha-male like Nicolas Sarkozy as president at the time probably didn’t help.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin. Photo: John Thys/Reuters

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Fionnan Sheahan Opinion Micheál can’t beat ’em, so he joins ’em in his social-media era spinning blitz

It’s taken him a decade as Fianna Fáil leader but Micheál Martin has finally copped on to the rules of social-media-era politics. It’s 24/7, 365, multi-platform, never ending, always demanding and if you’re not being heard, you’re irrelevant and someone else is filling the void. The Taoiseach won’t be coming out with inane commentary from his living room on Instagram live or performing a coordinated dance routine in his back garden on Tik Tok.

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