Story of the Week
The highly dangerous situation facing Irish soldiers in Lebanon has made front page news throughout the week, as Israeli forces advanced their army activity close to the Irish base.
At the start of the week, Unifil (the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) said it was “deeply concerned” by the activities of the Israeli army immediately adjacent to the mission’s position. President Michael D Higgins said it was “outrageous” that the Israeli defence forces had “threatened” the Irish peacekeeping force, prompting the Israeli embassy in Dublin to describe his comments as “unfounded and inflammatory.”
By mid-week, the Government was welcoming news that the IDF were no longer operating in the area close to the peacekeepers. Within 48 hours, the picture had changed dramatically.
On the front page of Friday’s Irish Times, Taoiseach Simon Harris accused Israel of “an extremely egregious breach of international law” after the United Nations confirmed that the IDF had deliberately fired on UN positions and peacekeepers in southern Lebanon. He was in Washington DC to meet US President Joe Biden for a curtailed programme of events to mark a centenary of diplomatic relations between Ireland and the US. Mr Harris said he raised his extreme concern with Mr Biden. Irish troops serving with Unifil were not fired on but the Defence Forces have warned that they are operating “amid ongoing tensions along the blue line, where the situation is most intense.”
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Bust Up
We didn’t have the Incredible Hulk taking on the Green Party on our bingo cards this week, but here we are. On Wednesday, Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo rowed in on Irish politics saying the Green Party was “about to do something really terrible to the environment”. He was taking issue with the Planning and Development Bill 2023, the Government’s mammoth legislation overhauling the planning system. Ruffalo’s contention was that Seanad-stage amendments to the Bill in effect lower the bar for permitting Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminals.
It is a long-standing position of the Green Party that it is opposed to LNG but it is willing to be more flexible when it comes to strategic, emergency circumstances. Ruffalo said the Green Party were about to do something awful but the Greens said his video “gives a misleading account” of what the Bill envisages. Where did it all go so wrong? Only four years ago, Eamon Ryan and Catherine Martin were enlisting him as part of their final push to win over the support of the membership for the programme for government.
Banana Skin
Speaking of showdowns, the new hate crime legislation is due before the Seanad next week and it looks as though it will be as controversial as ever. After the legislation was paused due to a backbench revolt, the Government said it would proceed with the hate crime elements of the Bill, but park the hate speech sections which had elicited significant criticism from a variety of sources including X (Twitter) owner Elon Musk.
Many TDs and Senators said privately that they had been inundated with emails and representations from furious constituents who took issue with the legislation as it was originally envisaged. Even though the more controversial aspects have been paused, more headaches may lie ahead for the Government. Independent Senator Michael McDowell said the Bill’s gender provisions “remain unexplained and inexplicable.” The proposed law extends the definition of gender to include “the gender of a person or the gender which a person expresses as the person’s preferred gender, or with which the person identifies, and includes transgender and a gender other than those of male and female”. The Government has said it will complete all remaining stages of the Bill next week.
Winners and Losers
Winners: Those waiting to benefit from the Government’s much-heralded €2.2bn cost-of-living budget package received welcome news this week when Cabinet was told that double payments of the State pension and child benefit along with other cost-of-living measures are due to be made by December 3rd. Read the full details here
Losers: Sinn Féin have had another torrid week. They are still being hounded for answers around the level of knowledge within the party about the employment references given to former press officer Michael McMonagle, who has pleaded guilty to a string of child sex offences. Two senior officials quit the party when it emerged they had given him the references after he left Sinn Féin and sought a job with the British Heart Foundation. The party has yet to fully answer questions about the extent of knowledge within Sinn Féin, after it emerged a HR officials was told about the references by the BHF a full year ago. Sinn Féin has claimed it only became aware of the issue on foot of media queries last month. Making a bad situation worse, Kildare South Patricia Ryan resigned from Sinn Féin on Wednesday. On Friday morning, she told her local radio station KFM that the felt pushed out by the leadership after they failed to address local issues, that she had social media posts censored and that questions to the leadership were vetted.
The Big Read
The intrepid Harry McGee is looking at the candidacy of Gráinne Seoige and delving into her reasons for deciding to run for Fianna Fáil in Galway West. Ms Seoige became the second “celebrity” candidate to be connected with Fianna Fáil’s general election campaign after party announced that another former TV news anchor, Alison Comyn, would be a candidate for the party in Louth alongside Senator Erin McGreehan.
Hear here
With less than a month to the Trump Harris showdown, journalist Ben Smith spoke to Hugh Linehan on Inside Politics this week about how political campaigns operate like media companies.
The old style of back-room power plays has been replaced almost entirely by presenting images and social media posts
— Ben Smith
Trump, Harris and how media and politics merged - with Ben Smith
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