Politics

Professor John Kelly, TD, former Minister, lecturer, author and wit was slumped in his backbench, holding up a watch. The watch had an expanding strap. Below him, the debate on the Finance Bill, the Bill which might that day have brought down the government, was in progress. Kelly held the watch up to his face, pulled the strap so that it expanded, brought it closer to his face, let the strap contract and pinch the tip of his nose. He looked at the watch again, pinched the tip of his nose again.

At the Kildare Street gate there were four Public Gallery tickets waiting for Liam Skelly's supporters padmitting thirty supporters per ticket. The new Fine Gael TD was going to get a warm reception. Supporters and TDs enveloped Skelly as he arrived. Garret FitzGerald shook his hand near the front gate while the cameras clickked, and again on the steps and again near the door, while the cameras clickked again. "Lift him shoulder high," Jim Mitchell told a supporter, and it was done. The cameras clicked.

Charlie Haughey was quite right to withdraw Ireland's support for EEC sanctions against Argentina, for several reasons. Among these are:

In the last while you have increasingly identified yourself as an opponent of big Government, against State enterprise and a champion of the entrepreneur, especially the small entrepreneur.

The new Senate - like most before it - is a mixture of failed TDs, would-be TDs, party hacks and hopefuls. It contributes little to the affairs of the nation. Is the Senate ... a last refuge for scoundrels?

Wanted: Friendly, Docile Politician for Public Relations Duties. Salary: £22,457.

This document was written in the mid-seventies by Eamon Smullen, the director of the industrial section of Sinn Fein The Workers Party. It details how trade unions can be infiltrated in a classic strategy, virtually patented by the Communist Parties of Western Europe - Smullen presumably learnt these lessons as a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Political Lobotomy - How the Workers' Party came to abandon the policies for which it stood a decade ago by Vincent Browne

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The organisation now known as The Workers' Party has in previous periods been known variously as Sinn Fein, Official Sinn Fein, Sinn Fein (Gardiner Place) and Sinn Fein The Workers' Party. In these articles we have used the name most appropriate to the period being described.
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THE RIGHT wing element in the Labour Party is planning a major assault on the left's stronghold of power within the party through the Administration Council. At the Party conference this autumn, an attempt will be made to change the party constitution to change the membership of the AC and to limit its powers. There will also be a challenge to the chairmanship of Michael D. Higgins - Dick Spring will probably be the right's candidate.

The Gregory deal brings real benefits to Dublin's inner city, but it is no substitute for a worked out plan to deal with urban blight.
By Pat Brennan