Results 10,101-10,120 of 12,596 for speaker:Willie O'Dea

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: We can see it.

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: The Deputy should go back to the religious right.

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: The mongrel foxes.

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: Inspector Clueless from Castlebar has come to the conclusion that the Taoiseach did not tell the truth. What of the man who is making these claims? Deputy Kenny is well tutored on how to perform. At least former Deputy John Bruton was his own man. So pervasive is the influence of spin doctors since the Deputy's ascent to the leadership that he is never left out on his own.

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: He would not even be trusted to tie the shoelaces on that famous pair of shoes in which he was going to walk to the Áras. Thanks to the wisdom of the people, however, he was not elected Taoiseach.

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: If he had been, the puppet masters would have been no more and we would have been left with the puppet. We are supposed to tremble at the moral outrage and mock indignation expressed by Deputy Kenny. This is part of the Fine Gael effort to present him as something he is not — a lion in sheep's clothing.

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: Despite the party's best efforts, he comes across exactly for what he is — a sheep in sheep's clothing. At one of my first post-Mass rallies in Limerick in the 1960s I heard a famous Fine Gael councillor describe the then leader of his party as a stuffed shirt. If only the current leader could aspire to such praise. He is not a stuffed shirt; he is only a hole in the air.

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: The Labour Party also supports the motion. I do not have much confidence in the party because it spent the past five years propping up Fine Gael, losing support as a result. Now, it is trying to prop up Sinn Féin after fighting an election campaign on the principle that Sinn Féin had to be kept out.

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: Its members often raised the spectre that if one voted for Fianna Fáil, the party would bring Sinn Féin into government. Now, Labour is doing the opposite, propping up an ailing Sinn Féin.

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: While the Labour Party's hypocrisy on the issue is breathtaking, it is not surprising. This is par for the course from a party dominated by ex-Stickies.

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: I wish the new Labour Party leader well. Speaking on radio yesterday morning, Deputy Gilmore pointed out that his reason for supporting the motion was the Dáil had such important business before it that it could not be diverted by a long political debate and the Taoiseach should resign immediately because the Deputy wanted him to.

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: If there is going to be a long political row, the Deputy will be the cause of it. We do not want a long political row. If the Deputy wants to waste the Dáil's time on this useless, innocuous, ineffective motion. that is fine by us but that is not what we were sent here to do.

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: I have had differences with Deputy Rabbitte but I never thought I would see the day that I would find myself yearning for his return because he spoke with incisiveness, wit and intellectual rigour.

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: However, this will be replaced by a series of petulant, red faced rants.

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: Deputy Gilmore should set out on a new path as leader of the Labour Party.

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: There is no point coming into the House acting as the parliamentary version of the barber's cat. We know what components made up that creature.

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: However, in the past few weeks I have expressed reservations and questions about how the tribunal is conducting its business, particularly in so far as it relates to the catch all, cradle to the grave trawl through the Taoiseach's personal finances. It remains my contention that the tribunal is acting outside its terms of reference in its inquiries into his financial affairs.

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: The tribunal was established in November 1997 under the Tribunals of Inquiries Act to inquire urgently "into definite matters of urgent public importance". I find it impossible to understand how it can regard and treat a general trawl in public into the Taoiseach's life as a definite matter of immediate public importance. I remind the House of the Supreme Court decision in Fitzwilton v....

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: It is impossible to understand how any tribunal could have thought such an inquiry could be "a definite matter of urgent public importance", the supposed justification for a tribunal of inquiry.

Confidence in Taoiseach: Motion (26 Sep 2007)

Willie O'Dea: It is significant that it was only after the Supreme Court decision that the Taoiseach became aware of the nature of his inclusion in the J2 list, even though his legal team had been persistently seeking details from the tribunal of the nature of the allegations being inquired into by it for a considerable period prior to that. I make these observations, not in an effort to disrupt or hinder...